I've always been really interested in murder-mysteries. During the '90s, my favorite show was "Unsolved Mysteries"; there was nothing better than watching Robert Stack in his trench coat, looking ominously down into the camera as he talked of missing people, mysterious deaths and unidentified bodies. Before that, I loved "Murder, She Wrote" and "Matlock". I just have a morbid fascination with the idea of mystery and intrigue.
These days my fascination takes me to watching shows like "Medium", "48 Hours Mystery" and "Dateline NBC Mystery". In fact, the perfect evening for me would be take-out dinner, a glass of wine, a happily sleeping baby and a marathon of these shows. Crazy, right? Well, perhaps the most disturbing of all my favorite shows is CBS's "Criminal Minds", about a team of FBI criminal profilers. It's a fantastic show, but they portray some of the most heinous crimes imaginable--cutting off victims' faces, holding people hostage before eventually eating them, kidnapping children to introduce them into an ancient rite of prepubsecent marriage. Yeah, I have to wonder who the writers are to think of up this stuff. They are either near-crazy themselves or just extremely creative. Or perhaps, both.
I started thinking about my own relationships with these shows a few weeks ago. One night, as I was doing a channel scan for my TV converter box, I was delighted to find that we were now receiving four additional channels. One of them, the ION channel, airs two back-to-back episodes of "Criminal Minds" every weeknight. Watching some of the early episodes, I noticed that Mandy Patinkin (aka, "My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!" from "The Princess Bride") was one of the original characters. I started to wonder why he left, only to be replaced by Joe Mantegna's character. After doing some wikipedia digging, I found that Mandy Patinkin was so disturbed by the material on the show that he could no longer play the character. He explained that it wasn't worth it to him to study horrible crimes, even fake ones, just for the purpose of making a tv show. He also said that he can't understand how the viewing audience could find this type of stuff entertainment.
That hit me. How is it that I am so extremely interested in murder? Part of me is a little more paranoid than most that I will be the victim of crime; I'm sure this is because I spend so much of my time watching grisly, gruesome images on tv. Is something wrong with me that I find this stuff entertaining television?
Right now, I'm in a hotelroom and I've pretty much got the TV set on the A&E channel, which airs several episodes of "Criminal Minds" everyday. I've got a happily napping baby, quiet pets, lemonade and lunch. Unfortunately, I'm having a perfect afternoon.
2 comments:
I watch a lot of shows like Nancy Grace and as Matt calls the, "Children dying of XYZ Disease" shows. He can't bear to watch them and I am strangely intrigued. I also happen upon blogs by parents whose children have or have died from some horrible accident or illness and will read for long periods of time, sometimes crying. One night recently he asked me what my facination was with this stuff. I really couldn't figure it out at first.
I thought about it for a few days and I think I know at least part of the reason I pay attention to these things: I feel like if I read about them and learn about them then I can avoid a similar tragedy befalling my family. Also, I guess I am reminding myself to never get complacent that I am immune to these horrible things happening, because the people they happen to are not much different than me. It feels a little superstitious now that I think about it, but that's all I can come up with!!
Sarah, I think you've nailed it on the head! I sometimes think that if I am aware of every single type of psycho killer out there, then I will be prepared if one should try to kidnap me, murder me in my sleep or attack me in a parking garage. Constant vigilance, I suppose...
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