That Hurts By Michael A. Black

 

I’ve been hit in the face… That hurts. I’ve been kicked in the groin… That hurts, too. I’ve been cut with an edged weapon… Yeah, it hurts, although the pain actually came later. And I’ve been shot at a few times. Luckily, they missed, but I have it on good authority that hurts as well, even if you’re wearing a Kevlar vest.

At this stage in my life, pain is my constant companion, due to a life spent in law enforcement and athletic endeavors. Many times, like the time my arm was sliced open, the pain doesn’t come right away. Sometimes your body has a way of muting it, especially in high stress situations. It’s only after things have returned to “normal” that the pain catches up to you, and then it’s usually with a vengeance. Having experienced a lot of things that hurt, it rankles me to no end when I read or see a hero in book, movie, or TV show shrug off the effects of some serious injury as if it were a walk in the park.

A good friend of mine mentioned that he laughed out loud while reading a mystery/thriller by a bestselling author whose protagonist immediately checked himself out of the hospital after being on the wrong end of a severe beating and went looking for the bad guys to settle the score. Take it from me, if he were real, that hero would have had to do his looking in a wheelchair. I suppose a lot of this distortion is a result of authors doing their research by watching television episodes or movies, where the heroes and heroines routinely get clubbed, stabbed, and shot and are still able to shake off any debilitating consequences and save the day. Back in the day I used to wonder how those TV detectives used to get knocked unconscious each week, and never even wake up with a headache. In one episode the redoubtable Harry O was shot in the arm by a sniper with a rifle, and only sustained a small blood stain on his jacket sleeve. I don’t think he even went to the hospital.

What a man!

This unrealistic portrayal of violence in fiction does a disservice not only to the readers who’ve “been there,” but to the general reading (and watching) public as well. In what was originally a well-meaning intention to reduce the depiction of gratuitous violence and bloodshed, these ridiculous scenes ultimately created a false narrative that violence really wasn’t so bad, and that no long lasting effects were experienced by the victims. That’s not correct. Violence has consequences, both physically and psychologically.

While I try not to use excessive or gratuitous violence in my writing, I do try to show that the recovery time is often a long process. In A Final Judgment, my PI protagonist, Ron Shade, sports a pair of “raccoon eyes” for several days as well as a trip to the ER after being in a championship kickboxing fight. And Frank Leal ends up in the hospital in Random Victim after getting into a real knock-down, drag-out battle with a big, ’roided up biker. Even Mack Bolan, the Executioner himself, was wearing bandages after saving the world in the latest adventure I’ve just finished writing. So my advice is to keep it real, and don’t let those fictional heroes off too easily. Besides, it often makes for a more interesting narrative if your protagonist has the deck stacked against him or her.

Comments

[camille minichino]

I have always wondered about that, Michael. In books or on tv, we see exactly what you're saying -- a fight between the good guy and the bad guy goes on for a long time -- they're smashed against a wall and bounced off ready to attack again. It's not even good physics.

Also, thank you for your service in keeping the rest of us from ever having to wear kevlar.

[Ellen Kirschman]

I've watched young cops look like they were eighty after a car wreck or a foot chase. Not to mention the chronic injuries accrued by wearing some 20 lbs of gear around the waist or sitting for hours in a non-ergonomic vehicle seat.

[Staci]

That's one of my pet peeves, too. Ridiculously fast recovery times seem to be more of a problem in movies (John Wick is a good example), but I see it often in books as well. My mom actually stopped reading an author she enjoyed because the main character always recovered much too fast for reality. Guess that pet peeve runs in the family.

[Michael A. Black]

I guess that's why my old high school physics teacher used to say, "Physics is fun," Camille. ;-) Actually, Ellen, I weighed myself in full uniform once and found that my equipment was 30 LBS. Groan. I avoided the John Wick movies, Staci, after hearing that the dog got killed in the first act.

[Michael A. Black]

I guess that's why my old high school physics teacher used to say, "Physics is fun," Camille. ;-) Actually, Ellen, I weighed myself in full uniform once and found that my equipment was 30 LBS. Groan. I avoided the John Wick movies, Staci, after hearing that the dog got killed in the first act.

[Ann]

I just finished watching "Godless" (which is a pretty interesting Western mini-series on Netflix... could Westerns be coming back?)... and I was very much aware of the "bullet injuries." Most of the time, it seemed like there was just a modest "blotch of blood" to show where the bullet when in. Didn't matter if the character was shot in the leg, in the shoulder, or in the torso. It made me wonder: would there really only be a little blood? Wouldn't getting hit with a bullet from a rifle end up ruining your costume pretty thoroughly?

[Margaret Lucke]

Thank you for writing intelligently about violence, Michael, not just in this post but in your books. While the creators of certain films, TV shows and books may believe that they are avoiding gratuitous violence by not showing its true consequences, but in a way they are glorifying it. Too often the message can be taken to be "Go ahead, take out your frustrations through violence, it does no real harm."