The Right Prescription
Psychotic Torturers for Obamacare
The latest Saw film redeems torture porn for statist do-gooders.
In 2006 New York Magazine film critic David Edelstein penned a hand-wringing essay on an emerging subgenre of horror films he dubbed “torture porn,” which in his estimation were “so viciously nihilistic that the only point seems to be to force you to suspend moral judgments altogether.”
Well, perhaps now Edelstein’s gentle soul can find a measure of peace: The latest entry in the Saw series has lit upon a gaggle of worthy victims — subprime-mortgage peddlers and insurance company executives.
Yes, after several years of labyrinthine, frequently convoluted background exposition, twists, turns, dubious plot devices, and enough flashbacks to make Timothy Leary cry Uncle! we learn John Kramer, the so-called Jigsaw killer of the popular horror franchise, was driven to torture, mutilate, and murder by a bad experience with an insurance company lackey who denied him cancer coverage on the basis of a — wait for it — preexisting condition. This may seem a hokey stab at cultural relevance to some, an after the fact argument for why we should have elected Barack Obama president in 2000 to others, but for the Pavlovian intelligencia it has signaled it is copacetic after all to pick up some of what the once-derided torture pornographers are laying down.
Over at the Huffington Post, for example, Scott Mendelson writes that although Jigsaw “never explicitly endorses a single-payer system” — McCain-Feingold concerns maybe? — moviegoers may nevertheless undergo the “genuinely disturbing” experience of catching themselves “actually rooting for Kramer purely because of political and moral agreement.” According to Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe, “suddenly the carnage has a wicked bit of literal and metaphorical social resonance.” A Daily Beast columnist approvingly labels the film “populist anti-corporate liberation propaganda,” while Michael Gingold enthuses in Fangoria, “It’s about time Jigsaw went after the HMOs!” The Detroit News’ Adam Graham pans it even as he acknowledges the plot poses “an intriguing question: In this day and age, what’s worse, a sadistic serial killer or insurance company executives?”
Why, that is a byzantine brainteaser! The film itself is a bit ambiguous on the point. Sure, William Easton, vice president of the nameless insurance corporation in question and the man who prevented Kramer’s gene therapy salvation, brags to anyone who will listen about the actuarial table he devised to deny people coverage, keeps a tank of piranha in his office, calls the pack of acolytes he has endlessly searching for technicalities to screw the sick out of treatment his “dogs,” swills booze in his office, and blows off his sister on her birthday, but still…the portrait is so nuanced. Better let a professional from, say, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer field that one: “Ten years from now when people look back on Saw VI,” Ammon Gilbert writes, “they’ll at least remember that it provided some sort of social commentary on what our country is dealing with right now, however unconventional it may be.”
The problem was never with the torturer after all, it seems, but rather with the caliber of individuals being tortured, and if Saw VI proves anything it’s that you can buy yourself a lot of excused collateral damage from the arbiters of cosmopolitanism pretty cheap if you adopt their phobias and prejudices.
Consider: Between the subprime mortgage brokers and the coverage deniers Jigsaw places an older male who “shows very little appreciation for the blessings of his own life” by continuing to smoke despite a family history of heart disease — the answers to your questions are, respectively, no, not a joke and no, not Joe Camel — placed in a contraption that crushes his chest when he cannot hold his breath for a prescribed period of time. The guy is a janitor, not a Philip Morris exec, and the whole procedure seems a bit harsh even if the FDA is now regulating tobacco, yet nary a complaint from the series’ new admirers. Later in the film, Jigsaw forces Easton to choose to save either a diabetic middle-aged woman with a family or an orphaned office clerk, both hanging from barbed-wire nooses. “As you can see, the choice is not so clear when you’re face to face with the people whose blood will stain your hands,” Jigsaw intones, making his own point by…spilling the blood of the obviously innocent. Again, no choking on that bone from the praise chorus.
Jigsaw slaughters a few of the establishment left’s hackneyed bogeymen, makes a couple scathing speeches about the “f — cking insurance companies,” damns the naïveté of the Tea Partier, government-out-of-healthcare set, and — voila! — the series has gone from gutter phenomenon to clever satire, Michael Moore unbound.
Hey, sometimes you have to break a few diabetics and cigarette smokers to make an utopian omelet, am I right?
This stamp of approval from on high will no doubt prove fleeting, however. If Saw XII were to depict the slaughter of federal bureaucrats running Obamacare’s proposed Health Choices Administration, I doubt the filmmakers will find themselves greeted with the same degree of gleeful let’s-revel-in-the-social-satire! critical panache.
