I got to wondering after reading on IMDB that American Psycho II features a girl who survived Bateman and finds herself developing “an unhealthy obsession with serial killers.”
I am certain that many of us here have been at least interested in their unpleasant multiple shenanigans, and I’m equally sure that more than a few of us will have spent long hours readings up on ghastly details. What I don’t understand is how we justify this to ourselves. Until I read the AP2 review I never even questioned the fact that people, me included, are genuinely enraptured by these nutcases.
Mind you, I still carry a can of mace in case I ever meet anyone responsible for Se7en, so I may not be thinking straight here.
SERIAL KILLING IS A BAD THING. IT IS TO BE AVOIDED.
I think you have to look at the words “unhealthy” and “obsession” in this case. Unhealthy obsessions are bad in any case, regardless of whether the object of the obessed person’s attention is a serial killer or scotty dogs.
I find the study of serial killers to be, while sometimes grusome, to be a very interesting look in to the darkest side of the human being - the places that you’d never go yourself, but can become quite fascinated with, nonetheless.
You look at Jeffrey Dahmer, for instance. Reading up on his insanities, you just have to marvel at how someone can become so totally twisted and still be able to function in daily life.
John Wayne Gacey (sp?) buried little boys under his house. Now on the face of it, yes it’s gruesome, horrible and worse. But when you read up on his crimes, you begin to notice that he had somehow come to see this kind of thing as average and normal - almost like he figured everyone did this. Again, you just have to marvel at what the mind can do to itself and still allow the person to get up in the morning and brush their teeth.
Even though we don’t ever want to admit it to ourselves, these guys give us that little bit of internal license that we need to indulge, however slightly, the dark, sadistic urges that flow in all of us. As far as I’m concerned, people’s fascination with serial killers, murderers, mad rulers bent on genocide and so forth is just an extreme version of the same impulse that makes us slow down to look at a terrible car wreck on the freeway.
So should I rent “Ed Gein” or not? Half of me wants to see people get their brains pulled out with fishing hooks - sorry, I mean reflect meaningfully on the implications for my own place in society of people getting their brains pulled out with fishing hooks - but the other half is saying “Ross, man, this is not like watching Fame. We’re in a different area here.”
What I mean is, do we define “healthy” as what’s right or what’s normal? I know we all like seeing car wrecks but is this desire ever really more than ghoulish? And shouldn’t we, like, try to not be ghoulish?
No, you shouldn’t. Not because it’s gruesome, but because the movie isn’t very good. Recall that Ed was really only accused of killing two people; for the most part, he dug up the recently-dead and defiled their bodies in various ways.
So, no pulling out brains with hooks. If, on the other hand, you want to see a box full of noses, a man wearing a woman’s skin dancing in the moonlight, and a woman strung up in a barn like a deer being bled dry…well, what the heck, rent it.
As for “is it right to be interested in serial killers”…well, as long as it’s just an interest in the information, I don’t see any harm in it, any more than reading murder mysteries or even war stories. If you’re reading about them because you’re looking for ideas, however…
The Ed Gein movie is pretty darned accurate from what I can tell, but it’s also pretty boring. I mean, as boring as a movie about a guy who makes soup bowls from skulls and lamps from human skin can be. Rent it if you’re interested in the subject, but if you’re looking just for entertainment rent something else.
I have found serial killers to be an incredibly fascinating subject. However, I focus more on the motives. Why did they do what they did? The gory aspects come into play when I try to figure out what made them do each one.
Jim Jones wasn’t a serial killer, but he was a mass-murderer. I’ve always found that story spellbinding because to me, it illustrates how personal charisma can hypnotize lots of people, and then you’d better hope that The Leader isn’t evil, cuz if he is… well, we saw what happened in Guyana.
I’ve read tons on the subject of J.J. for this reason. If this makes me a sociopath, so be it.
Is there such a thing as a healthy fascination with serial killers?
An early fascination with the study of murder and murderers (I started getting John Douglas books for Christmas at 14) resulted in my earning a criminology degree. I find criminal behavior (especially psychopathy/antisocial personality disorders) fascinating; the complex psychological motivations and methods of serial/mass murderers can make the study of their crimes even more engrossing than that of more average, mundane murderers (not to be flippant). I believe if a person is actually interested in the academic study of these murderers and remembers to recognize and empathize with the victims involved, there is absolutely nothing unhealthy with such a fascination.
I still say the majority of people gobbling up serial killer info are interested in the academic side precisely insofar as it might enable them to see brains getting pulled out with fish hooks. I know I am.
The study of these people is important to try and understand them, of course. But I’m not sure we should be selling popcorn.
You know most people can seperate fantasy killings from real ones. Killing in film is not real. So are movies where only one person is killed ok? What about two, if it’s not serial killing? If you are uncomfortable with movies about serial killers don’t go. But if you think I shouldn’t see movies about serial killers because you are uncomfortable with them you had better be my mom,(and about 20 years in the past) otherwise you don’t stand much of a chance of stopping me.
