Take the drama Dexter, which has aired it’s final episode in late September – now Dexter is scientist for the police and is also a serial killer who kills murder’s and other psychos in his spare time. Dexter’s creator Jeff Lindsay, who in a 2011 interview said that he was concerned about people getting the wrong idea about his protagonist. "Some believe that Dexter cares about justice. Dexter doesn't care about justice, he cares about killing… he’s dangerous.” Yet the comments on the online transcript of the interview tend to ignore the message with one poster saying he idolised the protagonist, saying that he had a code and only killed other serial killers. “because he has a code that makes us feel better about him [doesn’t change things]. He’s not nice.” This is where I put a red alert - if he was a character on any other crime show on commercial television he would have been arrested and jailed within 45 minutes; or possibly spread out to a double episode if producers wanted to heighten the drama. But real life doesn’t have a set of producers; they don’t get to decide how the story ends. What about Dexter’s wife and son? What about the wives and sons of people he killed? What about their story? Dexter is not in the boat alone. Breaking Bad follows a terminally ill chemistry teacher Walt and his partner Jesse as they enter the world of making crystal meth. I will give it to the cast and crew, they do their best to keep it accurate, with former criminals saying unpalatable events from the show, such as dissolving bodies in acid, are common place with international drug cartels; which in comparison make the Mafia look like Catholic schoolboys. Closer to home the first season of Underbelly was banned in Victoria as they didn’t want the potential jury pool to be influenced by storytellers. Carl Williams, his associates and the rest of Melbourne’s crime families become instant celebrities and secret underworld meetings and their politics and methods became public knowledge. The public couldn’t get enough of them and it was all the talk around the water cooler the next day. Yet, these were not some fictional characters dreamt up out of the blue – these real events, these were cold-blooded killers who cause havoc on our streets without any thought of who might get caught in the crossfire. But why do we even have this issue in the first place? Why is our society so enthralled with stories of criminals and their exploits? Is it because we want an outlet from our normal, mainstream life and this looks dangerous and exciting? Is it something about a bad boy turning us on? Is it a sign that our culture is being psychologically fractured and morally degraded by crime and violence and we are looking for meaning in fiction? Or is it as simple as the fact that we came from a penal colony where something in our subconscious tells us to root for the bad guy? My sister’s boyfriend goes one step further – it’s a place where we can channel our anger (after all who hasn’t had a bad day and wanted to kill someone?) and other primal emotions. It reminds us that life’s not fair with having to hit us over the head with it. In some weird way there are parts of the characters we empathise with because they are flawed individuals who contend with the human experience and make decisions every episode. Other than that, it provides great television and a break from the mindless wave of reality television.
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You've brought up some really interesting points here! I hadn't noticed how many of these sorts of shows there are out there until you mentioned them - and the shows you mentioned are hugely popular! I myself love shows with characters who are deep and not perfect, but I find it hard to watch a show (or read a book) when I don't like the protagonist. I wonder if I'm in the minority?
ReplyDeleteI doubt you're in the boat alone - I agree with you, if you don't relate or like the characters it's hard to watch and 9/10 people switch off
ReplyDeleteI think that the anti-hero has long been a fixture in a lot of popular culture. Everyone needs a relatable bad guy - either so they can love to hate him, so he can provide hooks for the story, or even just so he can reflect the things that make the hero different - or the same. It's all got to do with how things are focused - Jeff Lindsay might say that Dexter isn't a good person, but I think it would be remiss to say that the character isn't without any semblance of morality in the TV series (warped as that morality might be). Crime gets glamorized because it's something different for audiences - something exciting and new and subversive. I'd even go so far as to posit that the same little thrill nanny gets from reading 50 Shades of Grey is the same thrill that goes through your sisters' boyfriend when he watches Dexter, and the same thrill that kids get from smoking behind the bike sheds. We're driven to want naughty things, and these texts give it to us in a 'safe' form - it's just sitting and watching, end of the day.
ReplyDeleteIt's true, everyone loves a good villain, and right now TV is having a boom with the psychological thriller-type anti-hero. Dexter, Breaking Bad, House of Cards, Underbelly, Hannibal, The Sopranos, the list goes on.
ReplyDelete"Breaking Bad follows a terminally ill chemistry teacher Walt and his partner Jesse as they enter the world of making crystal meth. But real life doesn’t have a set of producers; they don’t get to decide how the story ends. What about Dexter’s wife and son? What about the wives and sons of people he killed? What about their story? Dexter is not in the boat alone. Breaking Bad follows a terminally ill chemistry teacher Walt and his partner Jesse as they enter the world of making crystal meth."
I disagree with you on this point with respect to Breaking Bad. In the later seasons, as Walt gains more influence in the drug business and his morality steadily erodes, in addition to his ability to keep his double life as a drug lord as far from his family as possible, the show goes to great lengths to portray the toll this has on his family and friends. In the latter seasons, it emerges that Walt's wife, Skyler, becomes a core role and the family is shown in a the emotional equivalent of a slow motion train wreck. Walt's family, including his brother-in-law, the DEA agent chasing him, is nearly always a central plot point. The trail to catch Walt is essentially running within his own family. Skyler becomes a strong female figure who has the guts to stand up to Walt where even other drug lords would back down, and it also shows the toll it takes on her and his son, Flynn, who can't understand why his Mum and Dad are out of the blue getting a divorce and fighting every night, and why his Dad seems different. Jesse, Walt's partner-in-crime, has his demons haunt him as the show goes on, to the point that he suffers what I'd say is PTSD and severe depression.
A big part of Breaking Bad's success is that it does what you believe these crime shows should do -- show the other side of the crime story. Show the people who are impacted either directly or indirectly from these crimes and have their story as a crucial element.
The Wire is another show that does this. It tells a sprawling crime story (each case spans an entire season) from both the perspective of the criminals and the cops on their trail, in equal measure. It shows that there is moral bankruptcy in both worlds, in the bureaucracy of the police department, and the brutality and complex drug rings of the criminals.
But the core point you're making I certainly agree with. Modern TV seems overly fascinated with the darker parts of human nature. It's still escapism, but not of the uplifting type. The sitcom era of the 80's/90's has gone and given way to this. I'm sure the next decade will have the big ticket TV shows being of a different genre again. It's cyclical.
I would say, however, what's brought on this recent slew of dark violent crime shows is the rise of cable TV's concept of a miniseries, a longer, sustained work where creative freedom is given on things such as how much violence can be shown, how much coarse language, sex, etc. Cable isn't restrained by the 6pm-9pm family-oriented programming block. Cable can run an hour long show like Dexter just after the news at 6pm, when everyone is around the TV. Game of Thrones can be chock full of R-rated content, and it can be freely shown on Cable, whereas it can't be shown on free-to-air, or if it does, it's shown at a ridiculous time like 10pm, as with The Sopranos. Underbelly is kind of the free-to-air answer to these shows, although it has nowhere near the quality of writing, due to decent TV writers heading over to cable and Netflix, where the creative reins is more with them and less with the broadcaster.
A great talk on this is given by Kevin Spacey, where he pretty much sums up why these shows are making it big at the moment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGQch6VBu1M