Crime fiction Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Crime fiction - Essay Example Violence in the media is not confined only to fictional shows and does not serve only the purpose of shock value. Rather, as people face greater and greater exposure to the outside world at an earlier and earlier age and as they get more and more conditioned to learn through all five senses rather than just one, suddenly, being told about a murder isn’t enough. We need to see the murderer to be able to visualize it and have it feel real. If that fails to get the message through, we need to see the site of the crime and the people affected and the way it was done. It is less sadism as it is natural in us to want to grasp the full reality of something, and as the definition of that reality has changed over time, so have the depictions we are shown.News channels and television shows alike rely on graphic details to illustrate the full impact of a crime. Crime shows will often show gruesome depictions of these crimes through highly realistic make-up and body models, with these cri mes being described in highly intricate details. The problem however is that crime fiction isn’t classified as specifically for adults of a certain age and therefore these shows are shown in time slots where even children can have more or less unrestricted access to them. Violence on television isn’t as the same taboo as perhaps nudity or drug use might be, despite studies showing that it has negative effects just at par with them. Since property offences have no mass appeal, they are replaced by the more gory and exciting crimes of violence. Studies (Barker & Petley, 2001) have shown explained the popularity of crimes in these shows by the fact that it depicts life in a far more exciting light. Two men arguing are shown to resort to fist fights rather than drawing out legal orders through a long tedious process. Things happen faster and with exaggerated emotion and magnitude, exactly as we fantasize but never actually do. Television violence plays into these subconsci ous desires and fantasies and plays out for us in visual detail what fails to form into concrete thoughts in our minds.