Serial Killer Persuasive Essay

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Jonathan Goldstrom MC 325 Professor Hunt November 18th, 2014 Serial Killers: A Guilty Pleasure “There’s something about them…Something emotionally intriguing and intellectually engaging that draws us in, makes us part of their sick puzzle” (Ostrow, 1) Serial killers entice, petrify, and entertain the general public. Throughout popular culture serial killers are transformed into larger-than-life celebrities because of news and entertainment media hyperbole, people’s fascination to see into the mind of a serial killer, public appetite for gruesomeness, and through public intrigue of law enforcement. People are titillated of why serial killers did their crimes, and why they would commit serial homicide. The public is easily captivated by art…show more content…
Serial killers brutal acts are both adrenaline-charged and addictive. It acts as a form of gruesome entertainment. As Bonn had said, the bloodier the story the more it entertains the person, which in turn helps them sell more. Journalist Matthew Gilbert, of the Boston Globe, wrote an article titled Why Serial Killers draw a following on TV. In this publication he discusses of how serial killers in media satisfy the publics appetite for gruesomeness when he says, “But my sense of TV, as well as movies and books, is that among its many, many purposes, it can serve as an outlet for our darkest fantasies. TV can provide us with a safe opportunity to process on a subconscious level the scariest behaviors we can imagine — and serial killing, a blend of violence” (Gilbert, 1). Art and entertainment media about serial killers offers a safe outlet for exercising ones appetite for macabre. These behaviors are so gruesome that the average person cannot even fathom committing the level of violence gruesomeness that serial killers preform. In this, serial killers offer an escape from the dullness of everyday life. It offers a chance to experience such a gruesome thrill in a responsible and controlled manner. Serial killers are very much like what haunted houses are for adolescents; they provide a horror that is both entertaining and pleasurable, because they are in a controlled environment. Fear in a controlled environment is very different than fear in real life, where one can actually be harmed. This leads to explain why art about serial killers makes them such an attraction, and therefore transforms them into larger than life
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