Does Crime Fiction Kill Women for Entertainment?

A couple of months ago, The Guardian published an article about how in one particular week, nine out of the 10 best-selling books in the UK featured a woman being murdered. And it asks the question, is crime fiction relying on women being killed for entertainment? Now, I am a big reader of of mysteries, of thrillers, of crime fiction in general, and so I do really want to interrogate this. Do we kill women for entertainment? Do we murder women for entertainment in our fiction or is there a little bit more going on than that? Let's get into it. Okay. Hello everyone. My name is Megan. Welcome if you're new. I just want to get straight into it. So, here are the 10 bestselling books that we are talking about. This is the bestseller list in the week that started this conversation. an Instagram post by Wendy Jones was kind of the originator of this discussion talking about how nine out of the 10 of bestselling books in the UK featured a woman being murdered and then the Guardian did an article on it and there was quite a big discussion about it and I think I just wanted to take some time to speak to some experts to speak to people in different fields that would have different opinions on this and to do some thinking on this for myself. So yeah, from this list I've read two of the books. Two books I think were five stars for me. Two of the books that had women being murdered in them. The only one that the article says, which we'll get into, the only one the article says doesn't feature when being murdered is the correspondent, which is about writing letters. All the other ones feature women being murdered, says the article. You know, I want to talk about those two books in particular a little bit later on, The Names and The Impossible Fortune because I have thoughts on both of them. But yeah, obviously [laughter] this is the bestselling books in the UK. Obviously, a lot of people are reading books with women being murdered in them. That's a fact. I guess I want to start with my initial reaction when I saw this list, right? My initial reaction was it's a little bit simplistic. I think the argument that both the Instagram post and the Guardian was making, I think there's a lot more going on that needs to be addressed that perhaps the article didn't address and the Instagram post definitely didn't address. we will dive into some negative aspects that I think having a preponderance of women being murdered in fiction um causes and on especially on a zoomed out level. But yeah, I kind of want to speak about my initial reaction to the story first. So that list is very crime fictionheavy, right? I think out of the nine books the woman is murdered in, eight are crime fiction, could be categorized as thrillers, mysteries, crime fiction. When I decided I wanted to do this video, I knew I wanted to speak to people from a wide array of of opinions on the topic. And I am so lucky actually that I got to speak to Claire Douglas, who is one of the authors on this list coming at number five, but the family friend. And so I guess to kick us off, I wanted to hear her opinions when she saw herself being part of this discussion. I was quite shocked I have to say because you know when I'm writing the story so like all my books have got different not the some most of them are women that have murdered just because it's more of the emotional connection between the women that my books are about so head happens to be a woman that gets murdered but some of them have been a man and some of them have been obviously no murders has just been like other psychological like you know aspects so I was quite surprised what I saw and then I was like oh my gosh yes my book do I see who's the main character in the She does get murdered right at the beginning and I was like gosh she Yeah, it is. And then I looked back and then I thought back to all my other books and I was like nine times out of 10 it's a woman that gets murdered out of like I've written 12 books and I think like nine eight or nine of them have been women. But I think that's for me that's because I do write mostly about women and about women's relationships and they're like like toxic friendships or toxic relationships. So that's why when you've got the proper crime where there's a serial killer and you know most of the time it's serial killer like targeting women and then you've got my books which are aren't about a serial killer. It's more about a relationship between a group of women say and then one woman might kill the other or a man but most of the time my books do seem to be women do seem to be the perpetrators actually. Um, and I think it's because my stories are more about like the relationships between the women. >> Women read these books. Women write these books. Out of the nine books mentioned on the list, six are written by women. And women are really predominantly the readers of crime fiction. I think it's believed to be somewhere about 64 to 80% of crime fiction's readers are women. Crime fiction is dominated by female authors and has been throughout history. You look at Agatha Christie, Dorothy Elsa's back in the 1920s and30s. What other genre at the time was dominated by women? I don't think there was one, right? And now I would say it's still dominated by female authors. And so part of me feels that to tell women to tell women what you are reading is wrong. I think to have this moral assertion that you as a woman are so dumb that you can't see how you are contributing by reading this to a negative place, negative connotations in society for women. I think that's a bit ridiculous. [laughter and gasps] I don't know. I don't know if that's crazy to say, but I think yes, as we'll get into, yes, there are negative portrayals of women being murdered in books. Yes, there are books that don't take care. Maybe I'm kind of at the end of the video already. I do have a lot more to say, a lot more to get into. But my initial reaction was like readers are more critical than that. And in terms of what I read, and again this might be a bit of a failing on my part, that I read very specific books that do take care and do take nuance. And so perhaps I didn't quite understand some of what's out there at my initial reaction. My initial reaction was readers read critically. Readers read with a view at what the book is doing, what commentary it's giving on society. And I just kind of felt like, yeah, it it felt like it was a little bit looking down on both women readers and writers of the genre and not understanding what what they may be doing with having a woman murdered in their book, what they might be saying with that. This is actually one of the things I spoke to Caitlyn Phillip about, who is professor of library