I think ** Romola ** summed it up perfectly.
I have read literally hundreds of books on the psychology of serial killers because I find them totally fascinating.
(& maybe also because 3 of my last 4 girlfriends have been psychologists, and I wanted to keep up in the conversations).
You don’t have to talk to me like that, I’m only trying to raise a question. I thought that was the point of this place. It’s not my fault if your only justification is “you can’t stop me”. What are you, fourteen?
I appreciate your point about one death versus many, but what interests me is whether or not we’re just creating a kind of a guilt-free colosseum show for ourselves. Killings in films about real serial murderers are not strictly fantasy either; they’re kind of tarted up Crimewatch reconstructions.
In this post it seems to me that you think this type of filmed entertainment should be banned. Basically because you don’t like it. Most the films about serial killers are about fictional ones. The movies about real killers are getting fewer and farther between because you have to get permission from all involved and clear other legal hurdles so by far serial killer movies are fiction.
What is wrong with the guilt free colosseum? The fact that there is no guilt?
You basic question is can there be an ok obsession with serial killers.
Well obsession by definition is not very good.
However an interest in serial killers. Reading books about Jack the Ripper, or Son of Sam or the Zodiac, seeing movies like Silence of the Lambs etc. There is nothing wrong with that. Even if this is the only type of book or movie a person likes it’s fine. If a person is unable to discuss any topic but serial killers then you might have a problem.
(btw, If you would have to be my mother 20 years in the past to dictate my movie choices it would be kind of hard for me to be fourteen. Incidentally you still seem like a censor to me)
I’m no doctor, but I would say there can be a healthy interest in just about anything. Face it, serial killers are kind of interesting. They do shit that is not normal, and studying the motivation and methods is interesting. You don’t have to get into the gory details of everything they did, you don’t have to look at pictures, but you can still be interested. Bob Ballard has made a career out of a fascination of the tragic, unknown, interesting (Titanic, Bismarck, others)
Zebra, what on earth is your problem? What makes you think I have any interest at all in what you watch?
I realise you’re not actually fourteen, of course. If you were, the frantic defensiveness of your post, and the utter blindness to my intentions in the OP, would be forgiveable. Even your bizarre style of unsupported argument ("… and there is nothing wrong with that") would suit a fourteen year-old pretty well. Unfortunately it seems you’re of voting age.
I enjoy these films, understand? That’s why I wanted to invite people to help me understand MY taste. You’re getting me angry and that’s not what I wanted to happen in here at all. Why do you have to come on like I’m your enemy?
gatopescado, I take your point. I still wonder why they’re interesting though. Why was my favourite bit of Titanic the guy falling the length of the boat, hitting a bench and spinning the rest of the way down? Because it was cool… but why was that bit any cooler than the rest?
Are you more worried that victims of serial murderers are being exploited, or that you are (emotionally) aroused by violence (like any other human)? I described my “healthy fascination with serial killers” as the academic interest in the motivations and methods of serial killers while you seem to be drawn to the more lurid aspects of serial murder (i.e. enjoying witnessing via a movie “brains getting pulled out with fish hooks” ). But while your interest differs from my own, as long as you’re not actually interested in committing violence, I wouldn’t describe your fascination as “unhealthy” or deviant, so have at it.
Ross I’m am not frantically defensive about me posts.
Your post read to me that serial killers should be studied by professionals but not shown in movies. ‘we should’nt be selling popcorn’ This set off my censor alarm. Your posts to me seem to say that you didn’t like this sort of entertainment.
There is a similar thread right not call “Am I a sociopath”
It is quite normal to be facinated with things that are outside your range of abilites. Either watching a program about astronauts, who do things one could never do, or watching a program about a killer, which is something I’m pretty sure I’ll never do is not at all abnormal in any way. Society, and you a little, likes to put value judgements on everything. So ‘they’ (the ever opressive they) would like you to watch astronauts and not like you to watch serial killers. This is BS. ‘They’ may have you think ‘this is so wrong’ but in reality there is nothing abnormal about it.
Yes I am someone who has read books about serial killers and enjoy ‘those’ movies with glee. Yes a long time ago I was told by ‘them’ that there was something wrong with me for doing so. I have since learned otherwise. (from a professional so my arguements are not totally without merit) I imagine that as you watch Titanic you wonder to yourself ‘what would I do’. The answere is probably perish so you wonder ‘how’. That is one possible reason you are facinated with the spetacular deaths portrayed in the film. (because we all would want our death to be cool)
Being interested in death and dying is not abnormal. It actually healthy to consider your own mortality and the mortality of others as long as you don’t obsess over it.
So it seems to me Ross that we got started on the wrong foot. (as long as you really don’t want to stop these movies because I like them too)