go ahead and kill them... but please don't break their kneecaps.

My brother and I, we are connoisseurs of violence. I enjoy gratuitous violence in action movies.
I have had my fair share of conversations about how violent movies are destroying my soul and desensitizing me and hardening my heart. It is true that I am quite desensitized to violence. However, there are a few things that will make me completely ill if even suggested. Most of the instances I am referring to occur when I have some kind of emotional connection with a character and they are suddenly, like, beaten to a pulp, or shot, or tortured. However, there are a handful of things that bother most people that do not fall into this category. I cannot think of any reason why people have such an emotional response to these specific actions but they do. You will rarely see this on film except for by the power of suggestion. They are as follows:

1) EYE WOUNDS. People being stabbed or poked in the eye. Also, eyes being ripped out (ala Kill Bill vol. 2 or Minority Report). I can understand this because I personally have a phobia of eye damage. The thought of it gives me goosebumps. But, it is one of those generally recognized disturbing images. That's why there is that whole "Stick a thousand needles in my eye" rhyme. Because the majority of people would do ANYTHING to prevent turning their eye into a pincushion.

2) ACHILLES TENDON. Speaking of Kill Bill, did you notice how everyone watching that movie cringes when the nurse's Achilles tendon is cut? When I took anatomy in high school, my teacher used to love to tell the story about the time he ruptured his Achilles playing basketball. Because of how tense that tendon is I guess it just shot straight up into his calf and sat there in a ball. He had to get surgery to find and reattach it. He said it was the worst pain of his life.

3) PROTRUDING BONES and/or LIMBS AT ODD ANGLES. There are few things more disturbing than seeing someone with a protruding broken bone. In middle school my friend Michael broke his arm one day on the football field and our teacher threw up when she saw his wrist which was literally broken into three pieces. He had bones sticking out the top and bottom. Yuck. Another good example that comes to mind is in The Shield when Tavon gets in that savage car accident and his arm is all twisted around at odd angles... yikes! disturbing!

4) KNEECAPS. Here is another place we don't go. It is rare for you to actually see someone get their kneecaps busted, although it is suggested in tons of movies and makes me feel sick every time. The one exception I can think of to this rule is the movie Daredevil when the guy is hit from the front and his knees collapse backward... ugh. Other than that, it is up to the power of suggestion. I mentioned this to my brother and he said he would rather see someone take a baseball bat to a skull than a kneecap. I found that pretty ironic. In a really sick way.


I could be missing a few things, and maybe I'm wrong about the ones I have, but I think these disgust and disturb the majority of us, right?