and information science, and also has a law degree, has specialized in kind of true crime representations of the legal field and stuff. And so I spoke to her about this, and I think she had something really interesting to say. I mean, I think that like my initial reaction to this is like I think that there's an extent to which it is true that like the murder of women is over represented in media about murder, >> but I don't think that there's any world in which it's reasonable to say that a representation of something is an endorsement of it. I'm immediately suspicious of someone claiming that a genre that is often largely written and read by women is bad for women because it strikes me as like a disingenuous um account of like moralization of how women should be and like we don't know how to consume stories. Um it it's a profound lack of faith in the intelligence of the reader. There are also some that argue that reading a book, reading a crime book written by a woman about women, about women's struggles perhaps, is an inherently feminist act. That through doing that, there is a reclaiming of the violence that women are subject to in society. There is a retelling of the narrative. There is an examination of the narrative through that. Also, I mean, this was a big argument for books like this in the Guardian article, and it's not one that I'd ever really considered in my own reading. We'll kind of get into why I enjoy reading these books in a second, but a lot of people argue that through reading crime fiction, women are processing a very real fear. Psychologist suggests that there is a biological drive to avoid becoming a victim. And there are real dangers in the world that women are subject to. There is an inherent danger to being a woman. And so I think I can understand that. I've never really seen that in my own reading, but I I think it must be part of why women read these books, why women are drawn to these books, is to process the dangers that exist towards them in the world, and why women are so good at writing these books as well. I think for me um it's like imagine in my worst case scenarios like you know I'm not a detective or anything like that. I'm just a more regular woman and I just think you know what how would I feel if this happened to me or you know if neighbors moved in next door and they were they knew me maybe from the past or they were like wanting to or I overheard them talking about crime or you know like it's it's I tried to put myself in the situation of the every man every woman type person um and think this is interesting to me because I you can put yourself in that position can't you? I think you can say think to yourself, right, this could actually be me. It's hopefully it's not going to be me, but it it could be. And then I think that gives it more of a realistic slant when you're reading it. I've been reading a little bit of young adult mystery and thriller lately. And I've been thinking about how those authors are very specifically thinking about teaching their readers how to think about like the justice system and how to think about like their own uh teen often female relationship to it. And I know that you like uh the Girls Guide to Murder series. And I think that like what's really compelling about that is how it shows the sort of like realities um of like how Pip experiences trauma in a way that is like not accessible necessarily in many other types of media. And there are girls who experience trauma and for whom it's really powerful and important to see that being represented and to see someone having like a rich complex life around that is really profoundly important and I think that that importance is probably for me more important than the risk. Speaking of ya, someone that I really wanted to speak to about this topic was Courtney Summers. And we're going to get into actually the genesis of why I wanted to speak to her in a little bit. Um, because there's a really specific reason why I wanted her perspective on this. But she has, I think, some really valuable things to say about why there is a demand for books examining violence against women and why that is something that's very real for a lot of readers. >> Hello, Meg. Thank you for letting me speak on this from my throne of books about dead girls. Yeah, we regularly see female characters who are underwritten, objectified, sexualized and brutalized as a form of entertainment or titilation. That content does exist and there is unfortunately a demand for it. We live in a world that normalizes the demand by electing known abusers of women, celebrating known abusers of women, uplifting and supporting the work of known abusers of women. But it it feels to me kind of like the article is saying books about dead women shoulder the weight of that normalization by asking authors and readers to justify a category of fiction or a narrative choice by assigning a moral value to it. I don't think fiction is like the largest piece of a puzzle that, you know, for example, kept Epstein Island in business all those years, but I do think books frequently reflect the place we find ourselves in as a society and are a great way to confront and challenge what we see in that mirror. But the the question that is being posed um since it is being posed across such disperate titles feels like it's more or less asking should it exist at all and I believe very strongly in the freedom to read. You know our intellectual freedoms are currently under an unprecedented attack. Assigning a moral obligation or responsibility to authors is defined by what exactly? Just simply having a dead woman in a book um makes it very easy for book banners to do their job. But anyway, and as an aside, it's interesting that when we talk about these books, we say this is a book about a dead woman, right? But we're not saying this is a book about a violent man. So yeah, I think that was my first reaction as someone who is a reader of this genre is that it felt too simplistic an argument and like it almost wanted to ignore who is reading these books. Yes, men do read these books, but like I say, the readership of crime fiction is between 65 to 80% women. This genre is not built on violent men reading about violence against women and getting ideas or something like that. It is built on women readers wanting to read about, I guess, yeah, violence against women, prepare themselves, process those fears, uh, in a safe environment. And our brains like to view danger from safety in order to kind of process those kind of circumstances ourself. Okay, so we've touched on why people read these books, why women want to read these books, but I would be remiss to not acknowledge the dead girl trope. This is a trope that has existed in literature