I joined the “Entertainment in Public” project midway. The project needed a writer, and I was drawn to its interdisciplinary and narrative-driven approach. Before this, the guillotine was, for me, a distant historical artifact—a wooden structure with a sharp blade, mostly known through literature. It was only through researching its history that it took on a haunting presence.
Initially designed as a “humane” execution method, the guillotine became a tool of political slaughter, particularly during the Reign of Terror (1793–1794), when mass executions were staged in Paris before thousands of spectators. As Michel Foucault has argued, public executions have always been about power—both as a display of state authority and as a spectacle that engages the public. Parisians not only witnessed executions; they adjusted their daily routines around them. The “Tricoteuses,” women who knitted beside the guillotine, embodied the normalization of violence—turning execution into something as routine as sitting by a fireplace.
This desensitization is not unique to history. Even today, news of executions is woven into daily life. At first, one may react with shock, but over time, the repetition of violence in the media dulls its impact, making it just another piece of background noise. Jean Baudrillard called this a “simulated reality,” where even horrific events become passive, consumable news. Susan Sontag noted that while images of suffering can spark brief public outrage, the effect is rarely lasting.
Albert Camus criticized the language of executions, arguing that we obscure their brutality with euphemisms: “Do not say the condemned was punished; say his head was cut off.” He even mockingly suggested that if executions were truly meant as deterrents, they should be broadcast on television. Statistics, in fact, show that capital punishment does not reduce crime—it merely perpetuates a cycle of violence.
Working on “Entertainment in Public” reinforced the importance of documenting violence in detail. Historical figures like Charlotte Corday, who requested a portrait before her execution, or Antoine Lavoisier, who remained committed to science until his final breath, become real when we tell their stories. Even small details—the color of a prisoner’s clothes, their last words—restore their humanity.
Telling these stories resists the normalization of violence. When we strip away the layers of abstraction, execution ceases to be just an image, a film scene, or a headline. It forces us to confront its reality—one that societies have long sought to disguise.
Mahzad Elyasi
For the full text, refer to the book “Entertainment in Public” Project.
