Welcome to the freakshow

I was quite disturbed by one scene in Capote - the hanging of a man. I didn't expect to see the entire thing. That loud bang as the floor opened up and he dropped, hanging by that noose around his neck. He struggles and kicks for a while, and then all is still. He hangs in mid-air, feet tied, head encased in a black sack. hands bound behind him. This scene disturbs me more than the point-blank murders shown earlier. I cannot get it out of my head.

It's quite natural isn't it, to want to watch something that freaks you out. Isn't that why horror movies and thrillers reap in at the box office? We all went to see The Ring knowing what would happen yet we still watched it. And me, I like to watch plastic surgery reality shows like Dr 90210 on E! I watched as the surgeons insert a long metal tube under the skin of the patient - who's still conscious, having been given only local anaesthetic - and jiggle it and pull it and push it, to suck out that last bit of fat. I watched as a woman came in to have her pendulous breasts reduced from a cup size I to a D. An I! I watched as they cut a small incision under another woman's chin, to insert a jaw implant. I even watched when surgeons did reconstructive surgery to a man's forehead, which had been shattered in an accident. After that episode, I realised what freaked me out more was that this had actuallly happened to someone - that his forehead shattered, and the pieces had to be removed, and that brain tissue was leaking into his nose cavity, and that his eyeballs were asymmetrical. And I muttered thanks that I've not been through such trauma - and I hope I never will.