New trailer for 'Love & Death' on HBO
Love & Death takes a close look at Candy Montgomery’s shift from a bright, devout Christian housewife to a merciless ax-murderer and the peculiar affair that started it all. Set in a close-knit, trusting Texas community full of carefree families and faithful churchgoers, it’s an idyllic picture-and the perfect cover for dangerous secrets and
( Read more... )
Click to view
There is a worthwhile discussion to be had about what "self-defense" actually looks like and how it often does not match the sanitized picture people have in their heads, but this story is obviously not going to facilitate any kind of real discussion. It's just being focused on and rehashed because it involves two Nice White Ladies. Whatever psychological truth could theoretically be learned from this story (about violence, about retaliation, about how we as a society conceptualize of self-defense) is probably not going to be broached because all anybody sees is "ooh affair, ooh axe murder." There is a thorny, gray area between "sadistic pre-meditated murder" and "self-defense = everything you do is justified," and people really want this story to land at one extreme or the other when we don't even know what happened.
Only one person knows the truth about what happened here. She already told her side in court and got acquitted. Do I think it's very possible she lied? Sure, but I'm not arrogant enough to believe I know the reality. This show is contributing nothing. It only exists to get Elizabeth Olsen another Emmy nomination (at least, this time it will be for playing a white person so that's nice, I guess).
I try not to be an anti-true crime zealot because I understand that, for some people, it has a deep emotional value, and I want to understand and sympathize with that. I want to say that there are ethical ways to produce and enjoy this content, but in my soul, do I hate it? Yes. I'm biased because I've seen it from the other side -- my neighbor was murdered and it became a whole Thing (Nancy Grace was involved) -- but I have to recognize that 99.99% of people don't have that experience and to them, the problems of true crime are purely hypothetical. I'm not trying to scold people who like this stuff or have strong feelings about this case. I just come at it from a different perspective.
Reply
Leave a comment