What Counts as “Bad” Violence?

This post is the third part of Batshit Crazy and Weirdly Touching: Notes on Culture, Violence, and Identity, a six-part series where I explore how the things we grew up watching, hearing, and laughing at quietly shape who we become.

Culture, control, and the stories we're allowed to tell

By now you know I have a strange habit of watching old American country music performances and thinking too much about them.

So far we've looked at how a Porter Wagoner murder ballad — The Cold Hard Facts of Life — reveals both the surreal tone of 1960s family entertainment and the raw honesty at the heart of country music. We've explored how country, like many folk traditions, gives space to feelings other cultures might repress: grief, rage, loss, shame.

But today I want to ask a different question.

Why is some violence seen as understandable — even noble — while other forms are dismissed as criminal, shameful or perverse?

And who gets to decide?

The "Right" Kind of Pain

Let's go back to Porter for a moment. In his song, a man finds out his wife is cheating, loses control, and stabs someone to death. It's shocking. But in the context of the genre — and even in the YouTube comments — it's weirdly palatable.

Why? 

Because the narrator is a man in pain. A betrayed husband. A wounded soul acting out of deep emotional truth.

And that archetype — the broken man whose violence is framed as tragic but inevitable — is one culture is very comfortable with.

Now imagine a different story. Same outcome, different protagonist:

• A young Black woman stabs her cheating partner.

• Or a queer teenager kills an abusive parent.

• Or a First Nations man lashes out after being harassed by police.

Still tragic. Still violent. But do those stories get turned into hit songs and sung in harmony on national television?

You already know the answer.

Whose Pain Is Centred?

The violence we allow to be expressed — and even ritualised through song, film, or media — is often the violence of those in power.

It's easier for a society to empathise with the rage of its majority group. The pain of the "everyman." The feelings of someone who fits neatly within its norms and values.

But the pain of outsiders — marginalised people, racial minorities, queer folk, the poor — often gets pathologised, criminalised, or simply ignored. Their pain isn't viewed as complex or noble. It's often viewed as a threat.

Even in art.

Especially in art.

Which means that who gets to tell stories of violence isn't just about entertainment. It's about power. It's about whose inner life gets to be taken seriously.

Cultural Censorship Without Censors

We often think of censorship as a heavy-handed act — banning books, arresting artists, cutting scenes from movies.

But there's a softer kind of censorship too. It's the culture-wide agreement that certain feelings are "too much." That some stories are inappropriate. Or just don't belong.

This censorship doesn't need a minister for propaganda. It happens at the level of taste. Tradition. Respectability.

And over time, it shapes what we think "normal" looks like.

Why It Matters

When I look at that Porter Wagoner video, I don't just see a strange old song. I see the story of whose feelings were allowed to take centre stage in a particular era. Whose pain was treated as morally complex — and whose wasn't even mentioned.

And I wonder what the modern equivalents are.

• What stories are we still not telling?

• Whose pain still feels too dangerous to centre?

• What kinds of violence have we simply learned to accept?

Reflection Questions

1. What kinds of violence are you used to seeing portrayed as "understandable"?
   Who tends to be the subject — and who tends to be the villain?

2. Can you think of a time when a story made you feel empathy for someone you'd been taught to fear or judge?
   What changed?

3. Which stories of pain or anger did you not grow up hearing — and what effect might that absence have had on your perspective?

Activity: Mapping the Unspoken

Think of a community, culture or identity group you're part of — whether it's your nationality, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality, or class.

Now reflect:

• What kinds of pain are considered speakable in this group?

• What kinds of rage or grief are met with sympathy — and what kinds are dismissed, mocked, or punished?

• Are there unspoken rules about how much emotion you can show? About who gets to feel what?

Try writing a few notes, or discussing it with a friend.
You might be surprised what surfaces.

Next week

In Violent Stories and Soft Minds, I explore how violent stories packaged as family entertainment can shape our emotional responses and moral instincts — long before we can think critically about them. How do cultural norms get absorbed through narrative tone, humour, and repetition? How do they influence who we empathise with and who we fear?

Batshit Crazy and Weirdly Touching is a blog series about the strange, sometimes unsettling ways that popular culture, violence, and inherited stories shape our sense of self. Inspired by a single YouTube video of Porter Wagoner singing about murder on family television, the series unpacks how our childhood entertainment reflects deeper cultural values — and how becoming aware of those values can help us choose who we want to be. Read all six parts here.