Dear Mr. O'Reilly,
First, let me say that what follows may be complete crap. I am no authority on human psychology nor have I done any actual research, because I’m not what you might call a “stickler for details” or “productive” and it is hard to focus one’s attention on compiling relevant data when one’s attention has been severely diluted by 12 or so beers. This is why you don’t see many legitimate sociologically applicable studies or polls done by the Anheuser-Busch Corporation. Most of their studies involve wet t-shirts.
The topic upon which I would like to expound is that of your aversion and disgust to gore movies. You are justified in this aversion and disgust. I feel the same way about Nancy Pelosi, so it is not YOUR psychology that is under the microscope here, but that of those who enjoy such movies. I will admit that I, too, will partake in a gore film on occasion, but only because I am fascinated by the art and skill of special effects, and not because I enjoy watching someone disemboweled with a shoe horn or some such thing.
I would say that the target demographic for these gore movies is men between the ages of 16 to 32. I would say this, but I won’t, because I’ve done no research to back it up, so instead I will just assume it. Now, it is very commonly known among most of the scientists that I did not research that the males of the human species are typically of a more aggressive, competitive, violent, smelly sort; whereas the females are typically of a more gentle, nurturing, super hot, boob-intensive sort (as evidenced by a recent Anheuser-Busch study.) This is due to evolution. Cavemen went out killing dinosaurs and each other, while cavewomen stayed home tending to their troglodytic young and knitting booties out of mastodon fur.
However, now that all of the dinosaurs and cavemen have all been killed by cavemen, us modern day men have no outlet for our completely natural and healthy bloodlust. In addition, thanks to modern methods of avoiding pain, we are generally much more fearful of pain than cavemen were. Whereas our cavemen forefathers might have had their legs ripped off by a saber-toothed goat and kept right on crawling, modern men will hide for hours in attics just to avoid having their wives pluck their uni-brows. We are soft, yet we still have the genetically programmed bloodlust of cavemen.
This is where the gore movie comes into play (and sometimes rewind if it was worth seeing again.) The gore movie allows the soft, slightly overweight modern man to satisfy a deep tickling itch in his brain for violence and carnage without actually going out and gutting his neighbor with a pitchfork. Sure, this happens, but that’s usually because of video games. So the modern man will rent a DVD composed of roughly 5% plot and 95% people being bludgeoned into pulp with tire irons. In this way the modern man experiences vicariously the act of bludgeoning with a tire iron AND the horror of being bludgeoned BY the tire iron, thereby A) fulfilling his inborn want to kill, and B) re-enforcing his fear of pain. It is a two-pronged effect which satiates AND suppresses, in turn making a more well rounded individual!
So now you’re probably asking yourself, “If this is true, then why am I so disgusted by these films? Am I not a man?!” Or course you are, Bill! Unfortunately, one of your caveman ancestors probably suffered some horrible physical trauma and the horror of it was so profound that it left scars on your very genetic code. His cavewoman wife probably tried to gouge out his uni-brow with a sharpened piece of flint. Many true and fine men are just as disgusted by these films for similar reasons, but this is not a draw back. These men, not distracted by want of killing, are able to focus their attention on other things, such as science, philosophy, and internet gambling. This balance is good for society as a whole!
