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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

James Bulger

567 replies

Monty27 · 03/01/2019 07:32

Hang your head in shame Vincent Lambre.
You low life creep.
Anyone?

OP posts:
ADastardlyThing · 03/01/2019 13:38

"But you can't say you don't like someone because he did X, when X is your opinion, and not what they actually did. "

And just to address this, I don't like this person because he didn't speak to James's family because he knew they would say no, he admits himself he wouldn't want the film to be made if it was him, so actually I have said stated what he has done for me to not like him.

potatoscone · 03/01/2019 13:41

And just to address this, I don't like this person because he didn't speak to James's family because he knew they would say no, he admits himself he wouldn't want the film to be made if it was him, so actually I have said stated what he has done for me to not like him.

It was the part where you said he made the film to gain sympathy for the killers that I quoted and subsequently was discussing. Not the part above. I don't care if you like him or not and I think what he has done in the respect of James family is despicable, but he was very clear the reason he made the film was not to gain sympathy, so you really can't say you don't like him because he did that. He didn't do that.

QuackPorridgeBacon · 03/01/2019 13:43

It does seem bad taste, but I think that’s down to the age of the victim and the nature of the crime. I’m really into crime, I read up on it a lot and I watch a lot of shows and documentaries involving murder and serial killers etc. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to make a movie, it’s been done for other crimes and there are lots of documentaries about these things. I guess it depends how they do it, if it’s gratuitous in showing the murder happening then I’d say it’s gone too far. Not asking or mentioning it to the victims family doesn’t feel right.

DeepanKrispanEven · 03/01/2019 13:49

ADastardlyThing, he didn't ask the father either, which kind of blows your theory about this being an anti-woman initiative clean out of the water.

An opinion that isn't based on fact isn't worth considering.

DeepanKrispanEven · 03/01/2019 13:53

Since then, countless people have been asking serious questions about how we can avoid these tragedies in the future. A previous Labour Government set up SureStart Centres to intervene with families who need help at an early stage. Social workers and the Police work hard to avoid the sort of issues these boys had. Just because you haven't put your mind to these things in the past few decades doesn't mean that people haven't been working non stop to try to avoid the same problems happening again

Absolutely, The trouble is that all these services are chronically underfunded and tend to be the first to go when governments, including local government, want to save money. Look at what happened to Sure Start. Hence the fact that it's completely legitimate to say that we need to look at the contribution of society as a whole to the situation that gave rise to this murder, and not just comfortably pigeonhole two children as demons and confine the blame to them.

ADastardlyThing · 03/01/2019 13:55

His use of the word 'humanise' makes me believe he's doing it to garner sympathy. It's an interesting word to use.

Try and pick that apart til the cows come home blue in the face, but as I say I am well within my rights to form such an opinion. It might be factually right it might be factually wrong, we only have his simpering word for it and only he knows his true intentions.

As an aside his Twitter makes for distasetful reading. Lots of fawning and "omg I had no expectations of it being shortlisted for an award" while in the next breath saying he told colleagues they wouldn't even get shortlisted, but no, he didn't do it for fame or anything like that, oh no. I was still hoping I'd read something that will change my mind about this person and their intentions but sadly it's just getting worse so I'll be stopping now. No chance of polishing this turd.

potatoscone · 03/01/2019 14:01

His use of the word 'humanise' makes me believe he's doing it to garner sympathy. It's an interesting word to use.

Even though it means something completely different and he has been clear it's not for sympathy Hmm

I think you have a huge lack of understanding which is causing you to repeatedly argue something so stupid.

You can have whatever opinion you want, but you can't use your opinion to back up your opinion. The only thing that can back up an opinion is a FACT.

I think it's best left there. For many reasons.

Ironfloor269 · 03/01/2019 14:03

I can understand why they did it. They were born wired wrong. They were fucked up in their head. It just happens sometimes. Some psychopaths are born. And that's what they are.

SweetLathyrus · 03/01/2019 14:03

Quack the film does not show the murder.

ADastardlyThing · 03/01/2019 14:06

Deepan, really? So someone tells you they think coke tastes better than pepsi and they need to present the facts as to why they think that? And if you disagree they are wrong?

Blimey, the definition of opinion has changed since I last checked Grin

NameChangerAmI · 03/01/2019 14:09

Just watched it Fairylea. It's so harrowing.

I'll be flamed for this, but I think it's noteworthy that the accents are so poor. This in itself seems so shallow, but it must be because no Liverpool actors would be seen to touch this film with a barge pole, or be associated with it in any way.

It reminds me of the documentary/film about Rhys Jones - just heartbreaking.

PPs have said it's 30 minutes long. Suggests to me, they've kept it extremely facutal, not embelished it in any way, or dramatised it. They could have padded it out, made it 60/90 minutes as is more conventional, but hopefully they haven't, and have stook rigidly to the transcripts. That's just speculation, though xx

ADastardlyThing · 03/01/2019 14:11

Yea prob best left there potato, as I said, perfectly happy to agree to disagree, that's what opinions are about (especially better to leave it when insults are resorted to, shows the debate has come to a close, even though I'm not debating with anyone just explaining my view and why I've formed it Confused)

Have a good day.

NameChangerAmI · 03/01/2019 14:11

Apologies for kisses - terrible habit, that! GrinBlush

Bluelady · 03/01/2019 14:25

Apparently the script is entirely based on the interview transcripts which are used verbatim. No embellishments and Lambe has explicitly said he has made no attempt to evoke sympathy. This is a massively emotive sunject which is bound to cause strong reactions and it's inevitable that some of them will be far from rational.

