Does nobody embezzle on tv shows anymore? Or drive drunk? Or shoplift? Or smuggle? Or mug?
Netflix offers Batman Begins at the moment, so I took the chance to re-watch it. Damn fine cinema, but I couldn't put my finger on just why the famous backstory of his parents' deaths looks odd these days. What... just a mugging? Without even an attempted rape? Or wife battery? Or battery of rapes? Thou'st much to learn about inciting thine audience!
While visiting family over the summer I caught a crime/detective show medley. Inspector Gently was inspecting raped prostitutes. Rizzoli and Isles were helping a woman righteously smite rapists from the past. Endeavor gave me brief hope with an episode where he discovers that not everything is about pedophiles... only to double back and reaffirm that yes, on second thought everything is absolutely about pedophiles. So I tried a newer show, True Detective (with an ear-catching opening sequence scored by some Leonard Cohen impersonator) which seemed at first to be about land deals with the mafia... until every single plot thread gets worked back towards poor downtrodden working girls. And where all three protagonists are initially presented as grittily imperfect, the episode tidily fell back on the woman having been abducted as a teenager presumably to be raped, so that all her faults are the fault of men.
I'm aware that shows like Gently or Morse do offer other plots... occasionally... and others like Vera do a much better job of mixing things up. But I don't think I've ever seen a crime show marathon dedicated to, say, labor union corruption or corporations cheating their employees our of their shares or pensions, or poisoning innocents by skirting environmental regulations. Or men being murdered or abused by women, at least not without those women being painted as plucky heroines striking back against cackling brutish men. (Hell, the last time I saw Misery make the rerun circuit, I think Dubbya was still in office.) If mentioned, any other crimes merely serve as segue to MALES ARE FILTHY PIGS. The only crime in the world really worth mentioning is the existence of men. The root of all evil. The original sinners. Bogey fever incarnate.
Pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain.
But maybe do note the choked, misty-eyed, ponderous air with which every show flourishes its latest rapist of the week, as if it's sighted a new continent with every single repurposed Snidely Whiplash, music scores swelling with soulful strings as the heroine finds her strength within - no matter what any MAN has to say! You can practically see the writers gasp in revelation at the shock and awe they expect to inspire, puffing themselves up with the flatfootedly rebellious attitude of third graders who've just discovered curse words.
This despite the fact Law and Order: Special Victims Unit is on track to become the longest-running series on television, outlasting the original despite severly limiting its source material. The more cynical among us might even spot a political platform that's been built up by network owners, to be cashed in at election time by promises of supplying a fabricated demand. In that respect, really, the hot topic could be everything... but one motivation never suffers from viewer fatigue, one justification for retribution never ceases to inflame audiences, from Helen of Troy to the Lifetime Channel. Evil men threaten women. We never get tired of hearing about it: those other men out there are always looking to besmirch The Lady's honor. Kill them for it or die trying. Prove your worth.
You'd think at some point, after a certain number of episodes, of series, of decades, of Lifetimes, the sheer obsessive weight of demonization of men and glorification of women, going uncontested generation after generation, might throw some doubt as to its own verisimilitude or necessity.
And hey, I won't deny some of these propaganda pieces can even be good work within their field. Blade Runner 2049 or Fury Road provided some quality cinematography. Then again, by all accounts so did Leni Riefenstahl.
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