Violence and Drama

(Some) spoilers ahoy!

One of my favorite t.v. shows is Criminal Minds, about a fictional unit of the FBI that does nothing but hunt down serial murderers.  Actually, the FBI does have such a unit, but one a lot larger and less of a small elite team.  Dramatic license and all that.  I'm not complaining about that much.  Helps to make a more dramatic story-telling format and all.  Plenty of other absurdities in there as well--like the wonderful Dr. Reed whom I just don't believe as an FBI agent at all.  The current season is introducing a new character, a trainee with a unique insight because her father was a serial killer, a fact with which she struggles every day (at one point she almost cried when admitting that, try as she might, she doesn't hate him).  Good stuff, from a dramatic standpoint.  From a reality one?  No.  Just like Clarice Starling would never, ever, under any circumstances have been allowed to work on the Buffalo Bill case.  No way, no how.  But Silence of the Lambs is a totally brilliant film that I love dearly.

But I came across an interesting interview today about the spinoff being developed, starring Forrest Whitaker, Richard Schiff and Janeane Garofalo (wow--talk about a dream cast!).  Ms. Garofalo has mixed feelings.  Loves to have a job, grateful in fact.  But uneasy about a program that regularly depicts women being tortured and murdered.

With respect, I do believe she's missing the point.  It all comes down to context.  Depictions of something do not equate to endorsement.  Not in and of themselves.  Methinks she and anyone else would have an excellent case against a program (or movie, or book, or anything really) that treated the violence in what might as well be dubbed pornographically.   If we the audience are meant to revel in the violence for its own sake, if the violence is portrayed so as to get us all worked up--that is very different from what Criminal Minds does.

Let me mention here I don't mind portrayals like that, necessarily.  I loved both Kill Bill movies, and as my previous blog entry shows I adore the show Dexter.  But both those films do more than celebrate the violence involved--they examine it, stirring up more feelings that simple joy at "taking care of business."   Both explore the ambiguity of violence in what is after all a violent world (although not universally so).

Criminal Minds touches on that as well, barely.

Mostly, the show depicts serial killers as twisted human wrecks who need to be taken down, or at least neutralized.  The violence is played not for excitement, but horror.  We see the families of the victims, often in shock and dismay, as well as the sickened faces of those who confront the worst of what men do virtually every day.  No two of them respond the same, and the complexity of their reactions helps make it a successful, gripping series of stories.

In fact, I'd say this show avoids what has been a trap for the genre ever since Silence of the Lambs came out--the tendency to glamorize serial killers.  Yeah, Hannibal Lecter fascinates as well as horrifies, and in a weird sense we're almost on  his side.  But the human monsters the BAU confronts are never like that.  They are at best pitifully warped souls, at worst the equivalent of mad dogs.  People sometimes forget that memorable as Lecter is, the main character and spine of Silence is Clarice.  Sir Anthony Hopkins even said at the time the movie is a love story--about how the courage and compassion of Clarice stirs love in this terrible human being who cannot feel pity or kindness.  Without her, there is no story.  Or at least no good one.

So it is on Criminal Minds.  Whereas Dirty Harry might be an avenging icon of frontier justice in a modern world, the BAU team have more in common with Batman or Sherlock Holmes.  Theirs is not a mission of violence or revenge.  Rather they see themselves as guardians against chaos, who apply human genius against darkness threatening the innocent.

One episode in particular sticks in my mind, "The Uncanny Valley."  The Unsub (UNidentified SUBject) has been kidnapping women to keep them drugged and dressed up like dolls.  Not for any sexual reason, but as it turns out to substitute for the dolls her father took away.  Those dolls were all she had, what she needed to make herself feel whole following her own father raping her in childhood.  He wanted her to keep silent so subjected the then-twelve-year-old to electro-shock therapy, permanently damaging her brain.  This story could have been so incredibly ugly, so misogynistic, so unclean in its treatment of the subject.  For one thing, the Unsub might have repeated her own abuse onto her dolls.  But no, she just wanted to comb their hair and have tea.  What really got me was the end--not only how Dr. Reed defused the situation by giving this crippled soul her original dolls back, but the joy in the faces of her latest abductee and that woman's husband as they are reunited.  This was not a story wallowing in violence for its own sake, or lingering voyeuristically over torture.  Here we saw a tale of heroes, doing their best to protect and serve all the innocent victims--even those who go on to have victims themselves.

What If I Were A Serial Killer?

This does not contain spoilers per se. But most folks will find it disturbing. So you have been warned...