throughout history as something that has appeared time and time again. And I think sometimes, yes, there is a laziness. Listen, crime fiction is a spectrum of quality, right? There are, and we'll get into this, there are going to be incredible books out there. There's going to be some not so good books. There's going to be books written by incredibly intelligent people who have such care and such nuance to what they're writing. There's going to be books that are written by intelligent people, but maybe not trying to say too much, but what they are saying, there's intentionality behind it. And guess what? There's books written by dumb people. [laughter] There's books written by dumb people. Let me say that. or just people there are books that don't have care to a representation right and so this perpetuation of the dead girl trope has existed throughout history and I think sometimes it does come from laziness the things that you can say by just having a young innocent dead girl the kind of ease that gives you to get into the narrative to maybe get into realizations that gives you a detective etc etc I think sometimes that does come from laziness right and there must be something also Though even when it is used with intentionality, there must be something that we find compelling about a dead girl in the book for it to be something that we come back to time and time again. Someone who I loved speaking to about this was Dr. Nicola Bishop, who is currently academic enhancement lead at Deont University, but has previously been a senior lecturer in English and is very much specializing in crime fiction. So, she actually taught me some stuff I didn't know about the history of the dead girl trope, which I think was super interesting. So the dead girl trope is really interesting though because there is um a body in the library. I don't know if you've started on the Marple books yet, but one of the Agatha Christie ones where she actually she has she says in the Christy writes a little bit in the beginning, a little forward where she says um I want to do something with this kind of trope, the kind of the unlikely body in the unlikely place. And she says, I'm going to take the most sort of sensational body I can think of and it's this platinum blonde woman on the floor of the library of the really respectable character. And and so it's interesting that she already references that and is kind of joking about that trope and and has tried to find a way because somebody has sort of said to her, "Oh, you don't do that." She's trying to bring that into her fiction, but in a very kind of silly way. So she she's playing with that idea. So clearly it was something that existed before. So yeah, obviously for Agatha to be referencing it and kind of playing with it already at that point, it must be something that was already pervasive and known back then. I like Agatha's acknowledgement that she is purposefully playing with this trope and kind of upending it. And I think that's what the best authors do, right? Like they may use a trope. They may use a stereotype, which is very common in murder mysteries. And as a murder mystery reader, I do enjoy when you kind of have these authors that are caricatures, right? Lucy Fley does this a lot. at the back of her book, there'll be like the struggling artist, the drunk best man or something. One of her books, all of her characters can be distilled down to a stereotype, but she's going to play with those stereotypes. Maybe not overtly, maybe not like, oh, I'm being so clever here and I'm upending these stereotypes, but she's going to play with what you expect from that character and perhaps upend it, perhaps give you something unexpected or perhaps give you something expected. But she's intentionally playing with those stereotypes rather than just using them because they're easy. But also, there must be a psychological reason for this reliance on women as victims. And with the dead girl trope, is it an indication of how women are viewed in society, or does it also then inform how women are viewed in society? I was lucky enough to speak to Martin who's a legal psychologist, and we touched on this, and they had some really astute things to say. I feel like I learned a lot from speaking to Martin. So, I'll put a few clips in now of some of the stuff they said. So, back in the 80s, this sociologist and criminologist Neils Christie came up with this idea of ideal victim theory, which is the idea that certain victims or certain people who suffer from crimes, whether they survive or in the case of homicide do not survive. That some of them are more likely to be seen as sympathetic victims and that they should have justice bestowed upon them. that the system needs to work on their behalf. Specifically, there are five to six tenants depending on who you ask about what constitutes an ideal victim. First and foremost, the one at the very top of the list is that they should be weak. And when Christy wrote his original paper about this, he used a frail old woman as the example of the epitome of weakness. Specifically in our western cultures today, that's the idea of a weak victim. But even outside of an old woman, he centers that first point on women and children generally. And so to be seen as a victim worthy of help, worthy of belief, the very first tenant that he puts forward is that they should probably be female. So I guess from this we can ask, are we doing women a disservice from presenting them as victims so much? Are we perpetuating an idea that women are victims? Women are weak. Women need protecting. Women need need the legal system. Need a need a detective like Puerro to step step in and defend them and get them justice. Does it reinforce the idea that women are someone that violence is done to? Are we perpetuating that idea? And does it normalize violence against women? The more that we view women as weak, the more that we view women as someone at least protecting, are we more and more unsurprised by violence against women? And is it more and more common for an aggressive man to view a woman as someone that they can inflict violence upon? I think that's a real consideration, right? And I guess it was one that I kind of initially dismissed, but the more that I think about it, I do think it has some weight to it. But I do find it hard to draw the line between these books are normalizing violence against women, we shouldn't have them, and violence against women is a very real thing, right? Violence against women is an incredibly real thing. and we shouldn't sweep that under the rug. These are real stories that we should talk about. To hide something isn't to stop it happening. I want to dive back into the list. I want to discuss and break apart this list a little bit