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Post by tarzanontarmazepam on Jul 6, 2010 17:55:13 GMT
Aubrey, let's talk about the titillation thing. People flock to buy books, magazines, newspapers (for example) to read about the brutality of famous killers like the Wests or Ian Brady. Why? Why do some people need to know the full details of acts of depravity and cruelty? What's the thrill there? It's what sells newspapers Riot. You know that. The tabloids were obsessed with Myra Hindley especially. They shoved her on the front page at every opportunity...Hindley gets grant to study for a degree...Hindley gets £10,000 cell refurbishment...etc'. Why? Because she sold newspapers. People couldn't get enough of her and the horrific moors murders. The above was repeated to a certain degree following the Soham murders. Maxine Carr became the focus of the tabloid's attention. Then Sky news gave everyone a Saturday morning Soham special...the demolition of Ian Huntley's former home. A tour firm were heavily criticised for arranging Soham murder tours, in which the coach would track the journey made by Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman on that fateful afternoon. I can't say I understand it at all. But the human condition is an odd beast. |
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Post by riotgrrl on Jul 6, 2010 18:07:09 GMT
Oh yeah, and the popularity of stuff like Jack The Ripper tours.
There's the ghouls who enjoy real life cruelty and depravity.
And then there's the 'genteel' 'crime fiction' stuff (like Midsoms).
Is it really such a different instinct?
(And the people who claim to like CSI because of 'the science' . . yeah, right. They're just getting their kicks out of cruelty.)
Maybe I should write a TV series based on real, everyday murder . . 2 seconds of drunken madness between people who know each other, the almost immediate arrest of the suspect, long hours, days, weeks, hanging around police stations, jails, courts, family absolutely pulled apart by greif and mental illness, even years later.
It's horrible, and like most real life horrible things, it's far less dramatic than media portrayals of it and far more grinding and sore and damaging.
I get that we all need a bit of escapism. I get that novels and films are fiction, not documentary, for that reason. But why escape to someone else's misery and pain?
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Post by aubrey on Jul 6, 2010 18:13:11 GMT
One reason is to prove to ourselves that we're alive.
Murder stories were amongst the first stories written (that, and horror).
And the missing out all the boring and sordid bits - every kind of fiction and drama does that.
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Post by tarzanontarmazepam on Jul 6, 2010 18:15:03 GMT
I admit to getting a little caught up with this ongoing Raoul Moat siege.
He's still outwitting the police as I write.
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Post by Alpha Hooligan on Jul 6, 2010 18:15:30 GMT
I get that we all need a bit of escapism. I get that novels and films are fiction, not documentary, for that reason. But why escape to someone else's misery and pain? And this is coming from the woman who watches Big Brother!!! ;D In all honesty though, you will see more cynical cruelty in shite like eastenders than in any cop show...murder, thugery, rape, domestic abuse, thieving and people who generally get their kicks by fucking up other people. AH |
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Post by aubrey on Jul 6, 2010 18:17:44 GMT
But no gratuitious swearing. ;D
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Post by Alpha Hooligan on Jul 6, 2010 18:17:56 GMT
I admit to getting a little caught up with this ongoing Raoul Moat siege. He's still outwitting the police as I write. We'll see if he can outsmart a bullet when the pigs catch up with him (special prize for anybody who can tell me what film I've just semi-quoted).  AH |
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Post by tarzanontarmazepam on Jul 6, 2010 18:20:32 GMT
I admit to getting a little caught up with this ongoing Raoul Moat siege. He's still outwitting the police as I write. We'll see if he can outsmart a bullet when the pigs catch up with him (special prize for anybody who can tell me what film I've just semi-quoted). AH Dirty Harry  |
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Post by Alpha Hooligan on Jul 6, 2010 18:22:44 GMT
Nope. Edit: I'd expect Motto or Weyland to suss it out though...it's in their sphere of interest (sci-fi type stuff) AH |
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Post by tarzanontarmazepam on Jul 6, 2010 18:25:53 GMT
Nope. AH Carry On Camping I don't know  |
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Post by riotgrrl on Jul 6, 2010 18:25:31 GMT
