Sunday, January 22, 2023
True Crime
As a general matter, I don't really get America's obsession with horrific crimes. Of course, I did think Hayden Panettiere was amazing as Amanda Knox (Murder on Trial in Italy), and the Jodia Arias (Dirty Little Secret) Lifetime movie is one of my guilty little pleasures. (It stars a pre-Chicago PD Jesse Lee Soffer as Jodi's victim and ends with a jailhouse performance of "Silent Night.") But I have no interest in watching the Dahmer series on Netflix, partially because I'm fairly anti cannibalism (sorry, Armie) and partially because I think the victims suffered enough without being subjected to Ryan Murphy's invariably subtle brand of storytelling. I barely dipped into the Gabby Petitio thing, though as I recall that was mainly because the weather was nice and I was busy drinking wine coolers with my top off. And, in perhaps the most shocking admission of them all, I don't know too much about the Idaho murders.
That said, I do have kind of a bizarre fascination with the people who have a bizarre fascination with these crimes. Nancy Grace is Exhibit A. She gets so worked up about these crimes that I always want to ask her if the (alleged) perpetrators also did an upper decker in her dressing room bathroom. I saw an image of her outside the Idaho crime scene (for some reason) looking perhaps the happiest I've ever seen her (although I did not watch Dancing With the Stars, to be fair) in a pair of fingerless gloves (for some reason). She also has a movie series on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries with Kellie Martin where she does cameos as a sassy waitress or sassy receptionist, which is not really relevant but just something I want to mention.
And then there are the internet sleuths, who love to fixate on the tiniest, most irrelevant details. And who seem to want to attack everyone but the person who is actually accused of the crime. (Him they subject to armchair psychology and what appears to be light phrenology.) I get that it's weird that the surviving roommate apparently saw the killer in the house and didn't do anything about that for hours, but as a former appellate prosecutor (now I sound like Nancy Grace), I can assure you that pretty much every crime has a lot of weirdness around it. Because guess what? Life is weird. Except for Jennifer Aniston, who is very normal and happy.
Anyway, I've probably said too much, but then again I feel like maybe I haven't really said anything at all. Life is so full of mystery!
