To think lots of crime thrillers fetishise violence against women?

[moutonfou]

Every so often I fancy reading a good old crime/mystery thriller so have a browse through them and feel really worried by what I see. Most of them seem to be really quite dark and graphic and what's more, have a tendency to almost fetishise violence against women. Gone are the days of Agatha Christie and someone bumping off their aunt for the inheritance. There's always a 'calculating serial killer' playing a 'cat and mouse game' with his usually exclusively female victims, whose torrid last hours we are usually 'treated' to in overly gruesome detail. The killer usually has some cute quirk like killing exclusively blonde women, because he was ridiculed by a blonde woman at school (i.e. it's all her fault).

Is it just me who doesn't want to read this stuff? There's enough violence towards women in the real world, and yes there's absolutely a need to explore that including in books, but I don't think unpleasantly graphic stories about serial killers with a blonde fetish really contribute to that?

"Lewis does seem to be the only serious crime series that gives dignity to the victim" And Vera, I find Vera one of the few good ones. I quite liked the new Strike but there were only a few episodes, hopefully there will be more.

I don't tend to read the murder mystery books for the reasons described.

I agree OP and if I recall correctly, one of the main actors of Criminal Minds quit over exactly this issue. I'll see if I can find it.

I think it goes beyond crime drama, it's everything.

The trouble is, we are brought up on a diet of culture where women are objects.
I'm amazed, looking back, at how much we are trained to go along with it all, to connive in it. I certainly used to.

Mandy Pitinkin, who played Gideon, said this about Criminal Minds:
“The biggest public mistake I ever made was that I chose to do Criminal Minds in the first place. I thought it was something very different. I never thought they were going to kill and rape all these women every night, every day, week after week, year after year. It was very destructive to my soul and my personality.” Patinkin also addressed the whole crime drama genre. “I’m not making a judgment on the taste [of people who watch crime procedurals],” he said. “But I’m concerned about the effect it has. Audiences all over the world use this programming as their bedtime story. This isn’t what you need to be dreaming about.”

YANBU it's always a young attractive woman killed & the camera lingers on the body just that bit too long. I also don't understand how people have the capacity to dream up some of the killing methods.

I remember reading a horror book at 14 (can't remember the author) that I had found somewhere. It was disgusting, the violence was so graphic & it was told alternatively from the killer/hunters perspective & the 15 yr old victim. The way her body was described & the things "he" imagined doing to her body were so detailed. I stopped reading it, & assumed the author was perverted.

What I found most disturbing now is how the terror attacks etc are reported. Headlines about body parts flying, who needs to know that? I remember when the Ipswich killings were happening & all the TV crews were reporting next to fields where victims had been found. I felt they were chomping at the bit at the chance to stumble across one while presenting.

Anne Holt is another writer who seems to specialise in this field; though she does occasionally have a male victim and I think a female perpetrator too.

But yes, writers and publishers want what the reading public will buy.

OddBoots, I'll look out for Vera, sounds like my kind of thing. Should also have mentioned Wycliffe, though it seems quite dated in other ways.

I'm glad to hear that about Mandy Patinkin, I love him in the Princess Bride.

I so agree. Some of the books are particularly gruesome, and I do worry about the violence against women being copied in RL. They also focus too much on the warped minds of the serial killers themselves. It’s very irresponsible, I think.

I prefer to watch TV mysteries like Foyle’s War, Midsomer Murders and Lewis. They don’t get graphic like Luther or Wire in the Blood, which I really can’t stand.

I also like Miss Marple and Poirot, though the storylines have been changed almost beyond recognition in some of the modern versions.

Cory, yes I like Wycliffe as well.

I much prefer the focus to be on the police investigation rather than the warped behaviour of a psychopath.

For crime fiction, even John Grisham is so much better, with his focus on the legal process. He's covered some terrible crimes, but in a way that doesn't dwell on gory details and violence.