Ok, so I saw a bunch of people got really angry at me, and I understand why. I think I gave off the impression that I thought all dark things were bad, when that's simply not true. I'd be angry at myself if that's what I meant.

A good example of a good piece of "dark art" is Primal. Beautiful, stunning visuals, dark themes, and, most importantly, a distinct lack of nihilism. The series is excellent at showing sympathy for it's characters while still having an immense amount of terrible shit happening at any given time.

Mad God is... not this. Most of the character's don't even have names. But that doesn't mean the movie is inherently worthless or anything. The stop-motion is good in that movie, and a lot of people simply like gorey stuff.

Something I don't think I touched on enough in my last post is that "sadism" and "adrenaline" are two very different things, and being excited and finding gorey stuff cool is a completely valid reason to enjoy it. To be honest putting "sadism" in that sentence was just a case of me being fed up and it was dishonest to put it there.

Of course, the inverse is also true, and finding that stuff off-putting is also a valid reason to dislike it.

It's like spicy food- Spicy food is really tasty to some people but food being spicy is not, by itself, a reason for a meal to be considered High Culinary Art. But High Culinary Art can still be spicy.

I know I was too confrontational, I apologize for that.

For the people who are not terminally online and didn't see the last post I made, I'm basically trying to argue that dark plots or visuals do not inherently make art better. There can still be good, dark art, but being dark is not by itself a good enough reason to be considered Mind Blowing Stuff. Warhammer 40k is cool but it could hardly be considered the Iliad 2. On the other hand, the Iliad itself is pretty dark. I mean, it's ancient Greek.

I am also fairly sick of nihilistic plots which end in "everything sucks and no one should try" but I know that's subjective. Some people find relief in hopelessness, excitement, a lot of good things they can get from stuff like that.

I apologize again and I hope that nobody is else is attacked by this. I really didn't want to be so confrontational and I'm ashamed of my phrasing and what I said.

    • BlueHairWithGuns [they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Anyway, this has turned into a thesis, and I’ll just say that I personally liked Mad God because I thought it displayed a depth of imagination that was nearly without bottom – yes, it was dark, and loosely plotted to say the least, but I felt I understood the philosophical message of it, which I wrote about in a comment on your previous post.

      Ok, but this is partially my point. I disagree with the only philosophical message that "gorefest without plot" can give- "life is meaningless suffering, and we should end it". That message is inherently counterrevolutionary. Sure, you can argue that Ligotti never meant to imply that killing people was ok, but there's no grounded philosophical reason not to simply kill everyone under the framework of the movie itself, or at minimum yourself. The only reasons not to do that are purely deontological, and at that point you have to ask yourself what gives you the right to dismiss the deontological principles that led people to believe life is good in the first place. There is no "deontology wizard" that says that the principle to lessen suffering matters more than the principle to maintain life.

      Anti-natalism can function as a philosophical framework, but horror CANNOT give the nuance required for that.

      It’s disgusting and sad that you and other people consider this philosophy deep or meaningful. Like all nihilism, you can just ignore. It’s meaningless by nature, a perversion of art and philosophy. Slasher films for entertainment are actually the good kind of dark horror