“Brenda would become known as the mother of such schoolyard massacres.” Two dead, nine injured – eight of them being children. Take a look at a crime. Any everyday crime. Drug deals. Murder. Massacres. No matter how brutal the crime or how much negative impact it has caused, there is a movie or television show based on that crime. Guaranteed. Not only that, but the depicter of that crime? Protagonist. Wolf of Wall Street; Underbelly; Pulp Fiction; Breaking Bad; The Godfather. The characters of these films are glorified in pop culture. We identify them as heroes. After all, they are entertaining, right? But what are the defined lines that differentiate the murder that gets our adrenalin running, and the murder that kills our loved ones?
Brenda Spencer did not like Mondays. On 29 January 1979, the 16 year old girl fired gunshots at Cleveland Elementary School. There are many underlying causes that led up to her crime, however, the media consumed the facts and came up with a new story. ‘Sweet, red headed girl.’ ‘Quiet and well behaved until her parent’s divorce.’ ‘No reason behind the shooting.’ ‘It was a lot of fun.’
What the media forgot to mention was that Brenda Spencer was troubled. She had brain damage from a childhood incident, she partook in burglary, and death constantly dwelled on her mind. She voiced her suicidal thoughts to her father who blatantly ignored her cries for help. Finally, her parole officer recommended psychiatric care following a mental health evaluation. Not only did her father refuse to allow her to receive that help, but later on in that same month, he gave his daughter a rifle along with 500 rounds of ammunition. She once stated, “I asked for a radio and he gave me a rifle. I felt like he wanted me to kill myself.” Brenda also claimed that her father had psychically and sexually abused her.
So why is it that a sixteen year old girl, experiencing great mental trauma that leads her to commit a tragic crime, is portrayed as the mother of school shootings. What facet of a criminal stimulates our admiration? Media attention and film represent offenders as charming, cunning, a being of mystery as opposed to a being of wrongdoing. They have a dark side which is seen as fascinating and appealing. The repetitive normalisation of crimes that the media and film industry have fed us with assist in desensitising us as humans to the morally depraved element of illegal acts.
Institutionalised behaviours are established by a certain demeanour being displayed by not one single individual, but in coordination with other human beings. Just in the same way we have developed these social beliefs that men are above women; thin is better than fat; we have developed the belief that crime is not only entertaining, but media is dull without it.
Take the porn industry for example. Not only is the industry destructive on many levels of moral crime, but the statistics and facts depict an industry that tolerates, excepts, promotes and demands more portrayals of crime. Porn industries are not allowed to use children and adolescents under the age of 18 in their films. Not only was this disappointing to many viewers – who based upon this fact are potential rapists and child abusers – but it was so intolerable that new laws were bought in that adults who looked like young children could participate in ‘fake child pornography’. Women in porn are constantly abused. Rape, violence and physical injuries are common behaviours, and people want this.
We have an industry that has done everything they can to harm women, and still the viewers want more. The most gruesome, violent porn there is becomes boring, and viewers go searching for more. So what do they do? They take porn into the real world, and the rape, violence, and abuse become real. A United Nations statistical report, covering 65 countries, showed that more than 250,000 cases of rape or attempted rape were recorded by police annually. Now take a minute to realise that 75-95% of rape crimes are never reported. We become accustomed to what we’re used to.
Our media encourages crime. I can guarantee there has been a child sitting in a car on the way to school when Robin Thicke’s infamous ‘Blurred Lines’ has come on. Sure it’s catchy, but is rape really so normalised that you don’t even notice your four year old daughter is singing along to the words “I know you want it but you’re a good girl”? That a family friendly radio station is telling our daughters their consent will always be blurred? That an ‘age appropriate’ radio station is telling our sons not to take no for an answer? But what does that matter. It’s entertainment, right?
So when every song you listen to contains degrading material, every movie you watch shows murder as a second nature, every article you read tells you that that rapist could’ve been a star football player; we consume this. It’s all you know. It’s all your 10 year old niece who idolises Lolita knows. It’s all your 18 year old daughter who committed suicide in the hands of her abuser knows.
Robert Browing’s ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ talks about how the man loves this woman with so much passion that he kills her. It is written so beautifully, even the description of her last breaths are painted with a sickeningly sweet aura. The man, obviously inhibiting deep running mental illnesses, is portrayed as interesting and gentle; instead of the sick, twisted, murderer he is. Browning delivers violence as a symptom of love that has been poisoned by aspects of abuse such as jealousy, paranoia and patriarchy. We see a refusal to pathologise the abuse and violence that presents Porphyria; so instead of analysing the poem psychologically, we are left with a poem that we view as tragic, but beautiful.
With the deception that the man killed Porphyria to save her from her suffering, we see this in every day life. ‘Ohio man shoots and kills wife suffering triple cerebral aneurysms in hospital.’ ‘Kentucky man kills wife to end her suffering from breast cancer.’ Are they heroes or murderers? Mentally deranged or sane? These acts of crime have been influenced from the notion that is portrayed in Porphyria’s Lover, just as Brenda Spencer’s story and Robin Thicke’s Blurred lines have influenced crime in the 21st century.
We should be encouraging members of society to critique the media, the entertainment we view, the songs we listen to; as well as exposing growing adolescents to healthy media and entertainment that will influence their values and shape them into a decent human being. By the media distorting our view of crime, they are managing to influence misrepresentation that leads to stereotyping, prejudice, the enforcement of fear, and the lack of security and safety. Reducing the crime rate starts at how we portray crime. How do you plan to improve our society?
Rebel Grrrls 