more. And maybe you'll see why I have some issues with the Guardian article in the Instagram post. So, here's the top 10. It asserts that nine of these 10 a woman is murdered. Okay, incorrect. Incorrect. Your honor, incorrect. Seven out of the 10 feature a woman being murdered, which is still a lot, but it is not as many as the article was saying. And on the Instagram post, let me actually get it up because I don't want to like say incorrectly state what they're saying, but Wendy Jones, peace and love to you, Wendy, you know, peace and love to you. We just maybe have different opinions on this. She says, "So nine out of the 10 of the top best-selling books or of the 98,000 books sold this week in the bestseller list, 81,000 had women being murdered as central to their plot." So, and here the math ain't math. So, 84% of the books people bought and read in the UK this week involved a woman being murdered for [snorts] entertainment. Listen, a lot of books are bought that are not on this top 10 list. And obviously crime fiction is super popular, is super well-loved, well bought, but there's a lot of books bought that are not on this top 10. And so that's where the math math and trying to say by this logic, 84% of the books people bought in the UK feature a dead woman is not correct. Also, it's not nine out of the 10 of the books that feature a woman being murdered. It is seven out of 10. And I found that out in like 5 minutes from doing some research. And I think it would have been easy for either Wendy Jones for making this Instagram post or for the Guardian to do their own research on that and to know the woman is not murdered in two of those books. Seven is still a lot. It's still a huge chunk of the list. But it isn't nine out of 10. It's seven out of 10. And I think if we're going to interrogate this topic, it has to be done with specificity and seeing what these books on an individual level are doing. But all these books are doing something different and presenting women in different ways to a better or worse degree. The two books that it asserts feature women being murdered that don't are The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman. I'm going to give a little bit of spoilers of these two books. So like, you know, skip ahead a little bit if you don't want to know. But Richard himself on his podcast when he spoke about this topic is like, "A woman isn't murdered in my book. Woman isn't murder in my book." >> But you actually look at the list. It's it's it's slightly disingenuous to say it. Firstly, I mean, I'm on the list. I'm in the top 10 and a woman isn't murdered in my book. So factually I I can't speak for everyone else but there but there isn't one in my book. So I mean fine. >> So it is a little bit murky. I guess I can understand if someone hasn't read the book why they may think it. But essentially a female character places a bomb on someone else's car. Then someone takes that bomb and places it on her car as like a warning. It is not intended to kill her. It's intended as like a a recognition of what she's done and a warning to her to not do it again essentially. And the bomb goes she sets it off accidentally and it goes off and kills her. So she does die. Women do die in both these books but they aren't murdered which is what the Instagram post and the Guardian article assert. And then in the divorce by Freda McFaden which listen I'm not afraid to defender. I'm not about to be afraid to defend her, but a female character in this I think this is like real spoilers for the ending, but a female character does die in a fire that she sets herself to cover up some of her crimes. So, it's seen as self-inflicted. A man is also murdered in this book and she dies kind of a self-inflicted fire. You know, there's other books on this list that maybe a man and a woman die in. Not to I really don't want to mention this person. I'm not even going to say her name. We'll use the pen name, Robert Galbrath. If you know who that person is, you know, I I'm not going to I am not going to defend this person. [laughter] Let that be for sure. But just an example, it's called the Hallmarked Man. A man is the main murder. A man dies. A woman does die. A woman is murdered in it as well. She is a student/ only fans model. And perhaps from that we can already glean that there there is a little bit of a a using a woman's job to maybe view her as an unworthy victim. I mean I haven't read the book but I think I would not expect anything more from this author than to rely on base stereotypes and have no nuance and be like oh this woman got killed cuz she was an only fans model. You know that is I think a bit part of the course. So already there, I think we can see there's probably a spectrum on this list of good representations of women and interrogating the dangers women face and perhaps bad bad representations of women. I do just want to touch on one book that I think I was defensive off immediately when I saw it on the list and saw it included as part of the discussion. This is not a crime book. This a woman is murdered in this book, but it is not crime fiction. And that is the names by Florence Snap. If you don't know this book, and I'm gonna give some minor minor spoilers for this book, this is kind of a contemporary following the lives of a boy and his family. And we're following three different timelines. And those three different timelines are based on a decision his mother makes on what to name him. What you know from very early on in the book is that his mother is an incredibly abusive relationship. Incredibly abusive. one of the most odious men I've ever had the displeasure of reading. But also one of the most tender, nuanced, care taken to represent the life of a woman suffering from domestic abuse. I think this book is incredible. I gave it five stars. Spoiler. I gave this book five stars. In one of the timelines, spoiler, she is murdered by her husband. But in other timelines, she is not. In other timelines, spoiler, she goes on to live a very fulfilled life, a very happy life, a very joyfilled life, a free life. In other timelines, perhaps she doesn't. Perhaps she doesn't die, but she says an abusive relationship. And I do feel like the murder of this woman in this book is not gratuitous. You don't really know details of what happened in the murder. You just know that she dies. And it's heartbreaking. [laughter] It's I'm getting choked up just thinking about it. But I don't really want to use the word beautiful, but this book is beautiful. It feels like it wants to wrap its arms around every victim of domestic abuse and tell them how strong they are and tell them how capable they are and tell them how proud of them they are. It is not done in a way that is done without