I get that we all need a bit of escapism. I get that novels and films are fiction, not documentary, for that reason. But why escape to someone else's misery and pain? And this is coming from the woman who watches Big Brother!!! ;D In all honesty though, you will see more cynical cruelty in shite like eastenders than in any cop show...murder, thugery, rape, domestic abuse, thieving and people who generally get their kicks by fucking up other people. AH I don't watch Big Brother any more. But I do watch Peter Andre and Jordan's reality shows . . . if you want to talk about cynical people getting their kicks screwing each other over. Aubrey's right, of course, that it's an ancient human instinct of some kind I think. One of the reasons they stopped public hangings was because the crowds enjoyed them so much. I think I'm just really jaded about violence, in that I can't bear to watch it as entertainment when it's so much an everyday part of my life (through my job I hasten to add.) Plus, when we turn REAL murders into public entertainment, the greiving families feel so invaded and upset by it; it's revictimisation of a kind, and it's cruel, cruel, cruel. I'm not really sure that I've got much of a logical argument here, but I don't like them. Even when I'm reading about the Balkans I usually skip the more detailed bits about the atrocities. I don't need to know how specifially people were mutilated or tortured to understand that they were. |
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Post by aubrey on Jul 6, 2010 18:27:32 GMT
It wouldn't be Sense and Sensibility or Mansfield Park, would it?
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Post by riotgrrl on Jul 6, 2010 18:28:47 GMT
I admit to getting a little caught up with this ongoing Raoul Moat siege. He's still outwitting the police as I write. We'll see if he can outsmart a bullet when the pigs catch up with him (special prize for anybody who can tell me what film I've just semi-quoted). AH Babe III - The Revenge?  |
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Post by Alpha Hooligan on Jul 6, 2010 18:28:47 GMT
And this is coming from the woman who watches Big Brother!!! ;D In all honesty though, you will see more cynical cruelty in shite like eastenders than in any cop show...murder, thugery, rape, domestic abuse, thieving and people who generally get their kicks by fucking up other people. AH I don't watch Big Brother any more. But I do watch Peter Andre and Jordan's reality shows . . . if you want to talk about cynical people getting their kicks screwing each other over. Aubrey's right, of course, that it's an ancient human instinct of some kind I think. One of the reasons they stopped public hangings was because the crowds enjoyed them so much. I think I'm just really jaded about violence, in that I can't bear to watch it as entertainment when it's so much an everyday part of my life (through my job I hasten to add.) Plus, when we turn REAL murders into public entertainment, the greiving families feel so invaded and upset by it; it's revictimisation of a kind, and it's cruel, cruel, cruel. I'm not really sure that I've got much of a logical argument here, but I don't like them. Even when I'm reading about the Balkans I usually skip the more detailed bits about the atrocities. I don't need to know how specifially people were mutilated or tortured to understand that they were. Thing is, to have any kind of crime show, we need a crime to take place for our smarter than average detective/investigator to solve. What excuse do the likes of eastenders have for continual storylines that plumb the depths of human cruelty? AH |
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Post by riotgrrl on Jul 6, 2010 18:35:11 GMT
I don't watch Big Brother any more. But I do watch Peter Andre and Jordan's reality shows . . . if you want to talk about cynical people getting their kicks screwing each other over. Aubrey's right, of course, that it's an ancient human instinct of some kind I think. One of the reasons they stopped public hangings was because the crowds enjoyed them so much. I think I'm just really jaded about violence, in that I can't bear to watch it as entertainment when it's so much an everyday part of my life (through my job I hasten to add.) Plus, when we turn REAL murders into public entertainment, the greiving families feel so invaded and upset by it; it's revictimisation of a kind, and it's cruel, cruel, cruel. I'm not really sure that I've got much of a logical argument here, but I don't like them. Even when I'm reading about the Balkans I usually skip the more detailed bits about the atrocities. I don't need to know how specifially people were mutilated or tortured to understand that they were. Thing is, to have any kind of crime show, we need a crime to take place for our smarter than average detective/investigator to solve. What excuse