On And Off The Screen: The Wicked Allure Of Self-Destruction

The talks about how pop culture - let it be cinema, books or music - should once and for all stop romanticizing self-destruction have been ongoing for years for absolutely right reasons and arguably with some success. However, the history of self-destruction in cinema, and even literature goes far beyond the modern poorly written representations of teenage-angst.

We see examples of protagonists following tragic, conflicted paths in ancient plays, world classics of literature, in black and white movies, and oftentimes in real life. The world’s immortal love stories are often those narrating about death. Romeo and Juliet can be - if wished - described as a tale of suicide. One of my favorite novels and the literature classic - Wuthering Heights by Emily Brönte depicts a relationship astonishingly toxic, and yet is praised for its deep and real depiction of feelings.

Romeo + Juliet by Baz Luhrmann

Throughout time, pain and moral suffering have been in the centre of art, often going hand in hand with other iconized feelings, such as love, passion, and loss. Inadvertently, it makes one think of whether one is can truly exist without the other. While this statement overall is most certainly false, there is a degree of truth to the fact that great things are often shown to come at large costs. Love in fiction and art has always been depicted as a feeling inseparable from a certain degree of suffering or sacrifice to it.

And if there is one thing we can moreover learn with the commercialization of art, is that the depiction of self-destruction and pain are highly consumable products. There is something morbidly appealing in observing protagonists undergoing life-crushing situations, as we are rooting for them to overcome the difficulties. However, it is often the ‘breakage point’ in the character development arc that is often most exciting to follow. People tend to be subconsciously drawn to conflict, and there is nothing more intrinsic to human nature than conflict with the Self.  

So why would self-destruction be romanticized in the first place?

Tom Yorke

Similarly to how good news usually fails to make it to headlines, and healthy relationships are not featured in Taylor Swift’s albums, the stable path of unproblematic development often does not create an exciting and compelling storyline. This is not to say of course that ‘happy stories’ do not have a place in art, in fact, they probably construct the majority.

However, some of the most memorable and iconized pieces of art are often those involving moral or physical struggles, passions, let it be for a person, work, or lifestyle that are destructive. Love here, although prevalent, need not be central. To die for a cause is another narrative heavily romanticized in art and culture.

Fascinated by intense feelings, we tend to be drawn towards the extremes. Even if we are not willing to engage in them ourselves, we can still get a rush of sensation as we live through the characters on-screen or in books.

Georgina stoned at Tara’s 1995 by Corrine Day

The concept of ‘self-destruction’ can go far beyond self-harm and encompass a wide range of acts and behaviours. Alcoholism and drug addictions - are the most prominent examples often depicted on screen and most often seen off it. While on their own, they can be seen as symbolic to the ‘lowest’ of lives, they are heavily romanticized when embedded into otherwise exciting lifestyles of fame or genius.

The era of ‘Sex, Drugs, and Rock n Roll’ is somewhat over, but remains a cultural phenomenon and a symbolic point in time, where it was prominent to live fast and die young.

There is a long and heavily discussed connection between fame and addiction, with debates often taking the argument both ways. Being exposed to too much and too early, addictions can often act as a distractive coping mechanism when pressure from the outside world becomes too much. At the same time, drugs for underground cultures keep being closely associated with breaking the rule and symbolically, sharing a subversive statement.

Once suicide was accepted as a common fact of society- not as a noble Roman alternative, nor as to the mortal sin it had been in the Middle Ages, nor as a special cause to be pleaded or warned against- but simply as something people did, often and without much hesitation, like committing adultery, then it automatically became a common property of art.We are often not invested in the stories of self-destruction for the sake of self-destruction itself. There has to be a story behind it - the troublesome and turbulent life path that drives the characters to those radical actions. However, the problem arises when films, tv-series or books, have the whole plot revolving around the acts of self-harm and destruction, rather than stories that lead up to it.

The romanticization of self-harm and mental illness, which appeared most prominently with the controversial 13 Reasons Why (2017), is an example of a wrong message sent, but also of a deplorable mistake made by the producers - suicide being depicted as a central act to a character’s storyline, with everything revolving around it. While suicide has been throughout more ancient history constantly present in literature and art, it began to be seen as more and more controversial in the past century, reaching an almost ‘taboo’ label in today’s art, due to it often being portrayed in a incorrect way.