care. And I think to say that in this case a woman has been murdered for our entertainment, I think that is totally reductive and totally ignoring what this book is doing and the beauty of what this book is doing, you know. So I just wanted to say, you know, I haven't read every book on this top 10 list. I won't read every book on every top 10 list ever. Wendy is continuing on many weeks, I think, on her Instagram to post the top 10 books the week and count how many a woman is murdered in. And I think just to if you're not reading the books, babe, if you're not reading every single one of them, I don't think you can assert that it's a good representation or not, that it's dangerous or not, you know? And actually, the majority of books, like on this list, like I said, are crime fiction. But what I think is important about them is they are not gratuitously violent, right? They are not depicting the violent deaths of women, the violent killings, slayings of women. often they in fact are doing the opposite which is something I spoke to cla about and it was fascinating to hear her perspective on this as an author writing in the genre >> and also my books there obviously that people are murdered or pushed or you know whatever but I try not to focus on the gratuitous violence of I don't like reading books myself that are very violent or watch things that are too violent towards women on telly and whatever so I try to sort of most of my books have been like a spur-of-the- moment murder rather than a planned meticulous you know like a push like like a you know moment of like anger or whatever rather than it being really violent and bloody because I don't I won't want to read that myself so I don't want to write that either it's quite a dark space to be in I think >> Rich Osman also spoke about it >> the stuff that was selling there was a lot of blood and gore and violence and all this stuff and I just I didn't like it it's not what I wanted to read I want to write about crime and I want to write about wrongdoing but I'm I'm not interested in that side of at all. And I think almost all the writers on this list are not interested in it either. >> Blood and gore is not what is popular in crime fiction today. And this actually ties back to what has been popular at different times in crime fiction. This is something I spoke to Nicola about that actually crime fiction was super duper popular during the World Wars. This was a key part of her research. And so I asked her about this and I think we can already see some parallels that we can draw. >> Crime fiction was hugely popular during the wars and in the inter war period. Crime novels didn't often mention the war and people were the the level of violence in society because of the fact there was kind of mechanized warfare does mean that people were not keen to have very barbaric crimes in their crime fiction. That's why we get the kind of cozy crime trope because people wanted to deal with the mystery. They wanted the rational. They wanted the detective, the police person to come and solve it all. But they didn't want to deal with kind of in-your-face violence because it was a society that just wasn't in the in the space for that. And so that I think the tropes there are the body is found but it's not it's not grotesque. It's not gruesome. It's just sort of um done quite quickly and over and you kind of move on. I would say that with the emergence of of cozy crime of more murder mystery style stuff like the Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. We're seeing a return to that right or Agatha Christie back in the day right who wrote during the world wars. In act of the book you don't really ever see the death. the body is kind of like discovered maybe in the library or something and often she would use poisoning as a as a method or yeah there wasn't like blood and gore there wasn't a description of a violent slaying of a woman. There must be something similar happening now happening now for crime fiction to be making up like eight out of the 10 best sellers of a week and for crime fiction to be have been so popular during world one and two where they didn't want the violence they didn't want the gore but they did want the rational detective coming in and solving the mystery solving the crime and having that reassurance at the end which we'll get into. I think there's something to be said about our mental capacity, our mental health right now in a world that feels increasingly uncertain, that feels increasingly hopeless. I think on an individual level, we've never felt more fragmented and more disconnected to each other. Social media, our phones rule our lives. We have to get devices to brick them. I would like a brick. I must admit, I would not be adverse to getting a brick myself. I think there's something to be said about the safety that comes from a murder mystery that is solved. The rational detective figure comes in and fixes it that we must be craving now. I think it is kind of crazy to say like we are as depressed as they were during the world wars. But I think there's a link to be made there in the kind of fiction we're wanting to pick up and how we're struggling mentally as a society. You know, I want to talk a little bit about why I love murder mysteries, okay? Cuz if you're new here, I am a big big murder mystery girly. I read like so many murder mysteries. It's my main genre. And I think, like I said earlier, for me, the kind of processing of the fear, processing of the danger that might be um compelling for some people isn't really why I read the books. I love murder mysteries because I think there is a comfort, like I kind of just mentioned, going into it knowing that the murder will be solved, all the clues unraveled, all the suspects spoken to. There's a formula to it more so than some other genres. I'd say things like romance also have a formula they follow, but murder mysteries definitely have a formula they follow, and it's a formula you can play with, and I really love when when books play with that. But there is a set of rules. There is a comfort that comes from the death being solved, right? From from seeing it all wrapped up, and from seeing that person get justice, the bad person taken away. They're put away, never to be seen again. You know, research has shown that humans have an innate desire for cognitive closure. You know, it's also been said that murder mysteries are kind of like fairy tales for adults. They have that structure. They have things we can learn from them, and it helps us move from that fear to reassurance. It takes us on like a helpful brain path. You know, >> it's a sort of sanitized version of real life, isn't it? Where something bad can happen like it does in real life. But there is