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What’s wrong with violent fiction? Crime writers can't protect every reader's feelings

Women take a dark pleasure in crime novels. Credit: The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest/Music Box Films

Women take a dark pleasure in crime novels. Credit: The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest/Music Box Films


January 11, 2023   5 mins

I was last asked the question three weeks ago at a panel discussion on crime fiction. The time before that, it was in a written Q&A for a literary magazine. I no longer remember the first time I heard it; it gets asked so often that I now have not just one but several variations of an answer ready to go. At crime writing conferences or book talks, it’s not a question of if, but when.

“When you’re writing a story with violence in it, how do you balance the need to entertain an audience against your responsibility to depict the violence sensitively?”

That this question is, itself, question-begging, is never discussed. It is simply a foregone conclusion that the responsibility exists, born of an ubiquitous sense among writers and readers that exploring the dark underbelly of humanity — even through the medium of fiction — is fraught in a way that requires some sort of reckoning. Even those who would grudgingly admit that the depiction of fictional crime on a page has little to do with its real-life counterpart — that the killers and rapists and thieves among us are probably not perusing the local bookstore in search of inspiration — will nevertheless insist that crime novelists are accountable in some nebulous, moral sense. If you write about murder, or assault, or kidnapping, or armed robbery, you must be at pains to treat them with the proper respect — or at least, you need to be seen as such, lest someone think you are not only exploiting these things for their entertainment value, but also that you perhaps secretly enjoy them.

Exactly how to do this is an enigma unto itself. The thrillers and mysteries that make up the world of crime fiction often follow a formula. Countless books have been written about how to construct one, to pace your red herrings and twists and reveals so that the reader remains fascinated, compelled to keep turning the page. But there is no such rulebook for how to plumb the depths of human depravity without crossing the line between a respectful depiction and a lurid one, nor can anyone tell you precisely where that line is (even those who are happy to criticise you for falling on the wrong side of it). Every attempt to sketch these boundaries is a failure, and this is perhaps never more true than when attempted by the writers themselves.

“How do we ethically portray violence in crime fiction?” asked veteran author Don Winslow in TIME magazine in April 2022. If anyone should know the answer it’s Winslow, who has written his fair share of crime novels. And yet the conclusion he reaches, after nearly 1,500 meandering words, is that he doesn’t and cannot know. Far from establishing guideposts for fellow writers or discovering the ethical sweet spot between bloodless cosy mysteries and graphic accounts of bodies ripped apart by gunfire, the writing of this piece accomplishes one thing and one thing only: it demonstrates to the world that Don Winslow Has Really Thought About This.

Whatever one thinks of the term “virtue signalling” (I’m not a fan), it’s hard to see essays like this as anything but a cursory advertisement of the author’s moral bona fides. Having demonstrated them — maybe of his own volition, maybe at the behest of a nervous publicist — he will surely go on to write whatever he would have written anyway.

This is, of course, what all novelists do, whether we’ve been permitted the benefit of an ass-covering TIME essay or not. Keeping the sensibilities of some hypothetical reader in mind is simply not possible when constructing a work of fiction — partly because it’s creatively paralysing, but perhaps more because every reader has different sensibilities, and predicting what will set any one person off is impossible. (I received dozens of angry messages about the death of a cat in my last novel, while the severed human nose someone pulls out of a garbage disposal ten chapters earlier provoked not a single objection.)

But the more interesting question is why the ass-covering is required at all, and here the notion of responsibility in depicting violence on the page dovetails perfectly with the present-day obsession with authenticity in literature, asking what we owe to the real-life victims of the real-life horrors for which we write fictional counterparts. I was once chatting with a fellow author who was working on a novel about a mass shooting; she had sent sample pages to an agent, only to be floored when the agent asked if she had run her story past a sensitivity reader — a person who, by definition, would have to have survived a mass shooting in order to offer critique.

