Quote: Godot Taxis @ 12th July 2014, 2:44 PM BST
Breaking Bad is excellent - as is the Wire. Enjoying either has nothing to do with 'loving drug dealers'. You just can't understand what I'm saying. It is not the plot of Hannibal that I find unacceptable - although I do think it's sad and awful - it's the thinking behind it. Red Dragon has all the horror of Hannibal and is a 'movie' in the sense that it exaggerates things to create tension but ultimately it has a fairly healthy view of human behaviour. Dolorhyde's crimes are explained rather than celebrated, and there is little prurience and no admiration - unlike Hannibal.
You don't get what I'm saying because, if not like Hannibal, you're certainly like the people who created him and secretly admire him. You describe yourself as a liberal, you frequently post comments that suggest you prioritise your own feelings and interests above anyone else's. You probably think people who do otherwise are stupid or illogical.
I think I'm getting to where you are coming from and I don't like it. Just like American Horror Story, Hannibal is a piece of modern gothic horror. It also treats it's viewers as grown ups who can discern between fantasy and reality. And this can cause some people to feel uneasy.
Horror, like other fantastical genres is treated in this country like a kid's show - as I've pointed out previously - the US has Game of Thrones, we have Merlin. We also have a tradition of piss miserable, grim as shite, depressing crime television with zero glamour or finesse attached to it. Junkie stabs woman in stomach, alcoholic police detective gets yelled at by chav, bent copper says something sexist, television viewer feels both let down and suicidal, the end.
Hannibal, like Freddy Kruger or Jason Vorhees isn't based on a real life serial killer, it's a fantastical imagining - much like other fictional bogeymen. It is also firmly rooted in the horror genre with it's own set of rules. Hannibal is no worse or better then The Child Snatcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or the previously mentioned Dracula.
You seem to be alarmed that Hannibal and the people who enjoy it are somehow being 'tainted' by what they see on screen. That they secretly harbour desires to spill blood and eat human flesh, that murder is being glamorised or the viewer desensitised (so did Mary Whitehouse oddly). Worst of all, Hannibal is shown to be an intelligent, erudite, sophisticated killer - welcome to the wonderful world of fiction. In real life, very few people get murdered by a serial killer and even fewer get chopped up, cooked and served with a vintage Bordeaux.
Breaking Bad and Hannibal have a few things in common, but chiefly it's the portrayal of the villain as protagonist. However, the show Hannibal knows it's protagonist is a villain, unlike Breaking Bad which ultimately gets you rooting for a man who kills people because he wants to sell drugs and who in the final episode (Spoilers!) admits that he didn't do any of it for his family, he did it for himself.
Do I secretly admire a cannibalistic serial killer? Am I a 'liberal'? The answer to both is no - my favourite television protagonist is Robert McCall aka The Equalizer and I would consider myself a libertarian not a liberal - though I do have a few liberal leanings, I think everyone in the West has to.
People who champion one television show with copious amounts of fictional, glamorised violence but condemn another television show with equal amounts of fictional, glamorised violence are indeed stupid and illogical. It doesn't matter if it's Ruth Rendall, The Killing or Hannibal, viewers tune in to see the grisly murders and the crime drama because they are far removed from it in everyday life.
Quote: sootyj @ 12th July 2014, 3:34 PM BST
No idea what you're getting at
That you're championing a run of the mill cop drama but criticising some of the best television created in the last 10 years. It seems somewhat...baffling.