To think some crimes should not be turned into a drama

[Mtngfres]

Flicking through Netflix and came across 'Maxine'. Realised to my horror that it was a true crime drama about Maxine Carr and the Soham murders 20 years ago. Think it was on TV last year but never heard about it.

I actually felt quite sick and no way I would be able to watch it.

I have watched True crime dramas in the past - The Sixth commandment for example was well done and you could tell it had been done with information and consent of families too. It was still hard to watch.

However, Crime dramas about child murder that many of us still remember on the news just feels too much. Not sure what consent was obtained from victim families either but it just feels wrong to dramatise.

I know it's all about viewing figures though and people always watch these programmes so I won't be surprised if they dramatise other terrible crimes that are best left alone.

Maxine Carr didn't kill those children. Unlike someone like, say Myra Hindley, she had no hand in their actual murders. She was in a coercively controlling relationship with Huntley and I would expect that the drama is focused on her perspective of Ian Huntley and what happened. Their jail terms reflected their respective levels of involvement.

And i say that as someone who was professionally involved in the case.

I don’t listen to any true crime now or I try very hard not too. It’s a morally dubious genre imo. Imagine thinking milly dowlers murder is a great subject for a podcast 😥

"Maxine" did a good job of portraying Huntley as the coercive lying scum he was. It certainly didn't glorify him.

It actually focused on Maxine Carr and her involvement ,it wasn't in anyway glamorous I watch a lot of true crime and thought it was well done
There are already lots of documentaries about the Soham murders .
I have also recently watched the long Shadow and The Reckoning and thought they were well done too ,these types of programs are always going to.be sensitive because of the nature of them.

And yet there are whole channels dedicated to true crime so there must be an awful lot of ghouls out there.

My dd is studying Criminology at university as are many other people. If people weren’t interested in these sorts of things our justice system wouldn’t have people wanting to work in it, which wouldn’t be good for society. Ultimately people want to understand these events, the people behind them. It’s actually really normal to be interested in true crime. Mumsnet seems to have some weird attitude about it all.

It's human nature to be interested in True Crime.

From a purely evolutionary perspective, we learn from these situations, so to admonish someone and make them feel ashamed of having an interest in them is so wrong.

There's a reason True Crime podcasts, shoes and books are so popular, and it's not because the vast majority are 'ghoulish', it's because we are curious and for good reason.

On a very basic level we are looking to stop the same things from happening to ourselves and our families and we do that by gathering as much information as possible and educating ourselves on the warning signs.

Shows not shoes!

I am in a similar mind regarding the drama 'The Long Shadow'. Many of the facts are being scotched over and the real truth is in there somewhere but maybe it just does not make good telly (the truth) so they improvise and make the victims look weak when they were real people who deserve better than a dramatical twist on the actual facts.
What that man did and the way the police dealt with it compounding the misogyny was almost a double act in itself. Dramas like this reduce people to nothing and people tend to look upon these TV re-enactments as gospel when they are far removed from any truth that I can see here.

On a very basic level we are looking to stop the same things from happening to ourselves and our families and we do that by gathering as much information as possible and educating ourselves on the warning signs.

Im not convinced about this or at least the argument you can learn from it. What can you learn? dont get into cars with strangers, don’t wear an expensive watch, etc are all things most people know without watching a TC doc.
Most people are murdered by someone they know for one.

"On a very basic level we are looking to stop the same things from happening to ourselves and our families and we do that by gathering as much information as possible and educating ourselves on the warning signs."
Really? I don't actually agree with this. I think this is just post hoc justification.

You are all on a thread about a true crime drama. You’re interested! It’s no good primly calling other people ‘ghouls’ - we are fascinated by crime.

And that’s rightly so because it has a huge impact on us emotionally and socially, tapping into deep instincts.

There was a thread here about the Maxine drama at the time it came out, peppered with posters telling others they were disgusting for watching it.

Well I expect they'll be very many viewers tuning in to watch a Lucy Letby documentary in the future.

I like to watch true crime but I'm an insensitive soul anyway. I don't get shocked or upset over things.

There was a documentary focusing on a 16 year old girl from my area who got murdered by her aunt's boyfriend. The murder was in 2020, and the TV programme is on Netflix called 'A Killer In My Village'.

It caused all sorts of drama on our local Facebook page about whether to watch it or not out of respect for the family.

I.assume they will.have.to.ask.the families permission?
About 30/years ago.there was an horrific murder local to me it went unsolved for many years and the killer was only caught by chance
Earlier this year it was dramatized on how they caught the killer
Lots of people including me watch true crime programs
Clearly there is a fascination shared by many hence all crime channels etc.

I do think at least part of the fascination with crime is this guilty shifty sense that we ‘shouldn’t’ be enjoying it (or entertained by it) yet we are.

Many crimes are pivotal in sociological terms. The Soham murders were in terms of child protection and were probably the start of seeing teens in relationships with older men as victims of sexual abuse and not sluts, although it wasn’t until the late 2010s that really changed. If you look at what happened to Arlene Arkinson in NI in the 90s and Hannah Williams in Kent it shows pretty starkly what attitudes were once.

Crime is history in action. I don’t think there’s anything as raw and real as crime for showing what things were like once, especially for women and girls.

Yanbu

YANBU Op, I think the BBC has a brass neck producing this Savile drama for content when they turned a blind eye to his antics for years. Not watching it, surely everyone knows enough about him already?

@Rosiem2808 yes I know what you mean about the Long Shadow too, the family of murdered victim Yvonne Pearson refused to cooperate/ objected to the show, so she was not featured and replaced with a fictional character.
However as@Hereinthismoment says I do agree that some crimes are pivotal sociological moments, and history in action . I think many young people now would struggle to comprehend the level of sexism and misogyny in the UK in the 70s, and the Long Shadow portrays this well imo. Aldo Police detecting operations were radically overhauled follow the conviction of Peter Sutcliffe
It is a difficult area though, especially when the artistic licence muddies the waters, and some people take these dramas as entirely factual.

No. It doesn’t cover the actual murder at all.

They did ask permission but the mum and step dad said no but the girl's real dad agreed despite not having much involvement in her life.

How far do you take that? Can we not watch, say, any of Shakespeare's history plays because they feature actual deaths and murders? If we can watch those, how do you define the cut-off point?

I have never watched any real-life crime drama or watched/listen to podcasts.

Think the women who watch this shit (I believe it's mostly women) are sick individuals.

Now after being all high and mighty I must admit to coincidently watching Maxine last night. Don't know why, just couldn't find anything else at just let it play. I watched all 3 episodes and I can see why some people get into it. It appears to give a deeper insight into the crime. I'd missed from the original tragedy that Hinley had already been accused of rape of young girls.

Anyway all the way though I was thinking, did the parents agree to this? And the hypocrisy of the show slagging off the red tops when the programme was using those families misery to make money too, blew my mind!

No I'd never watch another true crime drama. But I'm guessing there's going to a lot more. :(

I hate that she's out and has a kid and family. She knew exactly what she was doing when she was cleaning up and lying.

She obviously wasn't that afraid of him if she was snogging other men. Reading some of the abused women's posts on here, and the constant fear they are under, I doesn't compute with me that she would risk doing that.

So you accidentally watched all.three episodes but have the audacity to call other people who watch true crime sick individuals
What a,Hypocrite

"If you watch any of these you’re a ghoul. " oh purlease. There are loads and loads of films, documentaries, programmes, series about crime.