Filthiness is Next to Godliness: Liner Notes on Viola Vile
[ Transcript: Tumblr user called grow-and-decayed asks, “WOW ok. I’m still trying to straighten out/ process my thoughts about your Viola Vile piece… there’s a lot to unpack/ talk about there!
… idk how to word this well but I’d like to hear you talk more about the like ‘Sexual Acts As Violence/ Gore’ + ‘Violence/Gore As Sexual’ throughlines in the piece, your thoughts & inspirations on that, kinda thing?” /end id]
I admit to rushing the Tumblr post because I was so excited to express my thoughts. I got most of it down, I think, but now I have more room and more freedom, and I am just bursting— bursting!— to share the inspiration and thoughts that went behind The Final Interview of Viola Vile.
The first thing you must know about me to get into the mind of Vile is that I’m one of those horror sickies who love to go, “Hell, yeah! Romanticizing violence and cannibalism! A chainsaw to the head and a knife to the gut can be something so personal”. I should probably, in the future, find more academic articles and books about that phenomenon, but I didn’t go into writing Viola Vile with them, so they’re not super relevant right now. All we have is what I’m bringing to the table…A funny sort of crossed-wire situation where I see blood and gore and go, “Oh, shit! Hot, in an artsy-erotica way!”
(Plus, blah blah blah something about violence and eroticism and how the taboo is tied into the LGBT community. bell hooks couldn’t see the connection between BDSM and identity, but I do. There’s something about the relinquishing of power, trusting some handsome someone in leather to take you outside of your body, that flimsy and nothing physical form and transporting you to a world of blissful pain. Forgive me if I sound like Pinhead from the Hellbound Heart…I just love gore and violence as erotic in media.)
Plus, you know, I grew up in this very violent, turbulent Black Christian household. I emphasize Blackness (my own and Viola’s), because there is, within us both, a weird sort of something that’s been passed through the blood, given to us by generational trauma from slavery, the (erroneous) conflation of violence as caring. “I beat you because I love you, this hurts you more than me, spare the rod spoil the child”— these words peppered my youth, and you combine that with your parents own issues and traumas, and religious trauma…
Speaking of religion, and I’m so mad I didn’t think to get into this on Tumblr— Christianity is such a horny religion. I grew up Baptist,so I didn’t get to experience St. Sebastian and Mary and a white Christ looking oh-so breedable up on the cross. Mine was a more “mortify and deny the flesh to enliven the spirit”, “communion and holy spirit”, “passion plays and vaguely erotic gospel songs” sort of upbringing that many Black baptists will recognize. I thought a lot about Jacob wrestling with the angel, about Judas kissing Jesus’s cheek, about Peter’s singleminded devotion to Christ. It all felt so randy! Not to mention, to quote our dear Viola, the crucifixion itself…All those holes, all that moaning!
The real base of Viola, I suppose, is my own brain. And, like, duh, right? But beyond that, it’s my OCD and my upbringing. I always feel like my brain is attacking me, eating me alive. My particular brand of OCD, the kind with true intrusive thoughts that gnaw at my moral center, is not the kind that can really be discussed online without it being taken out of context. Because of this, I turn to fiction to express what often feels inexpressible. If my shame is the bone arena (thank you, Thomas Harris) that keeps my thoughts inside, writing is the ice pick that breaks it open. I try to free myself from shame, and in turn, you all get some pretty good short fiction.
Now, to get into the inspiration! Some time last year during Homelessness Experience #2, I saw a Jacob Geller video. One of my first, actually, one about video games that are goopy and fleshy and gross, and I was introduced to Cao Hui. Cao Hui blew my motherfucking noggin. His artist statement shifted into place and reaffirmed thoughts I had myself about violence, about fleshiness and grossness and blah!
How can you read that statement and not squeal?
Unfortunately, I’m a bit of a idiot savant. I do not have the academic language to describe what was going on in my head or the reasoning behind each of my choices. I can only give you my list of inspirations and hope that someone, anybody, writes a killer (hah) essay about The Final Interview of Viola Vile. Cheers!
Tender is the Flesh / Agustina Bazterrica
Snuff / Chuck Palahniuk
The Hellbound Heart / Clive Barker
Audition / Ryu Murakami
My Hard-core Obsession / Shalom Auslander
Zima Blue / Alastair Reynolds
KIND / @brownpaperhag
Nope, dir Jordan Peele
X, dir. Ti West
Saint Maud, dir. Rose Glass
Carrie, dir. Brian de Palma
Cam, dir. Daniel Goldhaber
American America, dirs. Jen Soska, Sylvia Soska
Helter Skelter, dir. Mina Ninagawa
Four Short Games About Pain / Jacob Geller
Gross Games about Flesh and Stuff / Jacob Geller
Marina Abramovic's work, particularly her endurance work, especially the infamous Rhythm 0, 1974
(medley research into endurance art, performance art, etc. )
The final bit of inspiration comes from the story of Mr. Hands, which I recommend you dig into very carefully as it's very gross and tragic and involves the death of a human and sex with a horse. (Also, of course, we cannot forget the impact of such mind-scarring videos as Two Girls, 1 Cup and so many more that I shouldn't have seen as a child. Seriously, why were we exposed to so much hardcore gore and fetish porn as children? Someone (me...eventually) needs to write something about that)
Oh! I can’t believe I forgot…The interview dynamic was directly inspiration by AMC’s Interview with the Vampire, the heat and weirdness between Daniel Molloy and Louis de Point du Lac!
I hope this was interesting?