INTRODUCTION
The true hero, the true subject, the center of the Iliad is force. Force employed by man, force that enslaves man, force behind which man's flesh shrinks away. In this work, at all times, the human spirit is shown as modified by its relations with force, as swept away, blinded, by the very force it imagined it could handle, as deformed by the weight of the force it submits to.

SIMONE WEIL, THE ILIAD OR THE POEM OF FORCE 1
In the lowland rainforest of south-central New Guinea lives a tribe of about 450 persons, the Gebusi. Few societies go so far in repudiating all expressions of anger and violence. Anthropologist Bruce Knauft has described the Gebusi stress on kindliness, mutual deference, communal sharing, and cooperation, and their affectionate practices of childrearing: The primary cultural value instilled in young children is "good company" (kog-wa-yay). This term is also used by the Gebusi to describe their customs and way of life as a whole. The component concepts of this term--togetherness, casual talk, and exuberant humor--are the most immediate and striking dimensions of Gebusi social life. The opposite, negatively valued trait, is gof, which connotes anger, hardness, and violence.

Even in their entertainments, the Gebusi allow only the mildest portrayals of violence. Communal feasts are preceded by carefully staged displays of ritual antagonism between members of different groups, but before severe physical harm is inflicted, neutral parties "quickly interpose themselves between the opposing sides, and all persons proceed to snap fingers in peace [like shaking hands] and enter the longhouse for a night of feasting and celebrating."

For anyone who views our own levels of violent conduct with dismay, such peaceful practices present an appealing contrast. It is the more surprising, then, to learn that this Gebusi society, so rejecting of brutality and unkindness, has one of the highest known homicide rates yet recorded--about forty times the U.S. rate. 4 Almost a third of all adult Gebusi deaths result from killing. The victims are most often persons whom villagers suspect of having used sorcery to make a fellow Gebusi fall ill and die. Such killings are quickly hushed up. Since there are no legal or other authorities in this thoroughly egalitarian society, there is no way to bring perpetrators to trial or punish them--they are simply executed by consensual agreement. After the killing, however, the entire community does all it can to avoid dwelling on the deadly event and to return to the usual peaceful patterns of "good company." Because of the small size of the Gebusi population, considerable time may elapse between one such killing and the next-one reason why visiting anthropologists have often idealized such societies as remarkably nonviolent.

The very stress, among the Gebusi, on avoiding violence in ritual performance, in entertainment, and in open discussion makes it harder for them to cope with the threat of killing once it arises. But while acknowledging the realities of violence by such means is indispensable for coming to terms with them, it cannot suffice. In most societies, the very practices of routinized aggression in games, spectacles, and rituals of sacrifice that allow for expressions of anger and hostility also serve to shield people against full confrontation with the role of violence in their midst.

The United States has the highest levels of homicide of any advanced industrial democracy in the world. Like the Gebusi, we have failed to come to grips with the cultural aspects of violence in our society; but not for lack of representation of any of its facets in art and entertainment. On the contrary: We can draw on religious and philosophical traditions and on works of literature and art to explore the nature of violence; and we have introduced forms and amounts of media violence beyond anything achieved in other countries. What has been lacking, rather, is a probing society-wide discussion of violence in society and its links with cultural life, including all forms of entertainment. Few doubt that the present massive exposure to graphic acts of violence has a significant impact on those who experience it. But although social scientists and child advocates have been exploring the effects of such exposure for decades, it is only in recent years that a groundswell of concern, both at home and abroad, has generated a wide-ranging public debate about possible effects and how we might best respond.

In this book, I hope to contribute to this growing debate, with special focus on works produced, marketed, and consumed as entertainment violence, for pleasure, excitement, thrill. Do they contribute to callousness and violent crime, as large majorities of Americans tell pollsters, or do they merely provide harmless amusement? 6 In either case, might such works also help viewers confront and deal with violence in real life, perhaps informing them better or satisfying some deep-seated need that might otherwise find more brutal expression? Is it alarmist or merely sensible to ask about what happens to the souls of children nurtured, as in no past society, on images of rape, torture, bombings, and massacre that are channeled into their homes from infancy? These questions, in turn, raise larger ones about the media, entertainment, and violent crime in contemporary societies; about the mass marketing of violence as sexy and of sexuality as violent; about human vulnerability and resilience; and about how to learn to deal with the reality as well as the fantasy of violence...