IT IS SADLY IRONIC TO SEE the extensive Saw mythos reduced in a pique of headline trolling to an elaborate revenge conspiracy. Indeed, what so distinguished the initial film and sequels from most other modern horror classics was Jigsaw’s detached calculation, his extreme lack of interest in revenge.
Consider: A Nightmare on Elm Street — child molester immolated by vigilante citizens seeks supernatural vengeance in the dreams of his killers’ children. Friday the 13th — mother wages blood feud against teenagers after hormonally distracted camp counselors let her son drown…the undead, hockey mask-wearing son who thereafter periodically rises to avenge his mother. Last House on the Left — urbane, sensitive parents go primal to avenge the rape/attempted murder of their daughter. I Spit on Your Grave — urbane, sensitive woman goes primal to avenge own rape/attempted murder. Halloween — misappropriated revenge, but, still, the tagline suggests motive: “The Night He Came Home.”
From the beginning Saw was different. The Jigsaw of the first five films roots for his victims to survive — even if the traps he concocts more often than not give the cheerleading a flavor of disingenuousness. A newspaper headline amongst the orienting montage of the original film blares Psychopath Teaches Sick Life Lessons, and we soon learn random drug addicts, failed suicides, adulterers, along with others whom Jigsaw has determined are in need of a moral makeover, are finding themselves captive in rooms painted with slogans such as Welcome to Your Rebirth and Cherish Your Life. There these poor souls are forced to run a gruesome gauntlet, to escape a trap designed to somehow symbolize their vice.
Jigsaw clearly prefers to think of himself as a social engineer, a sort of radical life coach, not a garden-variety murderer. “I’ve given you a life of purpose,” he brags to a potential victim. “You’re a test subject for something greater than yourself.” The sentiment is not only in the character’s mind. Saw creator James Wan insisted during a making-of documentary that Jigsaw just “wants to help people out,” adding, “If you make it out of one of his games alive then he believes you’ll be a better person.”
Thus, when a Toronto Star reviewer asks, “Who’d have guessed that America’s reigning fictional serial killer was a closet liberal?” one is tempted to cheekily answer, “You mean aside from anyone who saw any other Saw movie?”
About the Author
Shawn Macomber is a contributing editor to The American Spectator.
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Andrew B| 10.30.09 @ 6:35AM
It is good to see the Saw franchise jump on board the latest Hollywood trend--that of fantastically wealthy capitalists bemoaning the awful nature of capitalism.
I am sure that, when funding is needed for the next film in the series, the producer and director will approach some small, local co-ops for the money. Or perhaps they will hold a bake sale.
Ah, the sweet smell of hypocracy!
Liberal Reader| 10.30.09 @ 6:21PM
Andrew --
Are you one of those fools on the right who think Hollywood is liberal?
Next you'll tell me Las Vegas is liberal.
Hollywood IS capitalism, my friend. That's exactly what a free market looks like.
You package any old crap people will buy and you SELL it to them without giving a second thought to the consequences.
What did you think capitalism is?
Andrew B| 10.31.09 @ 2:32PM
Liberal Reader--
Are you one of those fools on the left who think that Hollywood liberals are incapable of rank doubletalk?
Michael Moore has made millions of dollars in a capitalist system. He is repeatedly accused of unfair labor practices and refuses to let his employees unionize. And yet he condemns the system that rescued him from well-deserved obscurity. Yes, that makes him a capitalist. It also makes him a hypocrite.
Hollywood liberals mew and screech about their hunger while their mouths are stuffed full to bursting. Yes, they are capitalists. I acknowledge it. Why won't they?
Alan Brooks| 10.30.09 @ 7:45PM
Hollywood is infected by LIBERAL GUILT.
btw, do you know why there is a food shortage in some nations? because Michael Moore is so fat-- he eats up the surplus agricultural commodities.
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Alan R| 10.30.09 @ 7:44AM
It's reported that Medicare has a higher denial rate than any private health insurer. It also fails to fully cover many crucial treatments, and is bureaucratically abusive of doctors.
Given these facts, would the leftist torture porn fans praise a film about maiming government bureaucrats?
If the director starts now the next "Saw" could be finished in time to terrorize fictional members of Obama's treatment-ending, life-ending "Effectivness Panel".
(WOOPS! Wasn't supposed to mention that "death panel" thing because Sarah Palin is a liar according to The One).
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Louis Jenkins| 10.30.09 @ 9:10AM
This is a convoluted piece of work! Why not a movie script based on " The Best and Biggest Whore House in DC," or "Blazing Legislation?" That's something we all can connect with, not a piece of torture porn related tripe. "You know, morons!"
