Introduction
Violent entertainment is never absent for long from the public agenda. Today violent entertainment is much in the news on both sides of the Atlantic and around the world. Much publicity has been given to studies of violence in children's television, and to the fear that violent films and video games have given rise to recent murders by young boys in England, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United States. According to Market Focus: Toys ( Feb. 1995), "if there is one issue confronting toymakers and entertainment producers right now, it is the level of violence that children are exposed to in the course of their daily lives and what role they play in promoting that." As this is written, politicians in Washington are considering legislation to limit violent entertainment in television, film, video games, and pop music. The United States and Canada have decided to require a V-chip on all new television sets to enable violent offerings to be filtered out. The device is also under consideration by the European Parliament.

While parents, teachers, politicians, and social scientists often bemoan the violence in entertainment, they neglect to ask why a significant market for violent literature, films, cartoons, video games, toys, and sports exists in the first place. Politicians and others who debate violent entertainment focus only on its production while ignoring its public reception. Psychologists, too, have ignored the appeal of violent entertainment, focusing untiringly on its effects ( Cole, 1995). Why We Watch addresses squarely the neglected question of the appeals of violent imagery. What is the attraction of violent films and video games featuring superheroes and martial-arts combatants? Is violent imagery more prev-alent now than in the past? What kind of people are drawn to violent images? What kind of violent images draw them? Is there such a thing as morbid curiosity? Are there equally satisfying substitutes for violent entertainment? What draws our attention to violent media events not intended,to entertain? We cannot answer all these questions, but the chapters in this book bring the picture more clearly into focus. In the initial discussions for this project it quickly became apparent that violent imagery is ubiquitous. There are many realms in which violent images play a role, some of them predictable, like sports and media violence, and a few of them, like religion, quite unexpected.

Obviously a distinction must be made between violence and images of violence, especially staged violence produced for the purpose of entertainment. Psychologists typically define violence as action intended to harm. With such a definition, a boxing match would be regarded as a violent event while a simulated boxing match or a cartoon boxing match would not. When people speak of "violence on television" they generally mean not violence as it is defined here but simulated violence, violent images. Of course, many people are concerned about depictions of violence in news and "reality TV" broadcasts as well. But most of the discussion about violence in the media is about dramatic violence.

We regard violent entertainment as descriptions or images of fighting, bloodshed, war, and gunplay produced for the purpose of entertainment, recreation, or leisure. Violent entertainment includes murder and horror stories; comic books, television programs, films, and cartoons depicting war or fighting; video games with martial-arts and military themes; toy weapons and military matériel; and aggressive spectator sports, like boxing and wrestling. It is difficult to know how to regard books such as this one, intended for an audience that wants to read about violence on an abstract level, with the emotional content dampened. Is this the scholar's horror film? People voluntarily expose themselves to, and often search out, images of violence. No one, with the possible exception of subjects in a social-psychology experiment, is forced to watch violent films or television programs. What kinds of violent images they seek, why they seek them, and the social and historical context of violent images form the basis of this book.

The trend in film and literature has been to portray violence in increasingly realistic and bloody ways. Does the attraction of violent images, and do the reactions of viewers, differ if the violence is more or less realistic? Many in the audience appear eager to be taken in by dramatic violence; perhaps attraction is enhanced by the viewers' willing suspension of disbelief. After all, most violent images and models produced for entertainment and recreation are not the real thing; they carry clues to their false identity. Just as a baby doll suggests that it is both a baby and not-a-baby, violent entertainment suggests that it is both olent and not-violent. A toy gun must by law carry a brightly colored plug to convey that it is not a gun, but there are other cues to its unreality: its weight, mechanics, place of purchase, packaging, and place of consumption. Films portraying violence often induce reflexiveness in viewers--we become aware of the camera, of the music, or of special effects, and in every case are aware of our status as viewers. Fairy tales, often the grimmest form of entertainment--with witches, child-eating monsters, and evil stepparents--begin immediately with the message that they are unreal: "Once upon a time..."