Serial Killers

[poliphilo]

Silence of the Lambs was OK. Se7en was passable. But since then the weirdo serial killer has been done to death.

As a genre, the serial killer murder mystery is as artificial as Agatha Christie. Real life serial killers don't take their inspiration from the Book of Leviticus (or whatever.) They don't pit their enormous intellects against the police.

Real life serial killers are demented low-lifes. Psychopaths as brilliant as Hannibal Lecter is supposed to be don't go on killing sprees; they set up their own businesses or go into politics.

Comments

[cataptromancer.livejournal.com]

Brings to mind what the Sandman tells the convention of serial killers in my favourite issue:

“And you, you that call yourself collectors. Until now you have all sustained fantasies in which you are the maltreated heroes of your own stories. Comforting daydreams in which, ultimately, you are shown to be in the right. No more. For all of you, the dream is over. I have taken it away. For this is my judgment on you: that you shall know, at all times, and forever, exactly what you are. And you shall know just how little that means.”

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I like that.

We mythologise serial killers- and they don't deserve it; They are all of them poor, ragged, stupid, fatuous specimens of humanity.

[cataptromancer.livejournal.com]

I agree. Calling someone a 'monster' not only obfuscates the human motivations that explain behavior, but gives a power to the 'monster' that he or she otherwise wouldn't have. We shouldn't mythologise genocidal dictators either.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

No more monsters means no more heroes either- but I can live with that.