KDB| 11.1.09 @ 6:32PM
Convoluted maybe, well-written sure! Had me ROFL. Perfectly seasonal piece making some positive use out of a lot of Halloween tripe. Might even go out and see one of these flicks, to see how they compare to Michael Moore's vision...but...naw; not worth the bucks. Thanks for the quality entertainment Shawn!
Tim| 10.30.09 @ 9:34AM
Mr. Bowman did not even waste electrons denouncing this crap.
Shawn Macomber| 10.30.09 @ 1:29PM
Well, bully for Mr. Bowman.
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Bilwick| 10.30.09 @ 10:31AM
More recommended torture porn for statists: LOST RIGHTS, by James Bovard. Every story Bovard relates of the IRS, ATF, etc., putting the screws to American citizens should make the pelvis of the average Obama loyalist shudder and twitch with thrills of pleasure.
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Louis Jenkins| 10.30.09 @ 2:56PM
Instead of slicing, dicing, sawing, or incising, just tie up the intended victims like trussed pigs and read the following from them:
“(a) Outpatient Hospitals – (1) In General – Section 1833(t)(3)(C)(iv) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395(t)(3)(C)(iv)) is amended – (A) in the first sentence – (i) by inserting “(which is subject to the productivity adjustment described in subclause (II) of such section)” after “1886(b)(3)(B)(iii); and (ii) by inserting “(but not below 0)” after “reduced”; and (B) in the second sentence, by inserting “and which is subject, beginning with 2010 to the productivity adjustment described in section 1886(b)(3)(B)(iii)(II)”.
This is from Pelosi's Health Care Bill, and: "The House health care bill unveiled Thursday clocks in at 1,990 pages and about 400,000 words. With an estimated 10-year cost of $894 billion, that comes out to about $2.24 million per word." Politico.com
They'll be begging for a swift death.
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Liberal Reader| 10.30.09 @ 6:19PM
That's right. Democrats are psychopaths who like to torture people.
You caught us.
How did we think we could get away with it?
Not with the American Spectator on the case!
Oh, no. America's watch dog! America's top cop!
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Ken (Old Texican)| 10.30.09 @ 7:35PM
Editors
That was with out a doubt the dumbest, off subject, off message, off interesting article I have read at the Spectator.
Our republic is imploding and you guys waste electrons on this nonsense?
Get your eyes on the ball, guys! The bastards in the whitehouse cannot wait to turn off your site.
Please.....make every day count...before we lose you.
Digitaltripper| 10.31.09 @ 6:27PM
Here Here....What I'd like to know is how the hell this saw crap made it into our society. Talk about a f'd up moral compass...I personally do NOT watch this type of crap. I know, freedom of speech etc....but....wow, why would you pay to see such sick twisted shit? Is there not enough of that in this world already?
Shawn Macomber| 10.30.09 @ 9:34PM
Ken,
A) It's Halloween, it was one of six articles, I don't think the republic is going to collapse if we engage the culture for a few minutes on a Friday morning
B) If we let life be all about politics and Washington, D.C. power plays then statism has already won and there is no ball to watch.
Ken (Old Texican)| 10.30.09 @ 10:24PM
Shawn
It is not darned hallloweennnnnn yet!
..."DC power plays"????? You silly idiot. You clods don't quite grasp what is going on out here in the "fly-over country" that feeds your very arse.
You silly ass.... farmers can't borrow to buy seed, and tractor dealers can't buy parts to help farmers plant the seeds...and the oil companies can't produce the fuel to plant the darned seeds.
You silly arses!
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Ken Layden| 10.31.09 @ 12:28AM
Great article Shawn! Lighten up people. It really isn't bad to take a break from your incessant ranting about the horrors of RINOs. This is great writing from a great writer! Appreciate Macomber. He's one of the best.
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J.C.Eaton| 10.31.09 @ 12:20PM
Ken; Huzzah! Great point. A cracking good review. Discriminate ,if utterly vile slaughter for wholesome motives. What a concept...sort of like San Fran Nan's goofy new bill. Kill a functioning, if imperfect health care system, for Heaven knows what pristine reasons.
Bilwick| 10.31.09 @ 1:20PM
Liberal Reader writes: "That's right. Democrats are psychopaths who like to torture people.
"You caught us. "
Glad to see one of you State-shtuppers coming clean about this. I'm a masochist, LR, so maybe we should get together. I've been a bad boy, LR. Tax me! Tax me good and hard!