“Imagine approaching someone who’s been through that and asking them to relive the worst experience of their life, just so I can describe the sound it makes when a body hits the floor,” she said. What she didn’t say, but was understood, was the obscenity underlying the agent’s question. Far from stigmatising the writer’s imagination, we should understand it as something to be celebrated: among other things, it saves those of us who write fiction from retraumatising people who have been through the unspeakable, people who hardly need dramatised accounts of a horror they know firsthand. Is the resulting story less authentic? Maybe, at least by some definitions of the word — though if the reader is lucky, they’ll never have to find out.

But also, crucially, the multitudes which human beings contain means that imagined and authentic need not be mutually exclusive. One thinks of Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, such a fully rendered depiction of the Civil War that many actual veterans were gobsmacked to learn that the author had never himself been in battle. The most remarkable thing about this is not that a man could imagine himself into a textured, visceral rendering of something he hadn’t lived, but that we have somehow since come to the conclusion that doing so is a bad thing.

And then, there’s the question of the role of women in all this. Jokes about the overwhelmingly female audience for crime fiction and true crime alike bump up against the reality that women are also producing this content. The expectation that a writer should agonise over every fictional act of violence, fretting over the hypothetical offence it might cause — is it too lurid or too aloof? Too sanitised, or too graphic? — seems not just unrealistic but profoundly gendered, the product of a broader conviction that women must, whatever they are doing, maintain a baseline level of concern about other people’s feelings. The trope of women as nurturers dies hard, even (or perhaps especially) when the woman in question is writing about the discovery of a partially dismembered rat-bitten corpse in a trash can. If men want to write or read about rats nibbling on a severed human head, well, this is to be expected. But if women want the same, a story inevitably springs forth about why they want it for noble reasons: the rat is a metaphor for the vulnerability women experience in a misogynistic world, and so on. That women are full and complex human beings who take the same dark pleasure as anyone in stories designed to disgust or titillate or terrify us is, apparently, too real.

Essentially, the quest to control the depiction of violence in works of fiction — or to demand that authors flagellate themselves over it — seems to centre on the uncomfortable fact that the stuff of real-life tragedy is also the stuff of compelling drama, and that the line which separates entertainment from trauma is not just blurred but entirely subjective. What delineates one from the other is not in how the author chooses to describe it; it’s whether the trauma in question is happening to someone else. And while murder is one of these traumas, it is hardly the only one. The list of things we love to read about yet don’t want to live through includes affairs, betrayals, breakups, and estrangements; deaths and disasters; broken hearts and broken bones. One person’s action-packed man-vs-nature survival story is another’s utter devastation as they sift through the wreckage of their tornado-flattened home. One person’s exciting forensic thriller is another’s spouse, parent, or child lying cold and in pieces on an autopsy table.

Novelists capture these moments not for those who have lived through them but those who haven’t, trapping them in a medium through which we can examine murder, tragedy and terror, and experience an emotional response to them. It is like viewing a solar eclipse through a shadow box: the sun you’re seeing isn’t exactly real, but you can consider that little sliver of light for as long as you like without burning your eyes.


Kat Rosenfield is an UnHerd columnist and co-host of the Feminine Chaos podcast. Her latest novel is You Must Remember This.

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Matt Hindman
Matt Hindman
1 year ago

How the hell am I going to find all the sensitivity readers I need? Gritty cyberpunk story? I mean where I am going to find a traumatized ex mercenary who is more metal than man? There are not a lot of those to go around. Turn of the first millennium historical drama about a survivor of a Viking raid? Stabbed and had your village plundered is not exactly a common occurrence these days. How about a fantasy epic? I just need to find some wizard who isn’t from Washington wearing a basketball jersey. I know what about…

Matt Hindman
Matt Hindman
1 year ago

How the hell am I going to find all the sensitivity readers I need? Gritty cyberpunk story? I mean where I am going to find a traumatized ex mercenary who is more metal than man? There are not a lot of those to go around. Turn of the first millennium historical drama about a survivor of a Viking raid? Stabbed and had your village plundered is not exactly a common occurrence these days. How about a fantasy epic? I just need to find some wizard who isn’t from Washington wearing a basketball jersey. I know what about…

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago

Surely someone who’s experienced real life trauma won’t want to replicate the experience by reading a fictional account of something similar, so will avoid the genre? Or might they be reading it as a form of therapy?