Something about serial killers fascinates as well as horrifies. How many films, books, t.v. episodes about Jack the Ripper have attracted audiences over the years? Sir Anthony Hopkins' acting career is full of brilliant performances, but don't we most think of him as Hannibal Lecter? Some very popular t.v. shows, including Profiler and Criminal Minds, recount the hunt for serial killers. Lord knows the attraction of the serial killer as a character seems proven. Actors can really show their stuff by portraying one well. Likewise writers such as myself often delve into such as a marvelous source of stories.

Perhaps that explains this odd exercise.

Imagine for a moment that instead of the person I am now, the person typing these words was the serial murderer I might have become in some alternate reality? To begin, I am pretty squeamish emotionally. Certain types of humiliation remain intensely uncomfortable for me to watch in film, television or on stage. It physically hurts to see some scenes, even though the events are unreal and the people involved clearly aren't myself. This is pretty much the opposite of a sociopath, to whom others remain eternally other. One way to describe it is that a sociopath is the only human being in a world of walking, talking mannequins. Emotionally, that is their truth. No one is more alone than a sociopath. I have been lonely virtually every day of my life, but I've also had friends, enjoyed their triumphs and good news, felt their tragedies and disappointments--often keenly. But without that, methinks I would be a far more angry human being than I am (and my temper--although under control--remains something to be feared).

This gives my first clue to that alternate Dark-Me. A far more desperately lonely person, one boiling with much more rage and many times more frustrated in an almost-instinctual desire for connection with others.

Hiding my true nature--in this scenario, for serial killers are generally master chameleons--would have required more discipline than I've probably ever wielded. But that would also fuel the rage. Imagine putting water under greater and greater pressure.

Now--what kind of fantasy? Serial killers are trying to live out a particular fantasy, over and over again. Jeffrey Dahmer, for example, was not a sadist but a necrophile and sought a perfect zombie/love slave. An FBI profiler was interviewed for the special features of the DVD of Red Dragon, noting that Hannibal Lecter's fantasy was of superiority, reducing his victims in effect to nothing more than livestock. Edward Kemper evidently was killing his mother over and over, and when he finally killed her in reality turned himself in. John Wayne Gacy and Andrei Chikatillo had, at least as I see it, similar fantasies of potency (albeit in very different forms).

Methinks I know myself well enough to see the darkest of my fantasies would be a blend of revenge and sex. Honestly, I've even found the idea of the place where pleasure and pain bleed into each other intriguing. Stories with some sense of erotic submission and control do attract me. Somewhat. Having dipped my toe ever so slightly in those waters, I can tell you they do little or nothing for me in reality. But then, I am at most only very mildly kinky. Had my psychological development shaped me into a serial killer then my status would be "Definite Full On Wildly Deviant Pervert."

Dark-Me then would be a rapist-killer, probably with an element of torture in his kills and aiming his/my rage at women who somehow were the incarnations of those who were my greatest source of frustrations. Who would that be? Almost impossible to say. My own tastes in the lovely gender are eclectic in the extreme--heavy, skinny, tall, short, dark, light, etc. Women to me are absolutely delightful parts of the universe, a reason to have a planet and a human race to start with! Mind you, I suppose that is also a clue as to Dark-Me's issues. I have never found myself attractive, nor men in general. I've always found it slightly odd (emotionally) that anyone at all was attracted to males. Had I been born with the double X chromosome my suspicion is that I'd've been a lesbian. So perhaps my alternate self has a similar personal issue, but taking a savage and warped form? Perhaps has an alternate "identity" as a woman, one who visits lesbian bars and hunts for the most attractive women he can find there?

Wow. This thought experiment is turning creepier by the second!

Mind you, the point should be made that this person isn't really a cross-dresser. He might don the persona of a woman, but in his case this is akin to a wolf hiding in sheep's clothing. Or a better example--the so-called Hillside Stranglers often masqueraded as police officers to stalk their victims. So Dark-Me becomes a woman (and in the process tasting a little bit of female power) as camouflage.

I could go further along with these thoughts. For example, he probably kills by strangulation. The feel of life leaving the body is viscerally right there and then. Likewise no blood to clean up or hide. But more details would pretty much require a reason more than any thought experiment. Like a potential story. Nothing I'm working on right this second justifies this character. Not yet. And without that "reward" of a good story, methinks I've gotten as much as feasible or (for now) desirable from such a dive into the unconscious. Interesting. Even educational. Spooky in all kinds of ways. But perhaps a bit valuable. Hey--writers are like this. We juggle atomic bombs of the psyche, and mine our nightmares for enlightenment.

It is what we do.