NameChangerAmI · 03/01/2019 14:33

Lets be honest...at base level, film, poetry, lyrics, story writing, sculpture, graffiti, etc, have always been mediums used to hit home, be thought provoking, informative, exploratory, investigatory, to make us face uncomfortable truths and messages, either through pure fiction, fact, or a mixture of both.

It has opened a debate, that even those against it are entering into.

Are those people who are against the film, but are posting on here, really any better than someone who has made a film to enlighten the public? How would Denise Bulger feel stumbling across this thread, I wonder? I don't know, but neither does anyone else.

I haven't seen the whole film, but from Fairylea's link, it seems that the film makers have not imparted their opinion or an angle on anyone, unlike us mn lot. They are portraying what happend from a new and factual perspective.

We need to be more informed as a society. This film surely highlights the potential dangers of neglect or abuse, and reminds us that these children did a monstrous series of acts, but were nonetheless children, who were once upon a time innocent, vulnerable, and who were let down massively by their families.

It's too easy to say they were born evil. This ignorance enables us to bury our heads in the sand, rather than reasses how we treat and protect vulnerable children as a society.

NameChangerAmI · 03/01/2019 14:42

And before anyone says that they were monsters, who didn't deserve to breathe, never mind be protected (which is a common thought in Liverpool,) maybe if they had been protected, they might not have done what they did.

But nobody knows!

DeepanKrispanEven · 03/01/2019 15:04

Deepan, really? So someone tells you they think coke tastes better than pepsi and they need to present the facts as to why they think that? And if you disagree they are wrong?

Thanks, Dastardly, that illustrates my point perfectly. If they have tried both coke and pepsi, their opinion will be based on facts, i.e. their perception of the respective tastes of coke and pepsi, and will be fine. But if they haven't, their opinion won't be based in fact, and will be worthless.

A bit like the opinion of someone who condemns the maker of this film without having watched even the interview, and who still feels able to proclaim that he was simpering.

VivianSmith · 03/01/2019 15:24

Has anyone read the Gitta Sereny interviews with the families of the murderers, published in the Independent at the time? Here is a link to the overarching article

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/why-did-jamie-bulger-die-1393366.html

She focuses in the article on their essential humanity, and encourages us to think about seeing this as a story of three children, not two monsters and a baby. I agree with others above who have said we have to try to understand these things, or else as a society we cannot increase the chances of it NOT happening again.

I have not seen the film or the interview so cannot comment if it adds to that understanding in any way. But I don’t think saying no one should write or explore the themes of this murder is a defensible or thoughtful position.

StepAwayFromGoogle · 03/01/2019 15:29

Nobody should make a film about child murder. Ever. That's horrific. Imagine what it will do to the parents. It's not entertainment.

ADastardlyThing · 03/01/2019 15:33

No one can prove that coke taste better than pepsi, so no facts are involved, it's subjective, that's what an opinion is (unless it's something like "the earth is flat")

simpering was prob the wrong word, I'll stick with twat. I accept people will not share my opinion of him and what I believe his intentions are (only he truly knows them) and that's cool :)

Horrormommy · 03/01/2019 15:39

they made a show about Shannon Mathews i would like to see that one

KOKOagainandagain · 03/01/2019 15:52

Wrt mri scans 'proving' psychopathy - some time ago I listened to a R4 programme where a professor of neurology had just such a scan. Guess what? His results were the same as mri scans of psychopaths. He found it rather disturbing.

As the vast majority of people never have a brain scan there is not sufficient data to support the theory that there even are 'abnormal' brain scans that can be even associated with behaviour let alone identifying the differences that somehow cause particular behaviours. Scans of criminals and non-criminals can't be differentiated.

Hence the talk of 'evil' and 'demons'. Science can't explain and so religion fills the understanding gap. If 10 year olds can't be helped because they were just born as inhuman monsters and so rehabilitation and early support is pointless, what do you suggest?

If you use hyperbolic religious language you should own it. Do you think all evil doers should be killed or should the evil demon be driven out as they have taken possession of a child? Would you be in favour of an exorcism? Beating out the Devil? Maybe a little dunking or burning at the stake?

I think we all understand the distress of private pain and grief becoming a wider public issue. If either of my DS had been killed in this way I would not have felt any less pain or grief if their killer/s had been branded as monsters and evil demons. How would that help?

NonExistentFox · 03/01/2019 15:55

theconversation.com/no-youre-not-entitled-to-your-opinion-9978

But “opinion” ranges from tastes or preferences, through views about questions that concern most people such as prudence or politics, to views grounded in technical expertise, such as legal or scientific opinions.

You can’t really argue about the first kind of opinion. I’d be silly to insist that you’re wrong to think strawberry ice cream is better than chocolate. The problem is that sometimes we implicitly seem to take opinions of the second and even the third sort to be unarguable in the way questions of taste are. Perhaps that’s one reason (no doubt there are others) why enthusiastic amateurs think they’re entitled to disagree with climate scientists and immunologists and have their views “respected.”

HTH

ADastardlyThing · 03/01/2019 15:59

That's a great article and explains far better what I'm trying to say.

Helmetbymidnight · 03/01/2019 16:06

People love this stuff- I don’t know why.

I think there is such a thing as ‘too soon’ - I thought it after the 9/11 dramas, the tsunami films and many many others. No one wants their tragedy to be entertainment.