Oh good, you've put it here too. Humanizing killers and onlookers is all well and good, but my problem is that these stories tell an incomplete and therefore misleading truth. In my mind a good humanizing story should be, "Look at these people who are totally not monsters but people who could be you. And look at the awful things they did to these other people who are also all too human, just like you. See? You are not immune. You, too, have the capacity for evil within you." A proper villain-humanization story should make people uncomfortable, it should make people examine what they believe and what they do.
Instead, all too often the story is "Look at these people who are totally not monsters but people who could be you. And look at the awful things they did to... oh, these interchangeable stereotypes that are totally not like you. Why are we so hard on these poor dears, anyway? They're just people, not monsters! The evil must have happened like a flash flood or an earthquake, who knows. But let's not blame these totally-people for what happened to these not-quite-people, because that's awful to call people bad names like Nazis." These stories soothe where they should sting, and uphold the status quo while giving creators and viewers alike a totally undeserved sense that they are somehow brave and moral.
Humanization should mean acknowledging that humans, all humans, are capable of evil. Instead it's often used as a device to cut out the evil from the wrongdoers' lives while dehumanizing the victims, as though there's only so much humanity to go around. And guess which kind of story sells better and gets more acclaims. Sometimes I hate people.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2015-04-18 08:25 am (UTC)Instead, all too often the story is "Look at these people who are totally not monsters but people who could be you. And look at the awful things they did to... oh, these interchangeable stereotypes that are totally not like you. Why are we so hard on these poor dears, anyway? They're just people, not monsters! The evil must have happened like a flash flood or an earthquake, who knows. But let's not blame these totally-people for what happened to these not-quite-people, because that's awful to call people bad names like Nazis." These stories soothe where they should sting, and uphold the status quo while giving creators and viewers alike a totally undeserved sense that they are somehow brave and moral.
Humanization should mean acknowledging that humans, all humans, are capable of evil. Instead it's often used as a device to cut out the evil from the wrongdoers' lives while dehumanizing the victims, as though there's only so much humanity to go around. And guess which kind of story sells better and gets more acclaims. Sometimes I hate people.