Gruesome and Graphic

Ann Cleeves, who writes the Vera and Shetland stories, claims Scandinavian fiction treats women victims badly. She doesn't like graphic violence against women and children. Her work is less violent because "we tend to write what we want to read." 

There have been studies on violence against women in the thriller genre. Is it necessary, or for entertainment? Some say it reflects sexism in society. Others think if a strong female predominates, such as Gillian Anderson's character in The Fall, then it is OK to have such violence against women. What do you think?

I think there is graphic violence right through tv these days, and often it is so gruesome I won't watch. Luther was one of these, and The Wire another. Somehow it has become a race for tv shows to show more and more graphic violence, often but not always against women. I don't want to see a man or child or a woman - or an animal - tortured. I don't read enough thrillers to know if the violence is in the text before it translates to the screen. I do know it is labelled as realism, sometimes gritty realism. I now know enough to be very wary of programmes hyped with this sort of label. 

It is possible to buy and read, or borrow and read, non-fiction accounts of forensic investigations into murders which - you would think - would turn the stomach of the ordinary citizen. Yet murders and stories of murderers have always had a fascination. When I worked in a public library the murder/war crimes section was one of the most popular. It seems the general public wants to be horrified, or turned on by graphic violence in the same way they want to be scared by vampire and ghost stories. 

 "I'm aware families sit around the telly to watch Vera, which is making entertainment out of murder," said Cleeves. "But I don't enjoy reading about people's pain. I tend to put myself in that position and it's not somewhere I want to be."

 I'm afraid that Ms Cleeves and I buck the trend. A lot of people do enjoy reading about people's pain and watching actors deliver it on screen.  Until they start avoiding or switching off, it will go on being delivered and will very likely get even more gruesome, if that is possible.

The North-South divide

The Tyne Valley

here's a link to Hazel's blog, in which she talks about the North-South Divide that exists and flourishes in this country.
Hazel lives just down the road from me, belongs to our local writers' group and has just published her second book, which is set in Northumberland. I was amused to see that even as someone not locally born, she notices and probably resents the total lack of knowledge about Northumberland that exists in this country - and probably in the rest of the world. The comments she mentions are ones I've heard frequently over the years. Even the weather forecasters on tv skip over the north of England, or they talk about "the north" and then mention Birmingham or Manchester.

Manchester is somewhat closer to us, but it's still 3 hours driving time, in a car on motorways, to get there. In that amount of time, I can be over the border, beyond Edinburgh, cross the Forth Bridge and drive north to Perth in Scotland. Another three hours will take me to Inverness, and a further hour to Ullapool on the north west coast of Scotland. People down south seem to think we still have nothing but coal mines, slag heaps and steelworks, with maybe the odd shipyard thrown into the mix. I can't deny they existed up until the late fifties and sixties, but they're not there now. Green fields and grazing cattle exist where once the mines flourished. Forget the images you remember from films like 'Get Carter' and tv series such as 'When the boat comes in' or 'Vera' because they simply don't do the place justice.

The Olympics pointed out just how London-centric this country is. Some football matches were played here in Newcastle, and that's it. That's all we saw of the Olympics. When we go south on our annual trip to France, we're always horrified by the traffic volume, which starts to build south of Leeds and is truly horrendous by the time we reach either the M25 or the Southampton-Portsmouth area.So many people everywhere, so many cars rushing in every direction. Coming home, we start to relax once we've left Weatherby behind. I once applied for jobs in Chichester, Portsmouth and Crawley, went for interview and was disappointed when I didn't get the post. Now I thank the good lord that I'm here in the north...

Oh dear

Vera is the latest offering on tv that is set in the North East of England. I watched the first two episodes with great expectation, but gave up on the third and fourth because I couldn't bear listening to the dreadful attempts at a so called Geordie accent. With few exceptions the delivery was painfully slow, as if the actors had to frame the sounds in their heads before they attempted them in reality. The addition of 'pet' on every other sentence was an irritation. The leading actress was a strange choice, and the younger officer might have been a better leaad. Certainly he had the right sound.

Tv film makers seem bent on seeking out the locations that hark back to the North East of fifty years ago. There are no pit heaps now. The pits are long since closed and grassed over. The steel works have gone. The shipbuilding has very nearly disappeared. There are many beautiful places here, but do the filmakers seek them out? They do not. They want grim and gritty, and show them ad nauseam.

But I suppose there's virtue in their madness. Tourists won't be swarming into Northumberland and Durham on the basis of Vera, and that means we can keep Britain's best kept secret all to ourselves.