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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:
DitzyPrints · 04/01/2019 18:43

Augusta such a shame HQ deleted your very informative post with all the links - they were very eye opening. Sad state of affairs that so much sympathy is aimed in the wrong direction- my sympathy is with James and the Bulger family. Absolutely heartbreaking and to have lazy and cowardly filmmakers exploit their tragedy without even having the decency to inform them first is beyond low.

Vitalogy · 04/01/2019 19:05

Well said TornFromTheInside

mikado1 · 04/01/2019 19:10

Tornfromtheinside you've said everything that I feel. That, imo, is the crux of it all.

Helmetbymidnight · 04/01/2019 19:10

What happened was horrific. Trying to understand why seems futile, but we must try

And you don’t think there are any other ways to understand why children kill than a drama based on this specific case?

I just...I’m disappointed at the lack of imagination and empathy here.

TornFromTheInside · 04/01/2019 19:20

And you don’t think there are any other ways to understand why children kill than a drama based on this specific case?

I do not know the film makers motives any more than you do. But books have been written, documentaries shown, radio programs aired, websites detailing, debates held... is a drama any less valid?

It may be mawkish, informative, thought-provoking or morbid - perhaps all of these things. We shall just have to wait and see.

mikado1 · 04/01/2019 19:22

People's sympathy and empathy can be with James and his family, while still feeling that the two boys were not simply 'evil demons'. It is much more complex than that.

TornFromTheInside · 04/01/2019 19:27

We've had tremendous dramas about Hillsborough, terrorism, suicide and more. If they help us to think, inspire us to change or be more aware... then I would hope that is a good thing.

I can't say for certain that any drama will be a good or a bad thing (who can?) - drama is a tool which can be used to various ends depending on the motives and skills of the producers.

NonExistentFox · 04/01/2019 19:28

Humanise two cold blooded killers?

Are there any hot-blooded killers in tabloid land?

TornFromTheInside · 04/01/2019 19:32

I agree Mikado. That is not to say I am an apologist for Thompson or Venables - I just think we can, and should always ask 'ok, so how did we get from an infant child to one who carries out such a terrible act.

Venables and Thompson didn't think it all up out of nowhere. They'd seen, they had heard, they had felt things in the years leading up to that day. Those things shaped them.

TornFromTheInside · 04/01/2019 19:35

The two killers were human, they weren't humanised.

They were humans turned killers, not the other way around.
If they were truly 'born' to be killers - then they had no say in their fate.
If they became killers, how did they become such?

DitzyPrints · 04/01/2019 19:35

Yes but the film doesn’t offer any other insight into their home life outside of the parents behaviour at the police interviews. The transcript of those (bar the ones withheld) have been in the public domain for years. So the film offers no more insight into the killers backgrounds than what we already know.

Helmetbymidnight · 04/01/2019 19:37

People's sympathy and empathy can be with James and his family, while still feeling that the two boys were not simply 'evil demons'. It is much more complex than that.

Well obviously, but feeling sympathy and empathy for the victims family and going to watch a drama they didn’t have any say in, and object to?
Well it’s up to you.

mikado1 · 04/01/2019 19:43

But without knowing who is going to watch it, people are saying anyone who's not in the 'evil demons' corner, is not sympathetic/empathetic towards the Bulger family and is seen to be sympathising and prioritising JV and RT.

Many people go through difficult times and get through, even rise above. Many do not, for whatever reason. So the idea that 'lots had the same upbringing just doesn't touch the complexity of the human condition.

PhilomenaButterfly · 04/01/2019 19:45

As much as I want to agree with you Torn, I think the similarity in James's and DS1's ages (James would be 6 months older), makes me too emotionally involved in this to be able to watch the new film.

Helmetbymidnight · 04/01/2019 19:51

I understand the hillsborough drama was made with corporation and indeed collaboration with families involved though- That’s quite different.

Bluelady · 04/01/2019 20:03

It isn't different at all.

