Blog 3: Reflection

Desmond Lawson

English 201

Kelly Austin

May 7, 2019 

                                                                        Reflection Blog

            For me, this semester has shed a new light to true crime and how our culture has become engulfed in it. Prior to this class, my idea of true crime centered around the informative and cold-hearted details necessary in order to educate the audience on that particular crime being presented. The true crime genre has certainly evolved in my eyes since starting with Truman Capote’s In Cold Bloodand concluding with the docuseries OJ: Made in America. To start with I believe the various media outlets for the true crime genre is a positive and a negative for the genre and our culture as a whole. This is because with so many different outlets, you get so many different narratives. Now many of these narratives are informative and give the audience a real look at issues that need to be exposed more the public. An example of this is the Netflix series “Making a Murderer”, a docuseries that focuses around Steve Avery and exposes the corruption in the justice system while exploring a new violent crime. On the other hand, some media outlets of true crime focus on more of the entertainment factor which I believe has created a desensitized culture that is immune to some truly horrifying and graphic crimes. Examples of these are American Vandal and the podcast “My Favorite Murderer” are two media outlets of true crime that sometime have funny and humorous moment to captivate that entertainment factor our culture has seemingly become obsessed with. This is the worrying part for me because I know that humans and violence have always been intertwined, so it feels like our obsession with the true crime genre is almost like us satisfying that violent thirst through true crime consumption. Due to this, I feel that our population as a whole has become inhumanely numb and immune to violence. 

            Overall, I believe that because the culture true crime has created has become obsessed with the entertainment factor of true crime which has created a true crime genre centered around entertainment rather than being informative/educating. Although I enjoy the true crime genre, in my opinion I feel that the more the genre focuses on the quality of entertainment it portrays, the more it loses its sense of credibility and accuracy of the crime it is supposed to be portraying. Of course, I will continue to watch interesting docuseries on Netflix about some gruesome murder, I’ll just be sure to keep my notepad put away and a fresh batch of popcorn ready instead. 

Desmond Lawson

English 201

Kelly Austin 

March 28, 2019

                        

                                                                Lit in the Dark                                     

            After reading Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone in The Dark, there were some immediate ideas about the true crime genre as a whole that came to mind. Exactly what does it take to from the writer/author’s perspective in order to actually write a true crime novel? Throughout the story, McNamara either unknowingly or purposely showed her audience how consuming the work had become for her. I’ll also be comparing McNamara’s true crime story to what is considered one of it not the first true crime story, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. To start with, I believe McNamara’s “present it as it is” strategy is the best way to go in the true crime genre because the audience wants to understand the mindset/psychology of these criminals, but that does not mean watering down their actions in order to make the audience more sympathetic to the criminal. I believe that what Capote did with Perry. Vs. McNamara and the Golden State Killer (GSK) relationship where she actually resented the man so that allowed her to not sugar coat any of his actions and actually portraying him as the monster he is. From McNamara’s elaborate timeline and setup of the story as well as her ideal portrayal of the Golden State Killer, McNamara adds a refreshing source of credibility to the true crime genre. 

            Through creating an intricate timeline, McNamara restructured how your ideal true crime story should be constructed. There will be photos of the story’s timeline at the end of this paragraph to support my claim as well. McNamara uses her great story telling skills to grab the audience, so well in fact, that it feels that you are in each specific time period she talks about.  She starts off in the 1980s with Irvine and Dana Point, but from here makes a jump to present day/the future in Hollywood, 2009. I believe the way McNamara structured the story is how every true crime story should be created. Creating and describing a suspenseful scene and then jumping to when the author/writer themselves became interested and/or obsessed with the criminals their writing about. It is the act of showing how your work has essentially consumed your life is what gets the reader interested even more because once you realize how time consuming all of this work for McNamara is, the more appreciative and enjoyable the book becomes. I believe in the “Letter to an Old Man” epilogue depicted just how much emotion McNamara had towards the Golden State Killer. From describing the GSK as a “school boy” to suggesting his penis size is small, McNamara goes all in on the GSK and I think that is one of the best sections of I’ll Be Gone in the Darkbecause the reader can literally feel the hatred and discuss from every line she delivers towards the GSK. Her intricate timeline and setup were perfect for the story, but there was another element to the book that really elevated this novel and the true crime genre. 

            McNamara’sI’ll Be Gone in The Darkembodies the true crime genre much better than Capote’s In Cold Blood. There are a couple things I am factoring into this comparison. The first is the idea of being straight forward and telling 100% factual information in a true crime story. There should never be a moment in a true crime story where the author sympathizes with the criminal so much that they essentially water down and portray their crime in a lesser light that is actually was. That is what Capote dead with Perry, because he sympathized with Perry so much, I think he inadvertently tried to dive into Perry’s troubled past as an excuse or reasoning behind his horrific crime. Vs. McNamara portrayal of the GSK, where she had to hold back her own emotions just from not ripping the criminal apart on every page in her book. Instead she put together a well-structured novel that laid out fact after fact which allowed the reader to take the information as it is and make our judgement based off it. The biggest difference between Capote and McNamara is that McNamara does not try to control the narrative, rather present things as it is and allows us to decide on the GSK. And for the true crime genre, I believe being 100% factual along with a proper depiction of the criminal are crucial elements for a true crime story to do its justice and that is what McNamara provides with I’ll Be Gone in the Dark.

Overall, the way McNamara portrayed the Golden State Killer is the ideal way a criminal like him should be portrayed in a true crime story. Along with that, creating an interesting timeline that brought the reader back and forth through time was a revolutionary change to the true crime genre. The accurate depiction of the Golden State Killer mixed with the well thought out timeline structure brought new life to the true crime genre and will change how the genre will be written and understood for years to come. 

A Bloody Review

A Bloody Review

After reading In Cold Blood, I can see why this would be considered one of the pioneers for the true crime genre. This is because instead way this book is structured, to the shifting tones related to characters in play, the main features of the book are what make up true crime and what people have come to be obsessed over. An example of this is the amount of suspense Capote spends time building throughout the story. From his innocent and oblivious description of the family, to the harsh and gritty description of Dick and Perry, Capote intentionally sets situations up with the upmost suspense to fully grab the reader. I believe that the structure and tone of part one of In Cold Bloodis carried on throughout the book. Capote utilizes a suspense trait all throughout the novel that always kept the reader on their toes in anticipation for what was to come next. To add to this, Capote also often switches the tone between the Clutters family and the intruders. Using more of beautifully innocent tone when addressing the family while using a darker and straight forward tone with the intruder’s Dick and Perry. This style of writing has been copied in not only other books, but even in movies and crime shows we all love today (NCIS, CSI, Law & Order, etc.). 

Any reader or follower of true crime can see where the basis of it stems from Capote’s, In Cold Blood. With that being said, this does not mean this is the perfect piece of true crime. In fact, I would even say that if this book was written in our modern society, not only would it not be successful, but Capote would be terrorized in the media. This is due to the overall insensitivity shown towards the family and town effected by the murder. Capote not only focused too much on the intruder’s side, but he also goes far enough to even sympathize with Perry. Now sympathizing with Perry isn’t the issue for me, it is the way he goes about and how much it takes away from the story. You cannot try to establish an emotional connection with a character after the reader has already gotten a descriptive scene detailing how Dick and Perry brutally murdered the Clutters family and robbed them. Sorry Capote, compassion is not warranted in this case.