In the first instance, authors don’t need to concern themselves about being offensive. In the second instance, again, authors needn’t concern themselves about being offensive.

Someone who’s written lots of very, very graphic descriptions of some of the worst acts that one human being can perpetrate upon another, such as Val MacDiarmid, might struggle to find a publisher if she were just starting out, yet she’s one of the best-selling writers of crime fiction of this or any other generation. Her books sell for a reason, and those reasons are buried deep within the human psyche. They need to be brought to the surface occasionally, to be inspected. The current misunderstanding of our humanity is, in my opinion, not just a brainless abomination but dangerous.

Last edited 1 year ago by Steve Murray
Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago

Surely someone who’s experienced real life trauma won’t want to replicate the experience by reading a fictional account of something similar, so will avoid the genre? Or might they be reading it as a form of therapy?

In the first instance, authors don’t need to concern themselves about being offensive. In the second instance, again, authors needn’t concern themselves about being offensive.

Someone who’s written lots of very, very graphic descriptions of some of the worst acts that one human being can perpetrate upon another, such as Val MacDiarmid, might struggle to find a publisher if she were just starting out, yet she’s one of the best-selling writers of crime fiction of this or any other generation. Her books sell for a reason, and those reasons are buried deep within the human psyche. They need to be brought to the surface occasionally, to be inspected. The current misunderstanding of our humanity is, in my opinion, not just a brainless abomination but dangerous.

Last edited 1 year ago by Steve Murray
Saul D
Saul D
1 year ago

Reverse it. How bad is violence which is cartoon-like and without consequence? A-Team shooting that never hits anyone. The kapow pounding of a Marvel hero because violence saves the day. Women in physical fights with men, ignoring the difference in weight and strength and the principle of never hit a woman, that makes fighting women a game, not something that is always wrong.
If there is violence then it should be gritty, and real, and life-changing with consequences, because only then does it become something to be avoided and discouraged – a bad answer that reflects failure, not success.

Saul D
Saul D
1 year ago

Reverse it. How bad is violence which is cartoon-like and without consequence? A-Team shooting that never hits anyone. The kapow pounding of a Marvel hero because violence saves the day. Women in physical fights with men, ignoring the difference in weight and strength and the principle of never hit a woman, that makes fighting women a game, not something that is always wrong.
If there is violence then it should be gritty, and real, and life-changing with consequences, because only then does it become something to be avoided and discouraged – a bad answer that reflects failure, not success.

Tony Taylor
Tony Taylor
1 year ago

What I hate about the term “virtue signallers” is virtue signallers who say they are proud to be virtual signallers, and therefore by virtue signalling their signalled virtue miss the point that virtue signalling is a signal signal to their lack of virtue.

Christopher Peter
Christopher Peter
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Taylor

I agree. I think.

Christopher Peter
Christopher Peter
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Taylor

I agree. I think.

Tony Taylor
Tony Taylor
1 year ago

What I hate about the term “virtue signallers” is virtue signallers who say they are proud to be virtual signallers, and therefore by virtue signalling their signalled virtue miss the point that virtue signalling is a signal signal to their lack of virtue.

Paul Devlin
Paul Devlin
1 year ago

It’s interesting that writers who live in a virtually violence free world have to jump through all these moral hoops whilst young black rappers who live in a violence saturated world are allowed to threaten murder totally unhindered. Indeed any attempt to dial back the violence in their work is decried as racist censorship of their art. I recently watched a video on YouTube about the Chicago drill rap scene and all of the rappers mentioned in it (bar two) were either serving life for murder or had been shot dead. Yet this style subsequently spread around the world with predictable results. No sensitivity readers there

monicasilva999
monicasilva999
1 year ago
Reply to  Paul Devlin

To be fair, the people who like rap are not in the least worried about it. Sensitivity readers only exist because some groups can’t process the idea that not everything is about them. As the author states, some in her audience were outraged by a cat’s death. It’s her choice to ignore it (and maybe keep only readers who can stomach it) or go along and try to please even the most fragile of egos. Rappers have made their choice.

monicasilva999
monicasilva999
1 year ago
Reply to  Paul Devlin

To be fair, the people who like rap are not in the least worried about it. Sensitivity readers only exist because some groups can’t process the idea that not everything is about them. As the author states, some in her audience were outraged by a cat’s death. It’s her choice to ignore it (and maybe keep only readers who can stomach it) or go along and try to please even the most fragile of egos. Rappers have made their choice.

