Turned fucking Luther off

I would never advocate banning any art form but there's too much violent crime on TV in my opinion.
We're a nation obsessed. Which is weird considering that it's thankfully a v small part of life and most people will not ever come across it.
As for teaching you how to respond to sad or scary life events, I think that begs the question of exactly what programmes like Luther are teaching - and so we come back to the first points about portrayal of women and men, and the fearfulness being inculcated. After all a fearful population is a compliant one.

It's all crime fiction, and women are the ones creating the fiction and consuming it.
But if you can find a way to blame men, do it.
Here's another good link, about a crime writing festival with hundreds of particpants but less than 10 men:
broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/mbqekq/the-killer-women-writers-collective-is-turning-the-page-on-sexist-crime-novels
It quotes that women buy 80% of the 21 billion crime books sold every year.
You can't just separate filmed fiction and written fiction, especially as one often spawns from the other.
But, if you think it's all created so men can get their jollies watching a woman in a shower, whatever.

Maybe on TV, but not as authors

So what? This is a discussion about broadcasts on a public service broadcaster, the BBC. Not what is sold in Waterstones.

But men are the main writers, directors, commissioners and other production roles.

Maybe on TV, but not as authors.
In fact, a number of men have published crime fiction under gender neutral names (initials, like JK Rowling) or female pseudonyms, since crime novels by female authors sell better.

This link calls it a "women-led trend":
www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11440540/Thrillers-and-crime-novels-Are-women-hardwired-to-love-them.html

Gone Girl was a recent huge success by a femal author, translated to a film, for example.

Sorry SEmummy what WAS your poiny?

"Lolling at the idea that Luther somehow portrays any kind of working class/ethnic minority experience."
Actually I'm pretty sure it doesn't portray about 99% of the UK's experience but ok if you want to completely miss my point.

As I mentioned above, women are the main consumers of this kind of programme.

But men are the main writers, directors, commissioners and other production roles.

I’ve always thought David Hare was a highly overrated and self-regarding man of the past, and “Collateral” was obsolete by the time it was made (a centrist Labour leader suppressing the noble socialist ideals of his MPs? How old was this script, again?). However, it wasn’t a naked woman stabbed in the shower, where at least it might advance the plot; this was a naked woman in the shower for absolutely no reason beyond her wanting a shower. Which is literally a porn trope.

TheSheepofWallSt

I'm allowed to comment on general violence if I choose, even if the OP started by commenting on VAW. I'm fed up with people wanting to explore, challenge and deconstruct real world violence through graphic representation of rape, murder, torture etc. You carry on with your "rounded cultural debate" and I'll carry on criticising those who exploit violence against women and men for entertainment - whether it's the (generally) male producers of this or those who "celebrate" it as 'freedom of expression'.

@feministfairy

I think that’s incredibly reductive. The concern on this thread was violence against women- not gratuitous violence.

Narratives with violence as a driver of plot are as old as humanity. Censoring our culture in this way, denies not only expression of gratuitous and gratifying violence (admittedly bad) but also removes the option to explore, challenge and deconstruct real world violence (IMO a good thing).

Arguably the thing to do is not reduce violent content, but increase the range of artistic and authorial voices tackling the theme, to offer a more rounded cultural “debate”, and challenge the underlying social structures that give rise to gratuitous violence (against women) in popular culture.

"No realistic portrayal of the world only white, middle-class experience."

Lolling at the idea that Luther somehow portrays any kind of working class/ethnic minority experience.

it shows them so men can get their jollies from a pretty woman in the shower or a pretty woman being raped.

Complete nonsense. As I mentioned above, women are the main consumers of this kind of programme.
You expect us to believe it's all lascivious men sat at home by themselves watching this?
I honestly don't know why women enjoy watching pretty naked women getting killed in the shower, but the fact is they do, you can't pass the buck to men here.

It seems that this thread is a call to ban everything over a 12A,

Do you think that is a rhetorical device which acts as a reduction ad absurdum?

We are legally compelled to have a TV licence in order to watch broadcast TV. There is an entirely legitimate argument that says that the broadcaster which is the main beneficiary from that legal obligation should ensure that its output is acceptable to the broad mass of the population and fulfils some public service function which justifies the compulsion.

We already agree that the BBC should not broadcast R18 material, and it is now rare for it to broadcast 18. Most material historically rated 18 is now certificated 15 when re-submitted, and 18 is reserved for graphic sexualised violence and imitable self-harm. For a long time, the BBC would cut stuff certificated X down to roughly AA (for example, it was the 1980s before “Don’t Look Now” was shown uncut, although there is a PhD in looking at which bits they cut - hint, it wasn’t [spoiler] being [spoiler] at the end).

I think we are all OK with 12A post 9pm, given that 12A now includes (for example) Dark Knight and Casino Royale. So the discussion is: given that 15 now includes almost everything, should a legally-backed public service broadcaster show it, when it’s trivially available on Netflix?