always a solution and there is always it's more about in fact the detective than it is the crime. And it's more about the detective than anything else. And that's why detective figures are so pervasive and why we love them, you know. So PRO who's this big cult figure, you've got Marple, you've got people characters like Vera, you know, you've got um all these different detectives. Sherlock the big one. Yeah. But they we want that's the bit of the story really that is the most important isn't it? So whatever the crime does um whatever happens to the victim what we're really invested in is the detective and the detective is the most comforting figure in fiction because they are somebody who can save you know humanity society from its worst things. So the worst the humans can do to each other the detective is the kind of savior in that scenario. And so I think that's what's so important and maybe that's also what's important about the sort of 21st century crime and the kind of the the way that violence against women is talked about in the crimes because actually maybe it's the detectives that's changed who have changed. So you know Vera is a very strong female detective figure and so perhaps that's part of the changing narrative as well. It's about agency for women. So perhaps they're seen things happen to women in the in the novels, but equally women are the new saviors because it's these female detectives that that have that power. And I mean that's doesn't mean it wasn't true in the gold because like I say, you have you have Marple, you have plenty of other kind of female detective figures, but it is because actually the detective is the most important person. So maybe the victim is not the main part of the book, but the how we respond to it is and how the detective solves it is. And that's what makes us feel so comforted. >> And so that was one of my initial assertions, right, was that it is good that these books exist. It is good that these books are telling women's stories, stories of women being murdered, because their killer is always apprehended. Their killer is always brought to justice. They they always get justice, these victims, which doesn't happen in real life. I've seen so many examples of victims not getting justice in real life. And this is something that I spoke to a lot of my interviewees about and we spoke about you know the importance of that. >> But I do think I have thought about this and I because I do read them as well. I read these books. I think for me the reason the reason why I enjoy them and I say enjoy is a loose term but you know um is because I think you get a sense of justice. So when you're reading these books there is and obviously in real life you have these awful cases and nothing ever happens you know nothing it doesn't get resolved. Whereas with a book, you know, they do get resolved and and the and the baddie normally gets what's coming to them, don't they? That is one of the reasons I think that they are quite popular. And I suppose when women read these books, maybe they're fe I don't know. Obviously, I have to speak for myself, but you sort of almost feel like you take back a little bit of control there. Do you know what I mean? You're taking the control back. You're reading a book and you're [clears throat] thinking this person's going to get caught. We're going to find out who it is. They're going to get their just desserts. They're not going to get away with it. Whereas obviously in real life, you don't have that. So that's that's that's how I look at it. So belief in a just world is basically this simple idea that people have this just world fallacy which means an incorrect assumption or belief that the world is fair that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people and part of that fallacy again leads us into that fiction where we go okay we have this fallacy and we want the bad guy but it also reinforces the fallacy in all of the stories that I read they catch the bad guy justice is brought to this victim And so just like the ideal victim theory, we're seeing it both bleeds into the fiction and then directionally reinforces it after we read that fiction so that the cycle just continues. But absolutely, people want to feel safe. And the easiest way to feel safe is to feel like things wouldn't happen to you, which is why we get victim blaming or we're looking at non ideal victims in some cases. So women who purposefully went to a place that they shouldn't have been in, for example, or have specific jobs, for instance. [snorts] That's a popular trope, right? And also the belief that at the end of the day, good people will get good things and bad people will get bad things. But then this is part of the reason why I wanted to speak to Courtney Summers. Let me get some of her books up. Here they are. Here's my little Courtney Summers collection. I actually do have some that are missing that some family members have got right now. But I love Courtney Summers books. I love her books and she writes really about violence against girls, right? But not to spoil her books here, [laughter] but often they don't receive justice or they don't receive justice in the way that you as the reader might want. Some criticism that she gets is like it doesn't feel satisfying as an ending. But for me as a reader, that is part of why I love her books because it feels even more emotionally devastating. But she always does it in a way that feels real. She doesn't shy away from the reality sometimes that this awful awful violence is enacted against women and girls and they don't receive justice. And so that made me I thought of her and I had to unpack what I'd been thinking. I've been thinking it's good these books exist because it means women get justice, but they don't always. And in Courtney Summer's books, they don't, you know, but I love them. And I think that she writes about this subject with such care and such nuance and such intentionality and such intelligence. And it feels like she's often purposefully interrogating the desire the reader has to get closure, to get justice. And so I wanted to speak to her about that, about that need to sub subvert our expectations and about why it's important to her sometimes to withhold that traditional closure and justice and resolution that uh yeah, traditional crime books have. I know a little something about this as someone who has written many books centered on brutalized or dead young women. Um, my novel Sadi is a commentary on our consumption of media about dead women as a form of entertainment. And my novel I'm the girl is based loosely on the Epstein case. And it asks some really difficult questions about victim blaming by committing to the perspective of a groomed teenager. And these books are