Throughout history criminals and murders have been romanticized.
There are stories, songs, and movies about some of the most infamous and brutal killers.
Yet most people can't even name their victims, and no nothing about them.
I think the problem is in many cases the criminal is looked upon as a hero to some, or are sympathetic because of all the hardships and wrongs done to them by society.
In the age of the internet and social media, there are more and more copycat murders than ever before.
I think that is the problem some are concerned about.
But I do think it's also important to analyze behavior to determine what leads an individual to do something like this. It has certainly helped investigators in solving cases through our the years.
IMO
I realize that. However, the vast majority of criminals
are not romanticized. That's why you can go to true crime podcasts and read page after page of entries and not recognize a single crime. That's why people in Colorado (on this very forum) are a bit surprised that no one has heard of Kelsey Berreth or why people in Dallas are surprised that no one outside their area knows (or cares) who Amber Guyger is.
Robin Hood (a particular favorite of mine) was romanticized in a certain way, and Bugsy Siegel was one of the earliest of 20th century criminals (along with Al Capone) to be romanticized (along with the entire mafia). But in general, people cannot name the most heinous psychosexual killers unless they are also serial killers (and it helps if they are from the 70's or 80's). Crime bosses are still regarded with some sort of reverence (if judged by some funerals and public events), but I think the social function of Robin Hood and organized crime is different than what we see with serial killers.
If people here on WS (who are the only people I can find on the internet who are today discussing these reports in any detail) are romanticizing killers, then that's a subcultural phenom that I find really strange (and see very little evidence of). It takes a much larger group to "romanticize" something. I suppose that an individual can become positively obsessed with Kam or Bryer but that doesn't mean "romanticization" to me. Romanticization, to me, is when a culture presents something as more perfected or desirable than it actually is. Perhaps within a small group of gamers, somewhere, they are being romanticized (but I'm not yet seeing evidence of that in gaming forums, nor did forums devoted to the games they played even pay much attention to this crime spree).
It's here on WS that we pay attention. So, if you think that this kind of attention romanticizes crime, then every one of us is part of that process. I do not accept that as an explanation for what we're doing here, and I don't see any evidence of it. However, if that's what ends up happening due to sites like Websleuths, I'm going to give it a lot of thought.
Anyway, I don't think a popular movie will be made about these two (it's too repetitive and redundant, that entire genre of film is hard to sell because it's overdone by now). Some ratty made-for-streaming movie might appear. A Netflix documentary or something (I doubt it though, information is too scant, they are also not appealing enough).
I'm curious though, does anyone think that crime documentaries "romanticize" criminals? Did "Making of a Murderer" romanticize the potential killers? And do books on true crime do this as well? Did Ann Rule romanticize Ted Bundy? Ann's work put fear into me, as I was stupidly ignoring any risk whatsoever associated with getting to know strangers, in my youth. I don't recall anything but grim horror at Bundy and was shocked when women penned him admiring mails. Do men romanticize such people in the same way? WS seems to have more women than men, so it makes me curious.
(I used to romanticize Northern Canada a whole lot...but this case definitely punctured that balloon...)
