Serial Killers as Heroes in Popular Culture
“When asked to justify the extremely sadistic nature of his murders, Doe replies: “If you want to people to pay attention, Detective, you can’t just tap them on the shoulder anymore. You have to hit them with a sledgehammer. Then you’ll find you have their strict attention. ” This is a prime example as to why the media can get, and keep the attention of their audience when it comes to being a serial killer. The media feels that the more people see of a particular crime, the less they are inclined to go out and commit heinous crimes.
On the other hand, it could be that they just need the ratings to keep their show going and they really do not care what their audience is looking at or how it makes them feel. The media in my opinion only care about their ratings and how many viewers they have. The media should focus more of the energy on the victims and what was taken, rather than focusing on the killer or killers. During this week we watch Natural born Killers, and I thought that this movie showed every aspect as to why the focus should not be on the killers.
Who in their right mind would decide to do a live taping of an interview with a serial killer, and then decide to let the prisoners view the taping. This shows that the producers only cared about the ratings. They did not have to agree with the request, but they did not want to lose their number 1 reporter either. They put their ratings and sponsors above their audience and a lot of people lost their lives, all because someone higher up thought it was ok to do a live show with a serial killer.
In my mind I am thinking, this man is not the president or anything so why should he get all the attention. Why someone of this nature should even be allowed to see the light of day. Why, because we as society crave that energy that is sent from the screen to our living rooms. We want to feel sorry for the killers because it’s in our nature to think that maybe this person could have been saved, or that they were truly wronged somewhere in their life.
I truly do think that the prisoners viewing the show as it aired played a big part in the major riot that occurred. I am not saying that it could not have happened at any other time, but in this case with everything that was going on, this was the wrong time to allow prisoners access to this particular show. The media puts too much information out there for anybody to see, and society is the one who ends up suffering the consequences.
