To think that detective thrillers on telly are violence porn?

[OhThisbloodyComputer]

Gay rights activist Peter Tatchell once observed that some of his haters would go into amazing detail, in their poison pen letters, about an act that they supposedly found abhorrent.

I'm often reminded of that each time there's a new crime drama on TV.

You know the kind of thing. Broadchurch. Vera. Wire in The Blood.

There seems to be a simple formula. There's a murderer loose in coastal Nimbytown and he's killing women and children in the most horrific ways the script-writer can think up. In fact, there might even be two of these scriptical-killers at work, and they're both egging each other to imagine ever more ghastly acts of depravity.

Meanwhile, Detective Sergeant Luvvy Liberal has just 49 minutes (or 45 if it's on ITV) to emote over the case and reflect on the evil of all men.

Aside from the heavy handed symbolism of all these ghastly shows, one thing really troubles me.

What sort of person thinks up ever more dreadful ways of killing women and children, just so they can do some moral posturing about how awful they think it is?

Am I being over sensitive here?

I hate these Murder-tainment shows.

True crime shows are just as bad.

Meh I like broadchurch although the second one was crap.

I think you're overreacting, sorry.

I used to live where they filmed Wire In The Blood and some other similar thing not long after, we weren't allowed to leave our flats at one point if I remember right (irrelevant to thread but just saying it was a pita for a shit programme)

YABU and being well over sensitive,

Don't like them, don't watch them. Simple as that

you're getting too involved @2014newme

I'm taking you off the case

YANBU. I think the same. I used to like detective programmes but i think having so many available all at once, on demand, (on things like Netflix) made me realise how they're all basically the same and use violence towards women/children as entertainment. Before, with terrestrial TV, i would be watching one of those programmes every now and then and the episodes would be once a week so it didn't really dawn on me how awful they were.

I'm cancelling your leave @ilovesooty until I start to see some results from you

😂😂 do I get a new cagoule for the next season?

I've thought about this before quite a lot- I wondered if they are the modern day fairy tale (before the Victorians got to them) in which women and children are warned of the dangers of 'going in to the woods'.

listen up every body

I'm getting a lot of heat from the boys upstairs.

SO I'm putting @soldmedowntheriver in charge of the case. If you've got a problem with that, see me in the comments box

I agree with you OP. I complained to Channel 4 back in the 90s about an episode of Cracker - it opened with a stabbed woman bleeding to death while crawling downstairs naked.. at 9 o clock, yes after the watershed but it got to me. I believe I once read an interview with Martin Clunes who said he turns work like that down and he went up in my estimation. I know it's "entertainment" and Channel 4 gamely told me that they were comfortable with levels of screen violence, but on some level I agree that it gives people ideas and goes some way towards normalising awful violence towards women and children. I am not a prude or a bleeding heart in real life but using violence and particularly sexual violence as titilation seems a bit grim to me.

Had to give up watching Luther in disgust, the representation of violence against women in that was just disgusting. Can't understand why it gets raved about.

Good work @IAmcuriousyellow

I feel we're getting closer.

We all know there are script writers and actors out there with an appetite for evil. But I've never seen it this bad. I've never seen Murder-tainment on this scale before.

It's almost as if they're sending us a message

@naughtylittleflea

That's a good lead. I'm giving you 24 hours to bring in the results. Or my ass is going to be in a sling. The Captain's on my tail, the press have gone ballistic and the Mayor is all over me like a rash

Tell me about it, @caringdenise009

The bosses at ITV just want results - and that means ratings.

If they have to murder some fictional women, so be it.

You don't sell advertising space by being a nice guy.

If you want morals, go join the Girl Guides!

I agree OP. I was really into that sort of genre when younger but over time more and more distasteful as I realised the lack of diversity in victims and that watching these shows contributed to my fears when out at night (or home alone!) Initially it seemed important to represent violence against women but it now seems titillating and glamorizing it.

YANBU. DH and I settle in to a drama series on TV, then comes the pretty much inevitable story around rape, serial killers of women or child sexual abuse and we look at each other, sigh and move on to something else.

I love, for example, Silent Witness, but during every series I get fed up of bare dead breasts on the slab or dead naked women being unearthed somewhere. YANBU.

I totally agree with the OP. TBF I never watch detective thrillers I find them pretty depressing for the reasons outlined on this thread. Personally the last thing I want to see on a Sunday night is another maverick detective hunting a serial killer/rapist complete with gruesome crime scenes and violence just so we know rape and murder are bad.
I also don't like all those revenge thrillers where woman exist to be raped, murdered or kidnapped to justify our hero, a virtuous man going on a bloody rampage.

It's nearly all violent crime towards women by men, which yes reflects reality but is also making entertainment out of it. Some shows/books do go over the line (okay, my line!) of making it as awful and horrible as possible in order for viewers/readers to go 'well that the most disgusting death/rape of a woman yet, amazing!'

You've focused specifically on violence against women and children, but surely it's time all on-screen violence needs to be properly debated? For a society that claims to value life, it seems bizarre that we consume vast amounts of the most graphic gore as supposed entertainment without ever questioning whether it might be desensitizing us and possibly motivating some people to commit violence and murder. We claim to believe in right over wrong, good over evil, yet more and more we blindly accept the entertainment industry serving us up criminal characters as heroes. Something feels not right and I don't remember action films being any less entertaining when the man in the white hat was always the hero and when someone got shot onscreen they clutched their chest and fell over. Do close-up shots of heads exploding and severed limbs flying through the air really add entertainment value or just corrupt us?

Good job @nutbrownhare15

I want you and @KikiMadeMeDoIt to go to the BBC and turn over a few tables. See what you can come up with.

@DubiousCredentials Nice work. Listen, take some time off. I'll cover for you. You don't have to see this. Nobody should.

Don't worry @lessworriedaboutthecat and @HopefulHamster. I haven't forgotten you. I think we're close to a break through so just hang in there.

All the same, if we do manage to catch one of these Serial Murder-tainers, what are the chances they get bounced back on the streets with a slap on the wrist by some bleeding heart liberal BBC director general

On it. I'm going to need a new mackintosh, a blue Range Rover and a tragi-comic backstory.

You can have all the cagoules you want @2014newme

But not until this case is over

Murdertainment Most Foul!

Yanbu. I love a bit of crime thriller but I find I have to be really picky about which ones I watch because of this very reason. There's also some authors I avoid, too: never finished a Jo Nesbo novel.

'Violence against women is wrong' is usually a cue for an explicitly and glossily filmed section of violence against a female victim, who appears only as a corpse.

I really liked River for avoiding this.