largely defined by their open endings and a lack of conventional justice served. And some readers find that really problematic. But I think it's more problematic to undermine the reality that upholds these narratives by being dishonest in their portrayal because it comes at the expense of the victims and survivors who might see and have seen themselves in it. And I'll I'll always do what the story demands with those considerations in mind. And I back that up with due diligence when it comes to my research and who I enlist for outside reads. I can't control how readers feel about my books. So I measure my success in how clearly and truthfully I feel my books are reflecting their subject matter. And so then I think I came down to the conclusion that what's important is a book that gives you something to think about. A book that's written with intent. stories that are ultimately like probably running the risk of being not good are the stories that don't give us something to think about. Um, and that aren't really doing much of anything. And I do tend to think of like Freda McVaten in that space. Um, because I have such a sort of like problem with how she's taken like the Jane Air story into the housemaid and like turned it into a nothing burger. [laughter] >> Yeah. >> Um, and there's like sort of like nothing for you to do, nothing for you to think about. um just sort of like take it in >> intent on part of the writer and then intent on part of the reader. And I don't want it to sound like everything always has to be like super intelligent and super having something to say. And listen, I know there's some cozy mysteries, co cozy murder mysteries that are simple that I love that are not super intellectual in intelligent books, but I do still feel like they are interrogating something. I think the murder mystery genre when used well interrogates of views in society, interrogates stereotypes, interrogates expectations and can do that with tropes, with caricatures of types of people. But when it's done well, it's doing it with intentionality. When it's not done well, it's just playing on those stereotypes and tropes for easy understanding, for easy thoughts, you know. And I guess that is an difficult distinction to make and one that I am probably not doing very well, but I think it's a really key distinction to the genre. So I guess I'm kind of also calling therefore some element of critical thinking from a reader. A reader not just brain off head empty. And listen, there are books that I read for brain off head empty, but I'm still often it's like because I know they're safe, because I know the author is not doing things I think are immoral with their stories, with their characters. Like I love a lady hard castle. Those series are doing interesting stuff, but they are also kind of like playing into the structure of the murder mystery in a way that feels safe as a reader. But sometimes we as readers do have to notice when problematic tropes are being relied on too heavily or things are being done in a way that doesn't reflect real life with no kind of intentionality behind them. You know, something that I think this is a little bit of a tangent, but something that I think is interesting is how often in thriller books, women are murdered by a stranger. A serial killer. I don't tend to read a lot of like serial killer books, but I think there are a lot out there, right? Where a woman is is walking on the street at night and murdered by a stranger. That is not how in real life women are murdered, right? Women are traditionally murdered by someone that they know, an intimate partner, a family member. And so I think it's interesting that the thriller genre that stranger murder is something that is so pervasive. It was super interesting talking to Martin about this about what makes a good victim from a psychological perspective. What the average person wants from their victim and what they don't want from their victim. And there are lots of other things in ideal victim theory like the idea that the perpetrator should be a stranger to the person even though a lot of homicides are committed by people known to the victim. And also things like that the victim played no part, right? That we couldn't blame them for what happened to them, that they were just a stranger to this person going about their daily lives. They were just where they should have been doing what they should have been doing and this random big bad dude came and got them. That's who we think of as an ideal victim. And one of the problems that even Christy points out is that we see this trope perpetrated in media. And in psychology, this brings up an issue because we have this shortcut, this mental shortcut, a heruristic called the availability heristic where when we see a word, for example, we think what does this word look like, we think of what we've had made available to us information-wise. So when you think homicide victim, because there are so many instances in media of women homicide victims, that availability heristic grabs it and says women are the victims of homicide. So where does that leave us? [laughter] Where does it leave us? I know I've spoken around a lot of different subjects here, but what would I like to see more of in fiction when it comes to portrayal of women being murdered? I think I am really enjoying recently women being detectives of their own stories. I didn't grab it, but Not quite dead yet by Holly Jackson is a woman investigating her own murder before she dies. And I thought that was incredibly incredibly powerful. The agency that that gives her in that story I thought was incredibly effective. I also think it's important and I would encourage everyone as much as possible to kind of like Martine has mentioned our idea of what a perfect victim should be. I think that has to be really carefully examined on an individual level because of then how that affects who we view as a perfect victim in real life, a victim we can believe in real life. So I think in books we have to understand that the the victim shouldn't be perfect in order to receive justice. This is something that Courtney does in I'm the girl, I think, to like an incredible standard. So much so that there was some critique of this character, right, that that this main character is a young girl who's been groomed and Courtney is examining the decisions that this groomed girl makes. And I remember when I read it, you're just like so sad how she thinks that she has the power in these situations and she doesn't. And I think to look at a girl like this and to think she's annoying when she's a victim of grooming, I think like I would like to see more unperfect victims and for readers to see them and recognize them still as victims who are capable