Ken and I discussed a T-shirt last week that was drawing fire as racist. It was a Walking Dead-inspired shirt, that depicted Negan’s wire-wrapped baseball bat named Lucille and the character’s threatening words as he decided who to kill in the season six cliff-hanger: eenie meenie miny moe….
The way it was used in the show wasn’t racist. It was to select a victim the way almost every little North American kid made a decision. Even the show’s star, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, said “Holy crap people are stupid”. I’d have to agree. When we were children the rhyme was changed to “catch a tiger” instead of the offensive N word. To think the rhyme by itself is racist shows the bias of the thinker! Regardless, the T-shirt was pulled from stores and the company that made it apologized.
So I said to Ken, “Oh well that’s a relief. It’s not racist, it’s just about a violent murder!”
He laughed. I laughed. Because violent murder is a-okay with most people as long as it’s on TV. And I don’t get it. When did we become a society that loved to see people get killed in various ways?
Now, hear me out. I’m not about to go on a campaign against violence on television or tell people what they should and shouldn’t watch. Not at all. But it strikes me that we find entertainment in fictionalized versions of events we can’t stand thinking about if they happen for real.
“Watch Narcos!”, they said. So I did. Three episodes in, I was out. There was so much rape and random murder, including a messy murder of a creep in the middle of a rape. It may have been based on real life, but it wasn’t how I wanted to spend the evening. “Watch Dexter!”, they said. So I did. A couple of episodes in, I had had enough of the spraying blood. I was out. Zombies don’t hold my interest and I get enough politics in my job so I don’t really care for it in my off hours. It’s hard to find something to hold my attention.
This doesn’t mean I want to sanitize real life. I’ve enjoyed plenty of documentaries and movies with violence in them, but as a side dish, not as the main course. I loved the series Six Feet Under, about a family that ran a funeral home. Each episode opened with a death. Some were funny. Some were awful. They’ve all actually happened, I’m sure. But the series was about people, and the death business was its backdrop. NYPD Blue – another favourite. Sure, there were violent incidents but the show was about cops, not just their cases. When Law and Order SVU became a hit I figured I should watch an episode. It’s a series based on the investigation of sex crimes. Every week, another victim. Not my thing, but a huge hit. Somehow our minds have become conditioned to accept that a brutal killer like Paul Bernardo should be put away for life, but a TV character with the same MO is must-see TV.
I felt the same way about Sopranos but got drawn into the stories of the people involved. I watched a fair bit of it through my fingers, as I did Dexter, and I totally get you. That’s why The Crown was such a blessed relief (as was Downton Abbey). The Good Wife is totally worth the binge watch!