Paul Devlin
Paul Devlin
1 year ago

It’s interesting that writers who live in a virtually violence free world have to jump through all these moral hoops whilst young black rappers who live in a violence saturated world are allowed to threaten murder totally unhindered. Indeed any attempt to dial back the violence in their work is decried as racist censorship of their art. I recently watched a video on YouTube about the Chicago drill rap scene and all of the rappers mentioned in it (bar two) were either serving life for murder or had been shot dead. Yet this style subsequently spread around the world with predictable results. No sensitivity readers there

Tony Reardon
Tony Reardon
1 year ago

Unrealistic danger i.e. simulated danger/fear/horror while in an obviously safe environment, does provide that frisson of excitement that many of us enjoy. Witness the popularity of theme park rides which induce screaming. However, there is a limit to the depiction of the very realistic which induces revulsion rather than enjoyment and I think most people are averse to the realistic consequences of violence.
For example, dissecting a frog in a school biology class shows how squeamish people are with real injuries. Even realistic depictions of violence have most people turning away in disgust. I recall a UK TV series called, I think “Eye on Research” which occasionally had sequences of actual surgical operations which I couldn’t watch as a teenager.
I also recall being in a cinema watching the Salvador Dali surrealist film “Un Chien Andalou” which has a scene where an open razor is apparently used to slash open a women’s eye (in close up!). The whole cinema reacted by turning away, hands over eyes, grunts of disgust, etc. Cinematographers are often very clever at implying without showing and thus avoiding these negative reactions.
Even some published written work can occasionally induce these feelings of revulsion. I am thinking in particular of a work called “The Room” by Hubert Selby Jr. , the author of “Last Exit to Brooklyn”. He described The Room as “the most disturbing book ever written.” and said he could not read it for decades after writing it. Having read it many years ago (from our local public library), I also found it deeply disturbing and concur with his opinion.

sm dunn-dufault
sm dunn-dufault
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Reardon

a cow’s eye was quickly subbed-in; the turning of the heads in disgust allowed the switch to not be noticed by the audience

sm dunn-dufault
sm dunn-dufault
1 year ago
Reply to  Tony Reardon

a cow’s eye was quickly subbed-in; the turning of the heads in disgust allowed the switch to not be noticed by the audience

Tony Reardon
Tony Reardon
1 year ago

Unrealistic danger i.e. simulated danger/fear/horror while in an obviously safe environment, does provide that frisson of excitement that many of us enjoy. Witness the popularity of theme park rides which induce screaming. However, there is a limit to the depiction of the very realistic which induces revulsion rather than enjoyment and I think most people are averse to the realistic consequences of violence.
For example, dissecting a frog in a school biology class shows how squeamish people are with real injuries. Even realistic depictions of violence have most people turning away in disgust. I recall a UK TV series called, I think “Eye on Research” which occasionally had sequences of actual surgical operations which I couldn’t watch as a teenager.
I also recall being in a cinema watching the Salvador Dali surrealist film “Un Chien Andalou” which has a scene where an open razor is apparently used to slash open a women’s eye (in close up!). The whole cinema reacted by turning away, hands over eyes, grunts of disgust, etc. Cinematographers are often very clever at implying without showing and thus avoiding these negative reactions.
Even some published written work can occasionally induce these feelings of revulsion. I am thinking in particular of a work called “The Room” by Hubert Selby Jr. , the author of “Last Exit to Brooklyn”. He described The Room as “the most disturbing book ever written.” and said he could not read it for decades after writing it. Having read it many years ago (from our local public library), I also found it deeply disturbing and concur with his opinion.