do the likes of eastenders have for continual storylines that plumb the depths of human cruelty? AH Mmmm. You could have a point here. I don't really watch the soaps - I'm usually busying about the house or online when they're on - but Gothboy (for some weird reason based on his Gothic childhood) loves them all, Easties, Corrie, Emmerdale . . all 3 religiously. They're full of incest and domestic abuse and death. Even the ones like Corrie & Emmerdale that used to be 'cuddly'. I think they would be more interesting if they DID reflect real life, and showed people bored out their skulls in office-monkey jobs and how they coped (without going mad and smashing in their boss's head with the water-cooler). I DO like those reality shows which are basically old-fashioned fly-on-the-wall documentaries about real people. There was a great one they started showing in Scotland (don't know if you got it dahn sarff or not) called 'The Scheme' which was about useless chavs on a council estate in Kilmarnock. I couldn't stop watching. They made 4 programmes, but they had to stop after the 1st 2 as one of their 'characters' was up in court for a crime he'd committed while being filmed and the last 2 episodes can't be broadcast until the trial is over. But even mad stuff about old women who work in shops and love cats . . stuff like 'BNP Wives' . . I love all of that. |
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Post by Alpha Hooligan on Jul 6, 2010 18:40:07 GMT
I don't get along with soaps or reality TV (yet I managed to find myself watching something "marry, queen of shops" the other night).  AH |
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Post by tarzanontarmazepam on Jul 6, 2010 18:41:42 GMT
And this is coming from the woman who watches Big Brother!!! ;D In all honesty though, you will see more cynical cruelty in shite like eastenders than in any cop show...murder, thugery, rape, domestic abuse, thieving and people who generally get their kicks by fucking up other people. AH I don't watch Big Brother any more. But I do watch Peter Andre and Jordan's reality shows . . . if you want to talk about cynical people getting their kicks screwing each other over. Aubrey's right, of course, that it's an ancient human instinct of some kind I think. One of the reasons they stopped public hangings was because the crowds enjoyed them so much. I think I'm just really jaded about violence, in that I can't bear to watch it as entertainment when it's so much an everyday part of my life (through my job I hasten to add.) Plus, when we turn REAL murders into public entertainment, the greiving families feel so invaded and upset by it; it's revictimisation of a kind, and it's cruel, cruel, cruel. I'm not really sure that I've got much of a logical argument here, but I don't like them. Even when I'm reading about the Balkans I usually skip the more detailed bits about the atrocities. I don't need to know how specifially people were mutilated or tortured to understand that they were. I respect the work you do Riot. It's not something I could do. I believe we have become desensitised largely due to the fooking media. Most of us do not witness violence at first hand...not on a day to day basis..thankfully. The Beslan siege was the one story that effected me quite deeply. Mainly because children were involved, but the images that later emerged were awful. Having said that I still found myself strangely drawn to it months later. And some of those images are still online and are truly horrendous. That's the power of the internet you can go back to a story over and over...it's unhealthy. Or is it? Are we looking to find some hope from the ashes of despair? I'm confused.  |
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Post by Alpha Hooligan on Jul 6, 2010 18:51:05 GMT
Nope. AH Carry On Camping I don't know Heh, no. It's from Robocop.  AH |
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Post by Alpha Hooligan on Jul 6, 2010 18:55:12 GMT
Another thing about crime shows is that people wouldn't watch them if the criminal always got away (sort of what Aubs was saying about restoration of order or whatever)
I think for all the saliciosness (is that a word?) people like to see the pay off when Starsky and Hutch (or whoever) chase down the criminal and throw him into a load of garbage cans before cuffing the bastard and charging him with "muder one" or whatever - Justice is seen to be done!
AH
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Post by motorist on Jul 6, 2010 20:38:14 GMT
I admit to getting a little caught up with this ongoing Raoul Moat siege. He's still outwitting the police as I write. We'll see if he can outsmart a bullet when the pigs catch up with him (special prize for anybody who can tell me what film I've just semi-quoted). AH Robocop |
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