Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: As crime dramas increase in popularity and take up more and more of our 'entertainment' airtime, the impact they may have on perceptions of crime and victimization cannot be understated.(Rader and Rhineberger-Dunn, 2010: 254) Are you sitting comfortably?Are you in your own warm sitting room with the door closed, surrounded by familiar things?Are you settling down for an evening of television?Perhaps you're about to watch a crime drama?There are so many to choose from and they tell the same story over and over again.It opens with a victim of violence (more often than not a young woman) and ends with the apprehension of the guilty perpetrator (more often than not a man).In between, clever police detectives come into conflict with their stolid, unimaginative, budget-obsessed superiors as they take evidence from pathologists, question potential guilty parties and look for clues to help them solve 'the crime'.Flicking through the TV channels, you may select a 'Scandi drama'.These are celebrated for their complexity and suspense and for their spare language and landscape.The Bridge (2010-2018) is a Danish/Swedish collaboration, and its teaser trailer for Season Four has a voiceover containing the phrases 'Was she really stoned to death?' and 'A father looking for his children' (IMDb, 2018).The American crime drama The Killing (2011) is based on the Danish series Forbrydelsen (2007-2012), which translates as 'The Crime' and features a 17-year-old female victim.In the recent Irishlanguage crime drama Crá (2024), a woman's body is found buried in a bog, and The Pembrokeshire Murders (2024) is based on a Welsh serial killer and falls into the 'true crime' category.But despite the prevalence of female victims, many women watch crime drama and there are several potential explanations for this.
Source: Feminist Review
Author: Barbara Bridger
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4410529490