PrickWhittington · 04/01/2019 20:07

I’m not sure how I feel about this tbh. I feel a bit disgusted at how he didn’t contact the family ‘in case they said no’. My eldest DH was a few months younger than James when this happened. Knowing what she has missed out on and had taken away as well as all the pain she must have been through makes my heart ache for her.

OTOH, knowing just how young and immature my DS’s were aged 10 makes me feel a bit uncomfortable with some of the hatred that was directed at the boys who did is (as children, not what crimes they may have committed as adults).

I’m not convinced psychopaths aren’t born evil either. It isn’t true to say they ALL come from abusive backgrounds. We are not all capable of feeling every emotion, so why is it so unfeasible to think that someone could be born without a conscience?

I’d also be interested in knowing why, as an American, he chose this particular case, and not one of the countless ones committed in his own deeply dysfunctional society?

Helmetbymidnight · 04/01/2019 20:07

Empathy eh. Who needs it.

TornFromTheInside · 04/01/2019 20:10

Yes but the film doesn’t offer any other insight into their home life outside of the parents behaviour at the police interviews. The transcript of those (bar the ones withheld) have been in the public domain for years. So the film offers no more insight into the killers backgrounds than what we already know.

They have, but transcripts don't aways convey everything - much like the Taylor report (as good as it was) could never hit home like the docu-drama 'Hillsborough'. I think the two go hand in hand sometimes - at least they do with a good drama.

For many of us, it's in recent memory, for others it's more than a lifetime ago (anybody under 25). So the perspective between two viewers can be very different.
When you read of the account of the boys legs not being able to touch the floor after sitting on a chair, or when you actually hear their interviews, it lends something that the transcripts alone can't.

Some of the officers involved at the time recall just how unprepared they were for how young they were. It's one thing to know the age, it's another to realise they barely reached hip height of some officers.

Their interviews were those of streetwise kids - quick answers and immediately blaming each other, at the same time no real sense of the gravity of what they'd done. You can barely imagine the conflict of emotions the officers and even the press must have had. A good drama will reflect that. A bad one won't.

Personally, I can only hope it helps people to grasp how desperately sad the whole damn thing is / was. How even society itself wasn't sure how to handle things. New precedents in law occurred as a result. Arguably, mistakes were made in how we dealt with them.

Plenty in society then and now, would have been willing to make it three deaths instead of one. I don't know what that says about us, but it's a good thing we keep questioning what it says.

mikado1 · 04/01/2019 20:14

PrickWhittington I thought someone said he was Irish, up thread.

PrickWhittington · 04/01/2019 20:14

Well, there’s certainly a lot more who could do with some Helmetbymidnight.. that’s for sure. That’s directed at society in general btw, not anyone on here.

BartholinsSister · 04/01/2019 20:17

It would be interesting to hear how the killers' siblings turned out, and their perspectives.

TornFromTheInside · 04/01/2019 20:19

I’m not convinced psychopaths aren’t born evil either.

We don't know. It doesn't seem like they are, but they could very well be predisposed to certain behaviours.
However, there are quite a number of 'pairs' of murderers who came together, and that also seems to be a contributing factor in some cases. Hindley and Brady is a classic example.

And if they are predisposed to be killers, why are they? what genetic traits do they have that cause this? and if such traits exist, where is there an extremely low prevalence of such things 'running in the family?'

I'm more in favour of the view that some people are just more prone to being affected by environment. Abusers have often been abused. It's not by chance. We don't understand the mechanics of it all, but we can just about figure there's some sort of connection...

mikado1 · 04/01/2019 20:21

I think you're being unfair, if facetious, Helmetbymidnight, I'm sure many here, that you're assuming have no empathy, have plenty, but it's not limitless, and it can extend to wondering desperately what happened to result in those two children taking, so viciously, the lives of an innocent little boy.

mikado1 · 04/01/2019 20:23

I suppose we'll never know Bartholinssister, I assume they can never tell anyone, including by anonymous letter, say, who they are. That's a massive strain on them too, to carry for life. We don't know if they too committed horrific crimes.