Rafter - Introduction

The first part of the introduction, Rafter talks about film studies and Criminology, telling us that maybe one day, they will be brought together finally with the new studies going known as Cultural Criminology. Rafter explains how CC (Cultural Criminology)  actually refers to crime as a resource of information and how it influences the media in choosing images for causation and control of the crime that is going on. A fairly new area of study, it shows all the promise of extending the knowledge of the more traditional way of criminology.

My thoughts on the whole CC thing are ones that are hopeful, I think it would be more than interesting to see all the different links between crime and media to be found and affirmed. While I don't believe that watching violent movies will turn children into killers and rapists, I do think that everything teaches someone something, it's what that individual chooses to take from that film that counts.

The next part of the introduction, Rafter describes the four ways that she defines crime films. She brings in the use of boxes, which I find very useful, and how we can pretty much pick up a film, label it based on the characteristics of the film, and then throw it in the proper box.

It's hard not to agree with Rafter on this point because we constantly see film ideas being recycled over and over again, like baking a chocolate cake, you only change the ingredients when it tastes like coal in your mouth. The only question is, why do we as an audience find watching the same movie repeatedly entertaining? Are we really that simple minded?

Now we move onto crime films, ideology, and culture. The gist of what Rafter is telling us is that films provide us with a bit of cultural information that we keep in our head until it is needed sometime later. However, some of the information does factor into our beliefs and how we view the world as a whole. Which also affects how we mentally plan things to go about.

I definitely that Rafter knows her stuff when it comes to interpretation of the films and how the audience takes everything in. Instead of just telling people what she knows, she explains everything in a way to make sense.

Young

In Young's essay, we learn that images are a key point to crime in the media and Young makes the specific point that taking the images for granted is something that should not be done. Without such images, we can sometimes feel disconnected from what is really going on.  As Young points out with her example from Kill Bill, while we know she was raped in the hospital we do not actually feel that much of a connection to what has happened because no images were presented to us of the rape.

I feel that Young has assessed the use of images quite well because images are a gateway into another life. I know for a fact that I feel more sympathy for someone in a movie who has been tortured if I actually see the images of it happening but if the person is just telling the story, the impact just isn't nearly as great.

People respond to what they hear AND see,  everything is much more believable when the human eye can see what is going on. While there is the saying "have faith", it is simply human nature not to believe until the proof has been shown. Sure we gossip and such but gossip only brings about the curiosity. Once the curiosity is instilled, you don't just sit around and take it for what it is, you do what you can to confirm the story and that usually means seeing what the gossip is.