Fatal Flaw: Why Do We Make Murder Entertainment? : “ . . . out of respect for the victims and family members of the recent plane crash.”
Los Angeles radio station KRTH-FM, the oldies station, has been running a contest recently with the teaser, “Coffee, tea or murder?” Listeners can win up to $25,000 if they can guess in which seat of a mythical airplane the killer is seated.
The contest has been reminding me of a conversation a few weeks ago with Mary Leigh Blek, whose 21-year-old son, Matthew, was murdered in New York City in June 1994. With more resignation than anger, she talked that day about the casual way in which society embraces murder-as-entertainment.
She mentioned a board on which she serves and how members wanted a fund-raising theme. “Let’s do a murder mystery,” someone suggested, referring to the dinner-party outings that have become popular. “They’re always so much fun.”
Before her son was killed, Blek conceded, she would have endorsed it. Not anymore, she told me. “Now, I don’t think I could go and be entertained with a murder mystery,” she said. “The pain has become real to me.”
Then, almost as an afterthought, she added, “There’s a saying in [the organization] Parents of Murdered Children that murder isn’t entertainment. In our society it is.” And that, she said, makes it difficult for her. “It doesn’t make you a freak in your own society, but it makes you different.”
Her words made me think. She made me wonder how differently I’d look at murder if it came a-calling to someone I knew. In truth, I wouldn’t have given the KRTH contest a second thought had I never talked to Mary Leigh.
Why does murder grip us so, I asked Cal State Fullerton sociology professor Clarence Tygart. “It’s a conflict between good and evil that’s easy for us to understand,” he said. “The outcome is awful and tragic, but it’s an outcome we can understand.”
From Greek mythology to Shakespeare and other classic literature, murder has always been around, Tygart says. “It’s the foundation of so many of the classics, so much mythology, and different religions and different cultures. It’s probably the most universal subject of all literature.
“Freud thought [the subject of murder] was a catharsis. I don’t think he’s particularly right, but he had the idea we could read about murder and be entertained about murder and get violence out of our system.”
Parents of Murdered Children is headquartered in Cincinnati. Two years ago, it began a program to reduce the exploitation of murder as entertainment, “which, in general, desensitizes people to what murder is and the effects of murder,” says Dr. Harry Bonnell, a national board member of the group and chief deputy medical examiner for San Diego County.
“I don’t think the aim of the program, in reality, is that we’re ever going to eliminate it as a subject of entertainment,” Bonnell says. “That goes against human nature, against Bill Shakespeare, as far back as you want to go. The only thing is that, if you look at Shakespeare, none of his murders are comedies. They don’t make light of murder.”
Bonnell says the national program focuses on such things as murder-mystery dinner theaters, collectible cards featuring serial killers and video games in which children kill on screen but the victims never really die.
KRTH general manager Pat Duffy defends the contest as well-intentioned. It doesn’t glorify real murder, he says. One listener won for “finding” ’50s rocker Jerry Lee Lewis on the mythical airplane. His nickname, as rock fans know, has long been “The Killer.”
“This is like theater of the mind,” Duffy says, noting that the station was merely trying to be creative in concocting a contest theme. “But we get people who object to everything. Would I do it again? Probably not, but it’s one of those things where we were trying to be as creative as possible. We look at it as putting on a show, and we’re trying to keep it as fun and entertaining as we can.”
There’s the rub, said Nancy Ruhe-Munch, executive director of Parents of Murdered Children. “Don’t cancel the contest,” she said, when I told her about it. “Only, have ‘Coffee, tea or rape.’ ‘Coffee, tea or pedophiles.’ What’s the difference? What makes murder more acceptable than any other type of crime out there?”
I can’t get on my high horse about this because, like most people, I’ve derived my share of entertainment from murder.
But there is a footnote to the KRTH contest and, in truth, is the twist that made me want to raise the subject in the first place.
After the plane crash earlier this week that killed 189 people, KRTH temporarily suspended the contest. Explaining why on the air, the station used, in part, the language I quoted at the top of this column.
”. . . Out of respect to the victims and family members . . . “
In the face of a tragedy, the station obviously felt it was insensitive to have fun with an airplane in its contest.
And yet, when it comes to something as harmless as murder . . .
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Dana Parsons’ columns appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.