Will it ever be too much?

Right, time to sit down for dinner with wifey, and have some telly on while we chomp away! Let's see...yup, let's start watching the third season of The Boyz.

Cut&chomp, cut&chomp...omg that's disgusting. And they've shown it again, that's just too gross! Yea, ok, let's switch off The Boyz for now: we'll just eat the old fashioned way.

So, for context: The Boyz is a series, and it's fairly violent, with blood&guts galore -but, we expected that. This scene, though...well, let's just say that a private, anatomical feature of the bod, was shown extremely up close, and it revolted us (amusingly, we later realised that we mistook it for the wrong feature, which at the time just increased the grossness factor) to the point that we had to quease-quit.

However, this is what I find perplexing, perhaps even worrying: the gore? We were not worried about that. Had there been a scene where someone was going to (cue Holy Grail bard) get ripped in half, their head exploded, or their kneecaps burst etc.? Sure, we'd have looked away for a second, or squinted one's ocular orbs to offuscate the view, but we'd then have continued the viewing.

So, it stands to reason that I'm desensitised to graphic violence and those kind of stimuli: well, at least to unreal, unharmful to me violence. I am extremely dubious that I'd, say, be able to hold my lunch if confronted with the harsh reality of a surgical operation, or worse.

Yet, them clever Boyz producers thought of another stimuli that hadn't been dulled quite enough, and made sure to rub it nice and raw -and, to elevate the impact, rub it more than once.

Because, that's what it's about: impacting our senses. Do something that either wows, or urgs us enough that it filters through our jaded, desensitised minds into our core, and thrills or compels us to get hooked onto what's being sold to us.

But, what does that speak of us as a whole, then? How long will it be till porn, drugs, and all sorts of other shocking and wowing mechanisms are so engrained into our culture, that we'll barely batter an eyelid at them? What's the next step -real, graphic violence? Will that be enough? Will we keep descending into madness and depravity, ala Eldars?

Who knows: for me, that scene put me off The Boyz (for now at least), and we're very happily back to watching from the start Star Trek: Next Generation.

Perhaps, we just need to stop trying to shock ourselves, and instead take the time to look&feel: then, perhaps, we'll realise that everything, in one way or another, is truly wondrous, and can peel away that needless layer of jade that does little to protect us, but much to separate us.

Your peeled and sensitive rambler,

Stefano Ronchi