Day 5: Time to Stop The Killing

About 20 years ago, I was addicted to Heat Magazine. I read that and another whose name I don't remember. I do remember that it was less slick than Heat and more openly vicious, so I liked it less. 

I bought into Heat Magazine's friendly voice - its message of 'we're all in this together, having a weird push-pull, co-dependent relationship with celebrity. Let's interview them like friends and slate them before the breath we say goodbye on has left our lungs'. 

Its a narcissistic* kind of friendship: Let's find out what makes them tick and uncover how they're 'just like us', and then use it to flay the skin from their bones, if only in our minds. 

At some point, I suddenly became aware of what was obvious. This is NOT helping me. Every time I read about a celebrity break-up or that this one's got fatter and that one's 'dangerously thin', it's the equivalent of punching myself in the face, or surrounding myself with all my childhood bullies (mostly friends) for a field day of 'let's belittle Jude'. This bile is coming from my own liver and coming back to poison it again. 

Enough is enough, I thought. It's time to stop. It probably took me a year of knowing this to make the commitment. That was the last gossip magazine I ever buy. We're done. It was hard. It was a big change of tack. But it was SO worthwhile. I can't look at one now without feeling like I'm hurting someone. Everyone. Like I'm feeding some monster that just cannot warrant feeding right now. I'm grateful for leaving them behind. 

Over the past year, I've become more an more aware of my new destructive addition - well, one of them, at least: crime drama. I say new. It's not new, it's been going on a while. My favourite shows for years have been The Killing (yes, all three) and better still, The Bridge. I've swung from one crimey, slaughterous thriller to another. 

OK, so both those shows have strong (and autistic/ish) female leads, but there's no denying that most of these shows involve elaborate killings, torture, sick minds, more sexual violence than you can shake a stick at, endless betrayal and the clear message that you can't trust anyone. 

And it's not news to say that the other women in these shows often don't come out of things too well, especially the young and pretty ones (see above).

As my wise friend Rina Golan points out, the subconscious mind doesn't differentiate between what's real and what's experienced. It takes what you give it. If I continue to give it torture porn, I'll continue to lash it into fear and my energetic resonance can't lift.

I tried to watch Spiral - which started off with one of these women naked and dead in a skip (but she was laid out artistically, so it's 'ok', or at least she was going to make it into the PLOT later, bonus!) 
I couldn't carry on. I'd bought that fucker - three series' worth - and I deleted them from my computer.

I planned to stop after the fourth series of The Bridge, but that came and went and my poor subconscious drank in more and more evidence that it's a vicious world out there. 

The last thing I watched (and rewatched) was Killing Eve. Beautifully written (go, Phoebe Waller-Bridge), funny, stylish and played to perfection. Lots of brilliant women. Lots of complexity, even in its stylised form, AND... lots of people getting nastily killed. Very nastily killed. For fun. In a way, it's better than the others, because it's lighter, but seriously - people murdered for sport and we still love her for being cool? It's great, and I've had enough. 


So it's time now, sweetheart. It's time to stop treating the ugly things that happen in the world as entertainment. Yes, it's important to tell real and powerful stories, but not to use murder and rape as titillation, however cool the characters. 


I'm not advocating 'love and light'**, but a little bit of gentleness and wisdom for myself. 
For this, in advance (it's not done until I stop), I am grateful. 

Thing is, though, there are roses out there, and people, and things to care about. It's time to feed myself something a little more nourishing. 

* More to come on narcissism. ** And on 'love and light'... the self-deluded tit-wank that is.