Reconsidering Crime Fiction II - a response to CK

On the contrary I think crime fiction is alive and well ,perhaps not in the hard-boiled tradition of Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett but as some of us discussed in class, we all grew up on 'detective' fiction -- Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Famous Five (and other Blyton numerical variations), Three Investigators, not to mention Poirot, Miss Marple, Sherlock, Ellery Queen and dare I say, Scooby-Doo. It can be argued that The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night which is an O level text is a 'detective' novel as well.

In terms of movies, a new Sherlock movie is coming up. Even then, the persistent popularity of cop movies reflects our interest in crime and social deviancy, particularly our fascination with the psyche of the serial killer. Most critics trace this back to Silence of the Lambs winning the Academy Award but obviously, detective movies of the 1940s and 1950s had much earlier established the visual style of film noir. “The hallmark of the film noir is its sense of people trapped – trapped in webs of paranoia and fear, unable to tell guilt from innocence, true identity from false” [Sklar 253]. Deeply influenced by German Expressionism, the mood, themes, tone and characterization of film noir, literally “black film”, express a pessimistic worldview of moral ambivalence, criminal complicity, erotic deception and psychotic disturbance. Grunenberg observes that this “obsession with sex, crime and the proclivities of twisted yet clever serial killers has developed into one of the most popular categories in mainstream entertainment” (Grunenberg 210). Prime examples of this if you are interested in catching a good movie this weekend would include Se7en, The Usual Suspects and Sin City.

So perhaps it is not as criminal to read crime fiction as it appears ... depending on how you define crime. :)

D