Is True Crime Exploitative?
We live in a culture obsessed with true crime and yet death and dying are taboo topics. Millions tune in to shocking descriptions of murder and yet few can bear to visit Grandma in her assisted living center. Why is it easier to listen to sensationalized depictions of violent death than support our own loved one’s slow decline?
Type “true crime magazine” into the Google Search bar and check out the images. Busty frightened women is the norm even though there are no statistics to support the idea that victims of violent crime are largely female, white and attractive. Why don’t we have the same fetish for the stories of victims of gang violence? Terminal patients? Is it a part of our collective consciousness that women being brutalized is sexy?
Perhaps we feel more comfortable thinking about death and dying through the lens of true crime because it allows us to contemplate our own mortality from behind the cloak of othering. While all women live with the fear that we may be the victims of a violent crime, we are able to hear the details of the brutality inflicted on our sisters and think, “That won’t happen to me because I … “.
I feel entitled to voice my opinion because my grandmother died of unnatural causes. In fact, she fits the bill to be the next true crime sensation: beautiful young woman, her sudden disappearance and a hushed coverup. I suspect millions would tune in to uncover the scandalous and horrifying story of her death but very few would sit through the details my other grandmother’s natural death in her recliner at 70.
I think our modern fascination with the true crime genre is indicative of a trend worth noting: we (Americans) are fascinated with death, and completely on board with hearing the goriest of details about brutal death. How do we morph this into conversation about death in all its ordinary beauty and suffering? This is the space that will bring us closer to honoring Death as the sacred, social event that it is. How do we get just as comfortable with normal death and dying as we are with the sensationalized?