Emmanuel MARTIN
Emmanuel MARTIN
1 year ago

The article is long, reasonnably interesting. But not as interesting as its illustration photography.

Sieg Larsson’s work is pure violence pornography, where he treats his liberal readers with a guilt free exploration of committing various acts of abuse against conservative figures. That’s exactly all what his book are about, some hate filled gore porn against old white men under the guise of “a thrilling investigation”.

So yes, there might be questions worth asking about the depiction of violence. But wether the facts are emotion-inducing seems for me less relevant than wether the author is apologetic (99% of the time he/she’s not).

Last edited 1 year ago by Emmanuel MARTIN
Emmanuel MARTIN
Emmanuel MARTIN
1 year ago

The article is long, reasonnably interesting. But not as interesting as its illustration photography.

Sieg Larsson’s work is pure violence pornography, where he treats his liberal readers with a guilt free exploration of committing various acts of abuse against conservative figures. That’s exactly all what his book are about, some hate filled gore porn against old white men under the guise of “a thrilling investigation”.

So yes, there might be questions worth asking about the depiction of violence. But wether the facts are emotion-inducing seems for me less relevant than wether the author is apologetic (99% of the time he/she’s not).

Last edited 1 year ago by Emmanuel MARTIN
laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
1 year ago

The real question is “Why are we all, writers and readers, so interested in brutality?” We live in a time that is far less violent than any previously; the odds of being the victim of brutal violence were far greater for our grand-parents and even more so for their’s. Yet our entertainments have become almost indistinguishable from a Roman circus.
Are we so completely hard-wired to enjoy this cruelty or is it just another decadent self-indulgence?

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
1 year ago

The real question is “Why are we all, writers and readers, so interested in brutality?” We live in a time that is far less violent than any previously; the odds of being the victim of brutal violence were far greater for our grand-parents and even more so for their’s. Yet our entertainments have become almost indistinguishable from a Roman circus.
Are we so completely hard-wired to enjoy this cruelty or is it just another decadent self-indulgence?

Daniel Lee
Daniel Lee
1 year ago

The Left will blame literally anyone but criminals for crime. It’s canon for them.

Daniel Lee
Daniel Lee
1 year ago

The Left will blame literally anyone but criminals for crime. It’s canon for them.

Alan Hawkes
Alan Hawkes
1 year ago

I suppose that a lecturer with, say, six literature students, might just be able to put separate trigger-warnings on each copy of the next novel to be studies: always assuming that each of the six students has completed a full personality inventory, honestly. Thus, happily matched between book and individual personality, the students could all end up untroubled, and with little more knowledge than when they were handed the book.

Alan Hawkes
Alan Hawkes
1 year ago

I suppose that a lecturer with, say, six literature students, might just be able to put separate trigger-warnings on each copy of the next novel to be studies: always assuming that each of the six students has completed a full personality inventory, honestly. Thus, happily matched between book and individual personality, the students could all end up untroubled, and with little more knowledge than when they were handed the book.

aaron david
aaron david
1 year ago

Anyone who has witnessed an act of violence in real life will tell you that there is zero sensitivity involved. Indeed, it hits you like a spiked bat to the back of the head, splattering bone and brain across the room and into the shocked onlookers faces.
Wait, was that too much? Do we need sensitivity readers for blog comments?
Although, I am reminded of the actor Christopher Lee, who, while in the LOTR movies went up to Peter Jackson and told him, after reading that Gandalf would scream after being stabbed, that it wasn’t what really happens. Jackson started to dismiss him and what he said, but later found out that Lee had served in WWII as an LRDG commando, and while he couldn’t talk about specifics at even that late date, he had some experience with the sounds that people make when being stabbed. Now, would that qualify as a sensitivity reader? In my eyes, yes.

aaron david
aaron david
1 year ago

Anyone who has witnessed an act of violence in real life will tell you that there is zero sensitivity involved. Indeed, it hits you like a spiked bat to the back of the head, splattering bone and brain across the room and into the shocked onlookers faces.
Wait, was that too much? Do we need sensitivity readers for blog comments?
Although, I am reminded of the actor Christopher Lee, who, while in the LOTR movies went up to Peter Jackson and told him, after reading that Gandalf would scream after being stabbed, that it wasn’t what really happens. Jackson started to dismiss him and what he said, but later found out that Lee had served in WWII as an LRDG commando, and while he couldn’t talk about specifics at even that late date, he had some experience with the sounds that people make when being stabbed. Now, would that qualify as a sensitivity reader? In my eyes, yes.