Stan Redmond| 11.1.09 @ 5:24AM
LIberal socialist policies HAVE been the most savage and brutal in history. Good to see at least one liberal realizes the folly of social liberalism. Wherever liberalism raises it's head there is death, destruction, mayhem, and misery. One only has to look at the great political philosopher Chairman Mao and the brilliant Cuban filanthropist, Castro.
Stan Redmond| 11.1.09 @ 5:21AM
"You've wasted your life and endangered the planet with your exhalation of carbon dioxide. With each breath you keep a baby seal. But all your life you've said you cared about the planet. All those days wasted watching captain planet re-runs. All the while still pumping out needless CO2. Place this plastic bag over your head and end the slow painful murder of baby seals or keep breathing and destroy the entire planet. Life or die, the choice is yours." - Jigsaw, Saw 7
I see it now. Jigsaw takes on carbon dioxide polluters (breathers), climate catastrophism skeptics, and big oil.
Anonymous| 11.1.09 @ 9:20AM
Hey, they found a Czar to replace Van Jones!
John Lockwood| 11.1.09 @ 10:48AM
Blood and guts movies really began back in the 1970s. It has just kept getting worse and worse since then. I sometimes wonder what the society of say, 1940, 1950, or 1960 would have thought if they could look ahead and see the sadism pop culture of today. It would have seemed like some science-fiction nightmare that couldn't come true.
In the meantime, thank you, Hollywood.
Peter| 11.1.09 @ 12:41PM
The film "The Killing Fields" does a better job of getting this message across. It's also far scarier because, unlike Saw, it actually happened.
Liberal Reader| 11.1.09 @ 2:31PM
Stan --
You write that "liberal socialist" policies have been the "most savage in history."
There are several problems here, Stan.
1. I think you're probably confusing totalitarian communism with what you call "liberal socialist," already a conceptual hash that doesn't make much sense.
Are you saying that Sweden, England, Canada, France, and the United States have participated in the most "savage" and "brutal" crimes in history?
Because it would be fair to categorize any of these countries as both "liberal" and -- in some senses -- "socialist."
2. You don't seem to understand that China, the USSR, and North Korea have fundamentally different systems of government from many countries that are socialist.
3. In fact, while totalitarian communist countries like N. Korea and the USSR are or were guilty of enormous and monstrous crimes against humanity, the German Nazi regime, the genocide in Rwanda, and the slave trade in the Americas were all carried out by non-socialist countries.
Basically, Stan, you're point -- which is offered in bad faith, which obscures more than it illuminates, and which shows you are weak minded enough to fall for the most outrageous claims of know-nothing right-wing propaganda -- is bogus. It's total bullshit, and it's unacceptable.
Go to a LIBRARY man. READ a book. Turn OFF your radio; turn OFF your television. They'll make mush of your brain before long.
Nick| 11.1.09 @ 3:30PM
Marxist Reader,
Mr. Redmond can defend himself.
As for your point #1, yes, all those countries, including the U.S., have participated in the most "savage" and "brutal" crimes in history. It's called legalized abortion.
And to point #3, the German National SOCIALIST regime, was a left-wing, pro-nationalism, pro-war, socialist regime. When will this finally sink in?
Stan Redmond| 11.1.09 @ 4:15PM
You put me in my place. I really do need to go study up on liberalism socialism and the wonderful system of controlling the choices people make. I just am so weak minded I can't pull myself away from my belief in individual responsibility and charity.
Culture Warrior| 11.1.09 @ 3:23PM
Hollywood is capitalism - of that there is no doubt. But it is capitalism with an aniti-capitalist, anti-American, very liberal message.
Look, the problem with raw capitalism is that is has no values other than the value of free choice. Under a pure capitalist philosophy there are no good choices there are no bad choices there are just choices. It is entirely nihilistic.
Capitalism without a strong underlying value system is dead. As a reformed libertarian I now understand that. I also see that the Left's attempts to undermine our value-system has been a brilliant strategy for subverting the American way of life. And libertarians have taken the bait.
Its over.
Stan Redmond| 11.1.09 @ 4:40PM
Social liberalism has long held a war against christianity which provided our moral base. Pure capitalism has not been allowed in this country for a long long time. Any sense of capitalism has been destroyed by Obama and the current democrats since 2006. Crooks and scammers exist everywhere but the overwhelming honest pure capitalists have made this country great and prosperous. In a short 200 years we absolutely blew away anything ever seen in human history with capitalism. Our growth, our standard of living, and our prosperity. Nihilism and greed only sound like a bad thing until you put it in the larger perspective of each of us watching out for our own self interests benefits everyone.
