Scripted Violence

Scripted violence broadly describes an author-defined plan of real or fictional violent actions by some perpetrator. The source can range from cultural mythology, societal norms, demagogues, or story writers; while perpetrators could vary from angry mobs, lone wolf terrorist, abusive spouses, movie actors, or professional wrestlers.

Early uses

The phrase "scripted violence" for on-screen staged violence was used at least by 1980. For cultural mythology, it traces back to the period of the approaching year 2000 and the possibility of turmoil as the millennial year approached. This possibility was being researched by the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University, with the possible "scripted violence" resulting from a specific reading of the Bible's "Book of Revelation". The term was used in social science as early as 2002, and appears in a study by Hammamoto. In social science studies on bigotry, the phrase coded rhetoric is also common.

Politics and social movements

Scripted violence can result when high profile political or social movement leaders use demonizing rhetoric singling out and scapegoating an identifiable group as threatening the nation. There is no direct connection between the speaker and the perpetrators. The place and time of the violent act is unpredictable, and is described as an act of "stochastic terrorism". A stochastic terrorist is the person using the demonizing language and indirectly prompting the violent outcome that results. The term is used in social science and journalism. Stochastic is a term borrowed from science and engineering that means random or unpredictable.

Scholar Spenser Sunshine, writes that "scripted violence" is:

"When right-wing leaders and media demonize marginalized groups and broadcast calls about a supposed looming "white genocide," some of the rank-and-file will take these words literally — and try to solve the problem with murder." The current "ongoing spate of murders and shootings that are being directly inspired by the 'scripted violence' of the right."

In essence the high status speaker is writing a script to be followed by the perpetrators of the violence. Scripted violence in a society is carried out by perpetrators mobilized by resentment, anger, or fear. The perpetrators know who to attack because the high status political or religious leader has named a group alleged to be threatening the existence of the community or nation. These fears are stoked by spreading conspiracy theories, according to Leah Payne and Brian Doak: "For centuries, conspiracy theorists have used religious terms and symbolism to transform fear into political activism."

Philosopher Hannah Arendt captured the concept of "scripted violence" when she wrote of the Nazi movement in Germany: "the elite formations understand that the statement, all Jews are inferior, means, all Jews should be killed” (The Origins of Totalitarianism p. 385). Timothy Snyder writes that "The Road to Unfreedom" is paved in small steps.

Scripted Violence can be connected to vengeance and reprisals, according to John M. Hunt in The Vacant See in Early Modern Rome: A Social History of the Papal Interregnum. During this period lawlessness increased. "The Scripted Violence of Revenge" became more common. (p. 160).

Darrell Y. Hamamoto writes that the concept of "scripted violence" provides "a sorely-needed corrective to the under-theorization of race and racism in understanding acts of scripted violence within hyper-militarized society." Hamamoto also suggests that "serial killing and mass murder are examples of civilian "blowback" that originates with heightened US military adventurism in the postwar period.

Todd Essig is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst who writes for Forbes Magazine's online site. According to Essig,"Trump's Psychology Of Hate Unleashed The MAGABomber," and Trump's "Nationalist And Anti-Globalist Speech Fueled The Pittsburgh Massacre." Essig's hard-hitting charges are backed by clear explanations of the dynamics involved.

According to Essig, Trump has "mixed claims of being himself a 'nationalist' with paranoid conspiracy theories about 'globalists' and poured that toxic brew into social media. Having previously claimed neo-Nazis marching through the streets of Charlottesville shouting 'Jews will not replace us' were very fine people, he can no longer hide anti-Semitic and racist dog-whistles behind attacks on the fact-based media. Simply put, horrific acts of anti-Semitic violence were the predictable result of Trump’s actions."

Scripted Violence can be based on the conspiracy theory beliefs of the perpetrators. Widespread Christian conspiracy beliefs "keep evangelicals on Trump’s side," according to scholars Leah Payne and Brian Doak. Few people who embrace conspiracy theories act out in violence. Yet such beliefs can be tied to specific incidents.

Author David Neiwert wrote of this type of rhetoric in his book The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right. On October 31, 2018, Neiwert used his twitter feed (@DavidNeiwert)to create a slideshow of the history of what the sort of rhetoric being used by Trump can generate."

According to journalist Jason Wilson of the London Guardian, an example of “scripted violence” is when misogynist men "exhort each other" to engage in terrorism and physical attacks aimed at women. Wilson, (who also holds a Ph.D.) argues that what puts these men "adjacent to fascism is not only the copious links between incels, the 'manosphere', and the alt right, but the way that their culture, and their forums, work to shape their resentment, and channel their desires towards violence."

Several authors refer to the concept of "scripted violence" emerging from the work of Louis Althusser in “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses."

In Cambodia the term "scripted violence" is connected to the concept of karma in which both the victim and perpetrator are said to be pre-scripted to be involved in a violent incident.

"It starts with scripted violence, which is the endowment from birth of the perpetrator or victim, and continues through successive manifestations such as the childhood markers of violence or the times of risk and vulnerability in the life of the perpetrator or survivor, or the development of feelings of impunity, which permits unbridled violence to erupt shamelessly".

Fictional violence

See also: Mock combat

Scripted violence can describe violence portrayed in fiction, often with a literal script. It is designed to create the illusion of physical violence without causing harm to the performers.

Theater

See also: Stage combat

The history of stage fighting and mock combat can be traced to antiquity, with Aristotle quoted as noting that tragedy is conflict between people or indeed it may be traced to the origins of the human species and primate display behaviour. Scholars generally say Shakespeare's stage violence of one-on-one fights were performed realistically at the Globe Theatre for a knowledgeable and appreciative audience.

Film

See also: Combat in film

The term has been used in reference to movies with horrific deaths with guts and gore or smashing a grapefruit into a face (albeit in a more violent picture). Movies with improvised scenes and non-professional actors can blur the usage, as described by the filmmakers of Ajami (2009). They used a former Israeli policemen to play the arresting officer of an Arab drug dealer, but when the directors surprised him with young neighborhood Arabs to defend the dealer, he used his training. "We didn’t need to direct anyone – the scripted violence was inevitable."

Sports

A few professional sports have used scripted violence to entertain fans. Professional wrestlers perform in staged matches, like in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), who follow a choreography of wrestling moves. Roller Derby in the 1970s and 1980s often used scripted outcomes. A few studies have found more violence by fans is associated with non-scripted violent sports than scripted. Magnus Stenius and Ronald Dziwenka create a specific definition for scripted violence in mixed martial arts (MMA), with the complexity of blending choreographed and competition.

Use in a sentence

A stochastic terrorist is a high-profile demagogue who uses the coded rhetoric of Scripted Violence (such as demonization or scapegoating) to portray a target group as involved in a malevolent conspiracy to undermine the society or nation, and thus prompting acts of stochastic terrorism. See, for example, the work of Hannah Arendt and Gordon Allport.

See also

• Behavioral script
• Hate speech
• Incitement
• Mock combat
• Research on the effects of violence in mass media
• Script analysis
• Scripted reality

References

This article "Scripted Violence" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Scripted Violence. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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