Paul Nathanson
Paul Nathanson
1 year ago

I tried to insert this earlier today, but it hasn’t shown up anywhere. So I’ll try again.
Louise Perry links (a) crime shows, movies or novels, (b) female viewers or readers, and (c) female directors or writers. She mentions that women enjoy these violent productions no less than men do. I have no reason to doubt that. In fact, I can think of several factors that could account for it. I suggest here one factor that has taken on particular importance since the 1980s, at least in the United States.
This was the rise of victim-oriented feminism, what I usually call the ideological branch of feminism (as distinct from its earlier egalitarian one). It sustains a profoundly dualistic worldview according to which all of history amounts to a titanic conspiracy of men to oppress women. In some fictional worlds, the emphasis is on men as oppressors, sometimes on women as victims of men but almost always on both. In fictional terms, this means that major male characters in these stories are evil victimizers. The antagonist, or villain, enjoys terrorizing and murdering female characters. Major female characters, by contrast, are innocent victims. The protagonist is not only victimized, however, but also, eventually, heroic (sometimes with help from a male character, often black or gay). Katherine K. Young and I tracked this pattern in popular culture throughout the 1980s and 1990s (and later in other segments of culture). Misandry was not a universal pattern in popular culture, of course, and co-existed with misogyny (although the former was ignored and the latter carefully monitored by both private and government agencies). But this new pattern was common enough to qualify as a distinct genre (known in the entertainment industry as the “woman in jeopardy” genre). And we were hardly the only ones to notice it.
That narrative and symbolic pattern was an early manifestation of identity politics. This emerged after the switch from Marxist class theory and then “critical theory” to the critical gender theory of feminist ideology (which has by now morphed into the critical race theory of woke ideology).
Why would people tolerate, let alone support, such a cynical worldview in the guise of entertainment? More than a few men eventually realized the ideological and moral implications about themselves and began to protest. Now, some men monitor the phenomenon on their own websites. More than a few women, however, found the new genre “empowering.” I suspect that it made sense to them both psychologically and politically. Ideological feminism relies heavily on the idea that women are the perpetual victims of men. Women who disagree, therefore, present a threat to that ideology. What wins many women over, though, is the characteristic ending of each story: a female character who fights back and prevails. This allows women to have their cake and eat it, too, vicariously. They can identify themselves as both victims and heroes.
Dr. Young and I don’t argue that all or even most of these productions were intended as agitprop. And conscious personal motivations were in any case not at the heart of our research. Rather, we argue that leaders of the entertainment industry correctly intuited (as they often do) the cultural climate—that is, what people already wanted to see. Some of those leaders were women (who might or might not have had ideological axes to grind), but most of them were still men (who probably wanted nothing more than to make big bucks). 

