Indeed, there is not sufficient evidence proving that we like watching violence and it
seems very difficult for scientists and theoreticians to agree on this point. What the
box office numbers prove, however, is that whatever the popularity of violence per se
may be, many films depicting extreme or soft violence in many forms sell.
Traditionally, research on violence in media has been concentrated on the
repercussions and effects for the viewer of such violent images but it has been
neglected to question why these images exist in the first place and what the reasons
are for viewers flocking outside cinemas featuring violent imagery.