Part of my UK upbringing took place in the English countryside, where fox hunting was a regular occurrence. For those who are unaware of these “events”, the largest single pack hunt - The Duke of Beaufort’s Hunt – sees around 50-150 riders, with a pack of 30-50 hounds hunt a single fox. The riders dress up in red jackets etc., and along with the dogs run the fox down until it is too exhausted to continue. Until the Hunting Act of 2004, the fox rarely escaped as the odds were so stacked against it. Those who were pro-fox hunting would often argue that these hunts were necessary to keep the fox population under control in order to protect farming. However, these large hunts didn’t really contribute much to this end as they were highly inefficient i.e., a hunt could last for hours and at the end only one fox had been killed. The way fox populations are actually controlled involves a single hunter with a shotgun and a couple of dogs who spends a couple of days going around the farm fields and in a controlled and calculated way culling the local fox population to its necessary level. This is done without any theatrics and wasn’t designed to create a spectacle. However, there are always those who desire to create a theatre around violence, whether it involves animals and/or humans. Those who want to dress violence up and make a spectacle of it. This “desire” is something very different to combat sports such as MMA, Boxing, Muay Thai, where events are consensual and controlled. Those seeking the spectacle are individuals who have probably never experienced violence themselves but want to be entertained by the pain and suffering of others, in a way that goes beyond a curious interest and self-education.  

               During my time working club and bar security I’ve not seen anything that could draw a crowd like a female-on-female fight. I’ve been actively blocked by members of a crowd from trying to get through to those involved in order to break such fights up. Fights involving men are usually quite short, ending after a couple of punches are thrown; normally one person gets knocked down, stays down, and the fight is over (of course there are exceptions to this). However, with women, the most common type of physical conflict I’ve encountered is two individuals bent over, having grabbed each others’ hair, and with their other hand trying to rip and gouge the other person’s face off. There are those in the crowd – both men and women – who watch for various reasons; sometimes mixed. There are those who are interested to see what happens and how the conflict ends. There are those who consciously/subconsciously are using fighting as an opportunity to educate themselves as to what violence looks like. However, there are also those who are genuinely excited, possibly due to a sexual element, watching a real-life violent encounter occur; much akin to the way that chimpanzees often do when witnessing violent events between group members. These are the individuals who seek out and encourage the spectacle of violence, for nothing more than violence’s sake e.g., the theatre of violence satisfies the “chimpanzee” in them.  

               Watching something like a boxing match is very different to watching real-life violence. I have rarely seen or encountered a skilled combatant during a real-life encounter. Whilst there are sometimes posted videos which show a skilled individual demonstrating their abilities on social media, most fights I’ve seen and dealt with have involved drunk, and very quickly exhausted, combatants who have run out of ideas, hanging on to each other, trying to work out what to do next. There are very few if any fighting skills on display in these encounters, unlike in a  professional boxing match between two skilled and well-matched individuals. When watching boxers fight, I’m taking in footwork, head and body movement, control of range, timing, reaction speeds etc. Skills which are rarely – if ever – on display in real-life violent encounters. However, there are those who get excited when they see such violent incidents, sometimes capturing it on their phones to share on social media. They aren’t celebrating any fighting skills and/or abilities etc. but reveling in the theatre and spectacle of the incident.

               This is also different from a fascination with violence from an “educational” perspective. Women consume “True Crime” podcasts (an Edison Research online poll from 2021 found that women made up nearly 75% of all true crime podcast listeners), TV shows and literature at a significantly higher rate than men, especially those that involve violent crimes, including homicide. In recent years the publishing industry has been active in promoting crime-fiction aimed specifically at women. However, this interest is quite specific and doesn’t actually suggest that women are more fascinated with crime and violence than men. The media that women engage with tends to share several common themes including, women as victims, survival strategies, psychological insights, along with  self-defense elements that demonstrated female targets surviving when they fought back etc. Some of the suggested reasons for this include the idea that women are likely to be interested in understanding motivation and criminal psychology behind violence in order to understand how to prevent themselves from being targeted in real life. Engaging with such media may also have a cathartic effect, allowing watchers/listeners/readers to engage with frightening narratives, that they would normally try to avoid thinking about, in a controlled setting. Those who engage – whether men and women - in the “True Crime” genre aren’t likely celebrating violence but are rather looking for a means of educating themselves about violence, so that they can understand and avoid it.

               Whilst an interest in violence in order to educate ourselves concerning it makes sense, and an appreciation of fighting skills, such as those demonstrated in combat sports is understandable, being excited by the theatre and spectacle of violence – in whatever capacity - is something that achieves nothing and is only appealing to our most base/crude nature. Real life violence usually involves the fear and suffering of at least one party and this shouldn’t be something that anyone finds entertaining. If it is then it should be addressed as we should all strive to be better people for the good of ourselves and that of society.