Tragedy so quickly turned into entertainment.
Like most of you out there I have been glued to the television and CNN over the past few weeks while the drama that was the serial sniper played out. I signed up for CNN's breaking news program, where they email you the minute anything happens on a news story. So there I was every few hours being updated on the investigation into who this madman was. I was totally and utterly consumed by this investigation, when would he strike again, what were the police hinting at in their cryptic press conferences and when would this person be stopped.
Thursday morning as I went in to work it was all but over, in the wee hours of the night 2 suspects had been captured and were being charged. It all happened so fast, my inbox was alerting me almost every few minutes that there were new developments. The car was a rolling death machine, the police had nearly caught them a few times before, there was no white van and on and on and on.
What really got to me though is Thursday night, Diane Sawyer had a special 1 hour show that exposed and answered most of the remaining questions. My problem is though is that the minute the tragedy stopped, it was instantly turned into entertainment. As I sat there watching neighbors of the accused recalling stories of his past, I started to think it was a bit too much. Next thing I know as they go to commercial, this slick voice over comes on and tells us how many FBI agents were on the case as the screen shows us in beautiful 3D graphics. When we come back from commercial the voiceover tally's up the injured and dead, as the screen added up like a cash register. It felt like the beginning of From Dusk Till Dawn, where they tally up the carnage of the Gecko brothers. I mean it was the DAY they caught these jackasses and already the victims are being treated like statistics.
THEN, at the end of the show they dedicated 5 minutes to the victims, they had each victim announced and then a bit of a description about who they were. The problem here was, they painted every one of these victims out to be a saint who helped homeless and could have possibly been the person to cure cancer. Again here they cheated the viewer, what is so hard about being honest and telling us about these people. They totally turned this tragedy into entertainment, isn't it bad enough that this entire thing will be turned into a made for TV movie by the end of the month?
I feel the same way about the anniversary of September 11th. Everywhere
you turned this past September it was everywhere. Every network and news
outlet had specials remembering, or updating on the investigation, showing
those damn clips of the planes hitting the trade centre. I don't want
to see that shit anymore, I want to remember the events in my own way.
I want to quietly remember those who lost their lives and their families.
Why does everything have to be turned into a spectacle with voiceovers,
CGI and Diane Sawyer?
Downs
Don't like what I have to say? Do you think I really care? Hit me here.