Paul Nathanson
Paul Nathanson
1 year ago

I tried to insert this earlier today, but it hasn’t shown up anywhere. So I’ll try again.
Louise Perry links (a) crime shows, movies or novels, (b) female viewers or readers, and (c) female directors or writers. She mentions that women enjoy these violent productions no less than men do. I have no reason to doubt that. In fact, I can think of several factors that could account for it. I suggest here one factor that has taken on particular importance since the 1980s, at least in the United States.
This was the rise of victim-oriented feminism, what I usually call the ideological branch of feminism (as distinct from its earlier egalitarian one). It sustains a profoundly dualistic worldview according to which all of history amounts to a titanic conspiracy of men to oppress women. In some fictional worlds, the emphasis is on men as oppressors, sometimes on women as victims of men but almost always on both. In fictional terms, this means that major male characters in these stories are evil victimizers. The antagonist, or villain, enjoys terrorizing and murdering female characters. Major female characters, by contrast, are innocent victims. The protagonist is not only victimized, however, but also, eventually, heroic (sometimes with help from a male character, often black or gay). Katherine K. Young and I tracked this pattern in popular culture throughout the 1980s and 1990s (and later in other segments of culture). Misandry was not a universal pattern in popular culture, of course, and co-existed with misogyny (although the former was ignored and the latter carefully monitored by both private and government agencies). But this new pattern was common enough to qualify as a distinct genre (known in the entertainment industry as the “woman in jeopardy” genre). And we were hardly the only ones to notice it.
That narrative and symbolic pattern was an early manifestation of identity politics. This emerged after the switch from Marxist class theory and then “critical theory” to the critical gender theory of feminist ideology (which has by now morphed into the critical race theory of woke ideology).
Why would people tolerate, let alone support, such a cynical worldview in the guise of entertainment? More than a few men eventually realized the ideological and moral implications about themselves and began to protest. Now, some men monitor the phenomenon on their own websites. More than a few women, however, found the new genre “empowering.” I suspect that it made sense to them both psychologically and politically. Ideological feminism relies heavily on the idea that women are the perpetual victims of men. Women who disagree, therefore, present a threat to that ideology. What wins many women over, though, is the characteristic ending of each story: a female character who fights back and prevails. This allows women to have their cake and eat it, too, vicariously. They can identify themselves as both victims and heroes.
Dr. Young and I don’t argue that all or even most of these productions were intended as agitprop. And conscious personal motivations were in any case not at the heart of our research. Rather, we argue that leaders of the entertainment industry correctly intuited (as they often do) the cultural climate—that is, what people already wanted to see. Some of those leaders were women (who might or might not have had ideological axes to grind), but most of them were still men (who probably wanted nothing more than to make big bucks). 

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago

I’m remind of the story about Dr Johnson’s Dictionary: Two prim ladies congratulated him for not including any rude word. He replied “So you looked them all up then”

Josef O
Josef O
1 year ago

Dealing with violent literature/videos/movies etc is as complicated as dealing with pornography. Actually the two subjects are related. Personally I believe that violent movies,as some pornography, should be limited to specific shops where people pay to have DVDs or books. It will not solve the matter, because violence is a human trait, but it will be an attempt to reduce it. After trying for a certain period of time conlusions can be drawn, if any. Ready to listen to better ideas.

Josef O
Josef O
1 year ago

Dealing with violent literature/videos/movies etc is as complicated as dealing with pornography. Actually the two subjects are related. Personally I believe that violent movies,as some pornography, should be limited to specific shops where people pay to have DVDs or books. It will not solve the matter, because violence is a human trait, but it will be an attempt to reduce it. After trying for a certain period of time conlusions can be drawn, if any. Ready to listen to better ideas.

tom j
tom j
1 year ago

This seems right, but this paragraph “And then, there’s the question of the role of women in all this” doesn’t really make any sense. You imply that it’s some sort of a myth that true crime and crime fiction are overwhelmingly read by women, but you don’t really argue that it isn’t true (as it is true) and in fact you end your paragraph by telling us to celebrate it. Go girl!

monicasilva999
monicasilva999
1 year ago
Reply to  tom j

I would agree it is a gendered approach if this were not the standard in the industry. I can’t think of a book being released nowadays by a lesser known author (big names can still get away with murder, so to say) that wouldn’t have been sent straight to a sensitivity reader.

monicasilva999
monicasilva999
1 year ago
Reply to  tom j

I would agree it is a gendered approach if this were not the standard in the industry. I can’t think of a book being released nowadays by a lesser known author (big names can still get away with murder, so to say) that wouldn’t have been sent straight to a sensitivity reader.

tom j
tom j
1 year ago

This seems right, but this paragraph “And then, there’s the question of the role of women in all this” doesn’t really make any sense. You imply that it’s some sort of a myth that true crime and crime fiction are overwhelmingly read by women, but you don’t really argue that it isn’t true (as it is true) and in fact you end your paragraph by telling us to celebrate it. Go girl!