I just saw a preview for an upcoming episode. The lead was "The reason he kills is beyond twisted." And it is bound to show yet another psychopathic individual committing violent street crimes.
As shown in the book, this helps create misconceptions about who is dangerous, and also about what actually motivates people to commit violence. It fits in perfectly with the media's focus on individual level motivations rather than structural or societal motivations, too.
Watch the full episodes here:
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/criminal_minds/
Just beware though that none of this nonsense is accurate or informative. It is merely meant to entertain. What people, I ask--other than criminal justice students of course--are entertained by random murder of human beings by violent strangers?
The "hook" for this coming episode is: "The reason he kills is beyond twisted."
Is it reasonable to conclude that people who watch this stuff are also twisted?
Well of course I feel the need to comment on this because it is my favorite show as I shared in class. This episode actually did not involve a psychopathic killer with a mental illness but rather a man that had escaped from prison and was seeking revenge on one of the members of the team for putting him away years ago. I'll admit the majority of shows portray serial killers as being crazy psychopaths; however many of the shows are based off of real cases or at least different parts of cases. This show to me is a lot more realistic than CSI which is why I have stopped watching that show. The cast is great which is another reason why I think people enjoy it so much. So I would say that it is very unreasonable to conclude that the viewers are twisted- I'd say I'm pretty normal. It's no more twisted to watch this than it is to play violent video games where you're constantly killing civilians and running them over with cars.
ReplyDeleteIn Chapter eight, Criminal Minds is described as a crime and crime fighting genre show that is purely entertainment. Shows like Criminal Minds are filled with inaccuracies. In Chapter eight, programs like this one show distorted viewpoints of criminals, law enforcement, the criminal justice system and crime. The public's lack of knowledge about such topics may lead them to believe that police officers have action filled careers, that criminals don't get apprehended often, that crime is usually violent in nature and that minorities are usually the ones to commit crime. Unfortunately, these shows are continuously being ran because the public will watch them. Apparently, shows about murder and violence are appealing to viewers.
ReplyDeleteThese shows may be filled with tons of inaccuracies and create misconceptions about crime but they are so addicting. Fridays are my favorite day due to the almost all day Criminal Minds marathon on A&E every week. I think that people realize that serial killers aren't as common as these shows would lead one to believe since there are not news stories every week about mass murders. Unlike CSI this show does nothing with forensic evidence meaning that no misconceptions would be created about how the police can observe evidence, making it in my opinion the lesser of the crime drama evils.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother watch's Criminal Minds all the time. I never really was big on the show until one day as I walking past a episode and the show caught my attention. The whole episode was about a deviant man who lured innocent women in giving him large amounts of money and then he would kill them. As I was sitting there watching the show, I realized that although a incident of this nature may occur, generally how many women would voluntarily give a strange man large amounts of money. I would not. Indeed, the show was entertaining but it could create misconceptions for a viewer who has never come in contact with criminality before. Especially for a women. Many times shows that talk about crime never really give complete and accurate information. They leave out the information that these kinds of acts dont generally happen.
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