Liberal Reader| 11.1.09 @ 5:30PM
You'll get no argument from me here, Culture Warrior.
A pure "free market" would be a nightmare of selfish gluttony and horrible exploitation.
There's no mistake that champions of free markets like Ayn Rand are also polemical enemies of Christianity.
Culture Warrior| 11.1.09 @ 6:58PM
Its not so much the issue with free markets per se. It is free markets in a cultural and moral vacume.
I agree 100% that Rand (and others) are enemies of Christianity and decency in general.
The message to Christiams is this: we have no political friends - either on the Left or on the Right. Political systems are now entirely secular and they serve their own gods.
Stan Redmond| 11.1.09 @ 4:35PM
Simple questions to ask a liberal.
When you boil down what liberalism is all about;
WHY do you want ME making decisions for you and your family. And WHY should YOU pay for my stuff?
Liberal Reader| 11.1.09 @ 10:49PM
Stan --
These are good, interesting questions.
The fact is, we don't live in an economy, we live in a society. We are social beings. We cooperate on those things the market cannot provide efficiently. I pay taxes in case your house catches on fire. You pay taxes so my children can go to school.
The differences between most conservatives and most liberals are actually not as large as some would have you believe. Rush Limbaugh makes money SELLING the idea that there is some fundamental, metaphysical difference between us, but there's really not.
No one thinks you should pay for my "stuff." No one thinks I should make important decisions for your family. Your exaggerating and creating confusion where clarity is possible.
Abe Lincoln's formula still works: the government does for the people what the people can't do for themselves.
There's simply no REASON for any single person in town to contribute to building a lighthouse, even though have a lighthouse improves the general economy of the town. It's not socialism to think about how the government can a) decrease the pain caused by rapid market fluctuations; or b) make a more level playing field so more people enjoy more opportunities. That's pretty much all liberalism is.
van Rooinek| 11.4.09 @ 12:56PM
"...It's not socialism to think about how the government can a) decrease the pain caused by rapid market fluctuations; or b) make a more level playing field so more people enjoy more opportunities. That's pretty much all liberalism is. .."
O RLY?
Then why do liberals worship at the altar of abortion? Why do they want to cram the acceptance of homosexuality down everyone's throat? Why do they want to take away our guns leaving helpless in the face of the gangs? Why do they leave the border wide open while our culture dissolves? Why have they systematically dumbed down our school systems and rewritten textbooks to demonize all that's good about our heritage? Why all the white bashing? Why all the religion bashing?
In other words: if liberalism is really just about economics -- blunting the pain and making more opportunities -- then:
WHY THE INFURIATING CULTURE WAR?
Nick| 11.2.09 @ 12:58AM
I, like Thoreau, agree with the motto, "That government is best which governs least."
Liberal Reader| 11.2.09 @ 1:36AM
Thoreau's rugged individualism was paid for by a tidy inheritance and Emerson's patronage. In short: it was easy for him to say.
That aside: "least" is comparative. The motto is "that government is best which doesn't govern at all," which is pretty much the Tea Bagger Utopia blathered about on right wing radio and television.
Nick| 11.2.09 @ 1:43AM
Marxist Reader,
Wrong again.
The motto is from The United States Magazine and Democratic Review: "The best government is that which governs least."
Tom| 11.2.09 @ 1:55AM
I agree you!
Bilwick| 11.2.09 @ 9:57AM
Nock makes an interesting distinction between government and the State. The first is simply whatever institutions society creates to protect intself from people who initiate force (foreign invaders, burglars, Liberal Reader, etc.). The second, the State, is what is created when teh powers of government are expanded for the purposes of robbing Peter to confer some benefit on Paul. Liberal Reader's fantasy version (but then if he didn't live in fantasy and promote untruths, he wouldn't be a "liberal") of the Tea Party movement as some sort of anarchist revolt is ludicrous. Apparently he believes that if you won't let him and fellow State-shtuppers loot you six ways from Sunday you must be against all government at all times.
In between fantasizing about Ilse She Wolf-of the IRS, LR must also spend some time building straw men.
LED Lighting source | 11.3.09 @ 2:20AM
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LED Lighting source
LED Strip Light
LED Wall Washer Lamp | 11.3.09 @ 2:22AM
Zhejiang Everbright Industrial Co.,Ltd.:
LED Underground Lamp
LED Underwater Lamp
Trackback| 12.10.09 @ 11:47AM
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