I’m violently opposed to censorship, but this isn’t censorship: this is saying that a public service broadcaster which has the power to gaol people for not paying its bills shouldn’t show violent sexual content at our expense with the imprimatur of a royal charter (if the CofE is the country at prayer, the BBC is the country on its sofa). Other broadcasters are available.

It’s certainly at least debatable.

I'm in two minds about Luther, and all crime shows really. I am interested in them, I suppose many people are interested in why people commit horrific crimes. I HATE the pretty, young, female victim trope, and yet so many programmes indulge it.

I enjoy watching it but I do feel nervous afterwards if I have to take the dog out and whatnot, so I do wonder sometimes why I do it to myself. But I've always been like that, even when I was really young, I loved to read scary stuff, go in ghost houses etc, even though it petrified me.

I do think they take the 'oooh he's such a bad boy' thing too far with Luther and he goes too far into actually being an abusive piece of shit. I'd prefer if he was just the flawed anti-hero who disobeys police procedure rather than actively does awful things to the people around him.

"drawn out scenes of detailed violence."

One of the things I like about Luther is that it DOESN'T have detailed violence. Most of it is hidden, there has been nothing in it that has turned my stomach so far, and I am not good with gore at all.

So only TV shows that are 12A or under then? Only nice, happy, love stuff on TV. No realistic portrayal of the world only white, middle-class experience.

@feministfairy Completely agree.

Just listened to a woman on Radio 4 talking about her experience as a 14 year old of holding her dying mother after her father had stabbed her to death and how this has affected her. They were talking about the 14 year old boy who held his father as he lay dying after being stabbed to death on a train last Friday.
I thought of this thread as I listened to her experiences and wondered at the arrogance of all those who pop up to lecture women for worrying about unbridled violence. Just like the poster above telling us all about how "Scary tales for DC teach them about the world and how to deal with the scary/difficult/sad". I reckon that all of us, especially children would be better off without the gratuitous use of excessive violence and gore in programmes like Luther. Just because you can replicate someone being brutally murdered, doesn't mean it's OK to do it.

This post is really weird and I think just demonstrates a lot of feminist concern is 1st world problems (ie white, middle-class issues). For god sake how many men, ethnic minority or younger audience will be watching Austin or Mrs Wilson hmm
The world is a scary place and this is overly dramatised in thrillers which plays on everyone's fears both men and women.

Accepting for the moment that what Edith says is right, then I would say at worst that Luther is collateral damage from the fact that most TV crime drama is sexualised violence in large quantity. And “collateral” is a good word: that series last year with Billie Piper and Carey Mulligan also featured the protagonist naked in the shower for no readily apparent reasons. Presumably Billie and Carey had a “no nipples” clause in their contract, but Jeany Spark’s agent hadn’t got the leverage to get the same. That was the last TV crime drama I watched, because I found the leery male gaze attitudes distasteful. Perhaps Luther is better. I’m not sure I care: most of the BBC’s crime drama output is vile (as is the stuff they buy in: just because the woman is being raped on Ikea furniture doesn’t make it any less exploitative).

I don’t need TV drama to tell me that women are violently raped, nor that they in treated badly by exploitative men. The BBC does not shows these programs to educate people; it shows them so men can get their jollies from a pretty woman in the shower or a pretty woman being raped. If people want that, they know where Pornhub is.

It has been very illuminating to read this thread alongside the actual Luther thread, whereby int out (correctly) that all crime drama is based on someone's nightmare.

One could also discuss at length the literary role and function of the bogeyman - something that is both common, and in therms of world literature, universal, and is the basis of much (unbowderalised) children's literature. The latter being possibly most apposite to counterpoint to the oresmise of this thread. Scary tales for DC teach them about the world and how to deal with the scary/difficult/sad.

And of course some of the premise of this thread (as trenchantly pointed out on the other) just plain wrong - given the sex of both perpetrators and victims in the series in question.

Unless you are calling for the end of all suspense - remember that for many people, the scariest bit was the 'man in the attic' where it was all in dead silence, and he hunted the man in the house first. Should that not have happened either, because it was showing a man's nightmare?

It seems that this thread is a call to ban everything over a 12A, becausng upsetting/scary should ever be shown.

Generally, I agree with your objections. Most dramas completely fall into that trap of gratuitous violence and sexualisation of female victims.

In this case though, I think Gah is right. Luther has been fantastic, definitely not derivative or generic. It's really complex and interesting. Brilliant programme.

I love a good DVD. I still have a collection but no longer anything to play them on.

@ReflectentMonatomism
"I don’t start watching anything unless I am 95% certain it will not feature sexualised violence against young women so the writer or director can get their jollies, or give the audience what low expectations say they want.

I therefore watch no drama after 9pm. I watch no police procedural."

...Are you me?! This is exactly what I do. There's enough upsetting shit on the news every day without watching this type of vile drama

I know! I want to get rid of the dvds, but DH keeps buying more. He is the dodo, not me.
Yesterday’s purchase was because he felt sorry for HMV.

NAMALT.

Bloody hell, Nuff. How retro are you