There is a lot of heat and attention on local and cable news about a woman named Casey Anthony’s who is on trial in Orange County, FL for murder. Link
My query is: why should I care about this case, in contrast with any of the other horrible murder cases being tried throughout the country at any given point in time.
Hell, I’m following it and I’m in Canada!
You shouldn’t be interested. No one should be interested. I live in Orange County and my reaction when I see a headline about the case is, “It’s not over yet?”
About the only types of criminal cases that will hold my sustained interest are things like Wikileaks.
True crime can be interesting and this one has a bizarre twist in it. Some people like football, some like court trials, some like the Jonas Brothers. Only the latter can be said to be wrong.
As a murder case, it’s actually somewhat interesting. As a missing child case, it wasn’t, but the media coverage was a direct consequence of America’s fascination with missing white girls.
Moving to IMHO from GQ.
Colibri
You should care because Nancy Grace says so.
Don’t you get it? A beautiful white girl was killed by a beautiful white woman!!
QFT.
From what I can tell based on a few minutes of watching HLN, it is not only the most important trial of all time, but the most critical event happening anywhere in the world. It may actually be the most momentous, thrilling, and complex thing that has ever happened in the history of mankind—nay, the universe—or ever shall, until the end of time. AMEN.
It’s not just this case. I’ve just about given up watching the news because, despite the fact that we are involved in two wars and there are other upheavals across the globe, the news seems to be one fluff piece after another. I’ve just about decided that if it is not on The Daily Show or The Colbert Report, I just don’t need to know about it.
I decided to keep up with it because of all her lying. To boldly lie like she did, when her child was supposedly missing and she kept intentionally leading police on wild goose chases, deserves punishment, in addition to what she’ll receive for killing Caylee. I’m here to watch that and hope they make her squirm like crazy.
Related comedy video clip.
http://comedians.jokes.com/patrice-o-neal/videos/patrice-o-neal---valuable-life
For the OP in question, I think some folks are going to be fascinated with the idea that a mother could even think of killing their beautifull little child. Inconceivable! (I’ve even seen folks state that this automatically qualifies her for the insanity defense.) So they follow the story, hoping to understand how such a thing happens, and what the “warning signs” are.
I did a quick google on Casey Anthony and turned up some pictures. Yep, she’s a hottie as the link below will show. But it’s the article under the picture that I find interesting. Who, or what, could have concocted that?
I think we need a new Godwin’s-style law that says that in any thread involving any sensationalized murder case, someone will inevitably say that it’s because the person involved is white (thereby implying that bad, bad, eeeevil raaaaaayyyycist America only cares about bad shit when it happens to white people and not anybody else.)
I had very little interest in the case until yesterday, when reading about that “The fuck?!” about face defense strategy made me take interest. That’s just… bizarre and interesting.
But there are more than one missing white girl in the universe. Why is this particular little white girl so newsworthy?
So is it because they’re pretty? Are all the other murders among white people committed by the ugly?
Ah. Fair enough.
Edit: Argent Towers, shut up.
It’s true that the media only cares about pretty white girls. Sorry, but that’s the way it is. They’re trying to sell soap.
A few years ago, we had a case in Minnesota where an unidentified mother and her baby were found beheaded and dumped in a ditch. Totally bizarre case. No one knew who they were or who did it. It got a little local media coverage, but not that much because they were black. There was a candle light vigil attended mostly by black people. As far as I know, the case is still unsolved. If they’d been white, it would have been national news, would have gotten saturation media coverage and would have been a top law enforcement priority. They were black, though, so the media didn’t give a shit. No ratings in it.
ETA, and when’s the last time you saw the media go bananas over a missing black or Hispanic kid? Or an ugly or fat white kid, for that matter? The media is driven bi pictures, and pretty white girls make better pictures (in their minds) than ugly kids or black kids.
Personally, though, I think that if the media played up stories about black kids/fat kids, whatever, the audience would become just as engrossed, maybe even more so.
LOL! I’ll shut up when people stop bringing up the same tired old racial bullshit! Why should I be the one taken to task when I’m only responding to someone else who started with the whole “the media only cares about white people” horse shit?