and deserving of receiving justice. At the end of the day, violence against women exists, right? violence against women exists, but I think sweeping it under the rug won't help at all. I think if we were to suddenly get rid of all the books in the world where a woman is murdered and thus women aren't being killed for entertainment, well, guess what? Women are still going to be being killed in real life by their intimate partners, by their family members, by colleagues, by friends. And as I've kind of touched on, the best writers use their books to unpack these questions, to unpack gender, to unpack stereotypes, to unpack uh violence against women. They are using that to ask questions. They are playing with societal expectations. And like I say, it doesn't have to be highbrow. Lucy Foley does this. Richard Osman does this. A good girl's Guide to Murder. YA does this. Some of my all my favorite examples really they are holding a magnifying glass up if you'll excuse the pun to our society what we like. Richard Osman does this so well in kind of like little nods to what we like as humans. His little references to like a Tesco meal deal you may think are flippant but in that he is examining human nature and what we like as humans. Why do we like deal? Why do we like tipping point? It's very niche and very central to the conversation. At the end of the day, I do think and I guess I've spoken broadly in this whole video here, but to not speak with specificity is letting the whole conversation down. I've tried to speak I gave an example of some specificity with the book that I had read, right? The names. I think just to look at a list and count how many of the books have a woman murdered in them without reading them is reductive, right? And I'm sure there are books on that list, you know, I'm kind of sideeying Fre McFaden and Robert Galbreth probably. I'm sure there's books on that list that don't treat violence against women with care and with nuance and maybe use shock factor and maybe rely on killing a woman for the easy shock that it would bring or easy commentary that it could make. But I think there's also a lot of authors on there that don't do that. I love Richard an author. I love the names. speaking to Claire and hearing the decisions that go into her books and the reflections that she has on her books. I don't know what clips I've managed to include, but you know, there was one point where she's kind of talking about her work as a journalist where she worked as a features author and would hear about women's stories and women's lives. And she hasn't directly add adapted any of them, but all of the the knowledge that she has absorbed by working with women and hearing their stories, she is then able to put that into her books. You know, there's great intentionality behind that, but not all do it great, right? There's probably a lot of rubbish stuff out there. [laughter] Looking at Freda, you know, not to be a Freda hater. Sorry, Freda, if you're out there. I don't want to hate. I don't want to hate. But I do feel like often in her book, she relies on tropes in an unhelpful way, in a reductive way. So, I'm not trying to say that the whole of the crime, fiction, thriller, mystery genres are perfect. I'm not trying to say that every author does this well. But I think to kind of make some of these broad sweeping statements that that Instagram post and that article made are reductive. Women read these books. Women write these books. Women work in publishing. These are all female dominant dominated industries in a world where female dominated industries are so rare and they should be celebrated, right? And there is a reason that these stories are being told again and again and again. You know, I feel like Courtney put this incredibly. So shout out Courtney. Play some more of what Courtney said. So the answer to why as the Guardian asks fictions and and readers keep returning to stories featuring dead women is you know it's I think it's complex but I don't think it's going to be found by covering the mirror. I think it's important these books exist. [music] I think many of them are doing something important with what they are saying and many are doing something important about what they're saying in an incredibly overt, intelligent, intentional way. And some are doing it more quietly. I don't think we should be reductive. I don't think we should be simplistic in this conversation. I'd love to hear any of your thoughts about, you know, thrillers or mysteries that you've read that you thought did it with intentionality and maybe didn't. I think there is a spectrum, but I think just to say this is bad, this is awful. We are murdering women for entertainment in our fiction is too simplistic. And at the end of the day, a lot of these stories are based on violence against women that is happening in real life. And like Courtney says, we should be holding the mirror up to it. We shouldn't be sweeping it under the rug, in my opinion. So, we have it everyone. That's my little video essay interrogation into violence against women in mystery thrillers. You know, there'll probably be people out there who don't agree with my stance that do agree that it's incredibly harmful that so many mystery thrillers feature a woman being murdered. And I kind of think it's valid if you have that opinion as long as you can back it up and speak with specificity. I'm not trying to say that my opinion is like the be all end all opinion. That's just my opinion. That's just my opinion. But I'd love to hear any of your thoughts onto this. Again, shout out to all of my contributors, people I interviewed for this. My interviews were incredible and um I don't know how much of each I've managed to put in here. They were each like half an hour long. Obviously, the video would be super long if I put them all in, but they were all wonderful and I've really enjoyed working on this video project. I've loved it. I found it so creatively fulfilling. I can't wait to edit it as well. You know, I want to give a quick shout out to my patrons because my patron makes making videos like this possible. I've been working on it for like 2 weeks and or I will by the time this video is up and so I can only do that by having my patron. So if you want to see more content like this um be sure to join the Patreon because the more people that join the more videos I'll be able to make like this and dedicate the time to it. But I would love to do more stuff like this going forward, more video essay style content. So I really hope you guys enjoy it. I think it's an incredibly important conversation. I would love love love to hear your thoughts on it down below. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you very soon in another video. Bye.