Being serious for a minute, I think such headlines appeal to many males as well as females. The males get to view some pretty young female thing, and the females get to work through some anxiety they feel.
That's my theory about the females, and I could be wrong, but my understanding is that there is a big female audience for Lifetime's "cold case-type" TV shows and I think the allure is seeing some perp brought to justice, allieviating anxiety.
Having been in DC during the Chandra Levy tragedy, there is something creepy about the extent to which they kept showing the photo of her that was, well, hotter than the others. This generated some commentary at the time.
And living in DC then doesn't in any way stack up to NYC ever. (I'm left to say something like Ah, Chief Ike's Mambo Room, which doesn't compare to the Wa Wa Hut at all).
DC can't compete with NYC, because nowhere can compete with DC.
...but if Chief Ike's Mambo Room is the best place you found in DC, you got a very odd slice of DC. don't get me wrong, Chief Ike's can be a lot of fun, but...
Yo, benton, why the cheap shot at the District? Was someone suggesting that DC was better than NYC?
It seems to me that the Chandra and Laci phenomena have to be understood vis-a-vis race as evidence of the latent racism in the social contruction of race. I don't know how much blame the media deserves for broadcasting content that the public is eager to watch (I think a lot), but I think the broadcasters are telling the truth that better, responsible content would leave broadcasters uncompetitive.
What was too creepy by half was the Jon Benet Ramsey media smorgasbord—that pornographic episode ought to have sewn up the case against the lowest-common-denominator interests that make up national news in favor of local coverage.
I hate Whitey as much as the next guy (though less than the Shi'a, Mr. Secret Service Man), but it isn't just racism at work here. Either people just don't kidnap or harm fat white girls, or the concern about our growing obesity problem is vastly overstated.
The media focus on attractive women (and probably men). As a general rule, that means young, white and thin-ish. And they focus there because viewers are more interested in those stories in which the people involved are attractive. I know this because at least twice I've googled the names of women whose problems were reported in the news to see what they looked like. That, in all seriousness, is fairly sick, should disturb me a great deal, and does, in fact, cause me some shame. But, as I was able to deal with the butchery of 800K in Rwanda with nothing but a few caustic comments about our government, I'm pretty sure the shame won't be disabling.
viewers are more interested in those stories in which the people involved are attractive
Yes. I'm curious about the "why." Clearly, at least part of the appeal for men is that these stories provide a morally safe context in which to contemplate the brutalization of young hotties. But that can't be the whole reason, and doesn't explain the fascination for women. (And we're all fascinated by "this could happen to you" stories, but that too doesn't seem like the whole reason.)
Well, it's simpler than the John Bolton confirmation, and people like some narrative thread to follow; the pretty girl part is icing on the cake. I think these stories are probably theatre that supplements some pretty boring lives out there.
At least part of it is that we just care more about attractive people. (See, e.g., this.) It's still bad when bad things happen to ugly people; it's just not as bad. Welcome to the real world.
There's the sadism you've identified, and there's a value judgment -- women are valuable objects to the extent that they're sexually desirable to men. A story about a valuable object (an attractive woman) in danger, is much more interesting, because the stakes are higher, than a story about an unappealing woman who isn't worth anything to an onlooking man. Her value to herself, or to her loved ones, doesn't enter into it -- the stakes are measured by how much the audience (male, white) would want to own her. Women buy into this value system too -- they're often willing to accept judgments of relative importance made that assume that men are the primary audience.
It's icky, but there are certainly ickier and more important problems out there.
Kriston -
I was just riffing on my comment on Alameida's post below, and Chief Ike's Mambo Room is the closest matchup to the gone but not forgotten King Tut's Wa Wa Hut.
But every time I think of the Hut, and of my beloved Brooklyn, I want to break these capitol chains and head for the Acela or shuttle or whatever....
Oh man, I'd blocked out Jon Benet. You are absolutely right. Disturbing to the max.
there are certainly ickier and more important problems out there.
It's all about gay sex with some people, isn't it?
Remember when that one dude, Andrew something, killed Versace (I think) after Miami? That was the only big gay murder drugs fantasia I can remember.
And there the focus was more on the killer rather than the victim. The reporting was very different from the fetishized Elizabeth Smart/Chandra Levy/Pretty white woman or girl crime victim kind of story.
This had to have been the biggest non-story ever. She went missing, and iirc, it was only after she was found that there was talk of kidnapping, a story which fell apart very quickly.
So basically, she took off for a couple days without telling her parents, told a tissue-paper lie, and this is news.... how? She's not that attractive.
story about a valuable object ... in danger, is much more interesting
This applies to men, as well. When a young African-American man dies violently, it's sad. When a young African-American man with a mad handle and a sweet j dies violently, it's a tragedy. I'm still a little upset about Sweet Pea (?) getting shot in the neck, and he didn't even die.
But SCMT, the African-Americans you're thinking of are antecedently famous. If... let me try to think of a famous person who's physically unattractive, widely despised, and generally useless... Bill Parcells were to die violently it would make big news, because lots of people already knew who Bill Parcells is. That's not true of the runaway brides etc. (And was true of Versace--but I think Cunanan was actually in the headlines before he killed Versace.)
That is a pretty good point, Weiner. I'll have to think about that. You bastard.
Well, I'm not sure it's a true point though. I remember when high-school baller Benji Wilson was shot in Chicago many years ago that there was a great outpouring of grief, and, good as he was, most people hadn't heard of him before he was killed.
It's not true point whatsoever, since Bill Parcells's death would require for an entirely justified national day of mourning.
Pardon the mess in 21, I was flustered. Talk trash about pretty white women, but not America's Team.
Is this a serious defense of Bill Parcells, one of the most unlikable characters in pro sports?
I'm honestly far less offended by him than others. I'm afraid I thought that "Jap plays" was more apt (and less colorful) than a lot of locker-room metaphors.
I don't remember the "jap plays" thing; mainly I hold against him his middle-of-the-night desertion of the Pats, and his massively massive ego.
All that, and the fact that he coaches for the Team of Satan. You're not seriously trying to defend the Cowboys, are you, Kriston? It is a truth universally acknowledged that teams that go around calling themselves "America's Team" suck donkey dick (cf. Atlanta Braves, Notre Dame, New York Yankees).
I like the Cowboys. Well, this dates to Tom Landry days, but still.
Maybe baa likes the Cowboys?
Probably not.
Kriston - you made many good points above until you started talking about the Cowboys. Aren't they now America's revolving cast of more or less faceless men who will be soon cut for salary cap issues?
Man, this is the most commenting I've done in weeks. I must have a lot of work I'm avoiding....
How should we respond to news of some great misfortune's befalling someone we hate? Right now I'm thinking silence, though I'd like to hear defenses of, say, pumping our fists and whooping.
Standpipe, are you saying your overjoyed at my workload?
Certainly not. I imagine we composed our respective comments concurrently. I was reflecting on the Bill-Parcells-untimely-death scenario discussed above.
Then I think that fist pumping might be a bit unseemly. But if you wanted to have shadenfreude at my workload, that actually would be fine. I have several colleagues who are thrilled.
I like the Cowboys
At the mineshaft.
Wasn't that what Arianna's blog was originally supposed to be called?
I dislike the Cowboys. Should any Cowboys cheerleaders go missing, however, I pledge to follow the story closely.
We saw your Cowboys today. They never let Philadelphia even have the ball for a minute. It was 42 to 7 by the half. You oughtta give other people just a little chance. In football anyway.
Whoa, pardon my slow motion double-take, but: ogged likes Kaus? I have to wonder what Kaus does for him, because he does nothing for me. Also, dude seriously needs to lay off the bold and italics for a while. His blog reads like a ransom note. [It is a ransom note, for John Kerry's nonexistent manhood!—ed. Too true.]
1. I'm not sure it's a true point though. He missed a meet-up, but he's explained what happened. Let it go. I still think he's right, and that maybe it means that the "kidnapped woman" thing just reduces to a special case of the Pretty Female phenomena.
2. I loathe Parcells for roughly the same reasons I loathe Bob Knight and Josh Bolton, and am uncomfortable with my adoration of Jordan. It's clear that all of these guys (a) have reputations as bullies, (b) are very good (or good, for Bolton) at what they do, and that (c) to some extent, (b) is connected to (a), and so (a) is excused. The problem is that it's not clear how much the bullying helps and when it becomes a net negative, but nobody examines these things. They just look at the set and decide, "spare the rod, spoil the child," etc.
SB, that's a perfect sendup. Someone should email it to mickey.
The bullying isn't a net negative for the Cowboys right now. Cf. my earlier point: Dave Campo. Dave fucking Campo, people, that's when I whoop and pump my fists.
In the house I grew up in, you could maybe moonlight with admiration of Warren Moon, maybe, but you were first and foremost a Cowboys fan. Truth be told: I've always hated Jerry Jones, and I spent some time in Tampa and ended up a Bucs fan (well before the Super Bowl—I'm talking Errol Flynn uniform, 0-13 season era), but that team is more or less intolerable, sadly. I'm not about to start watching the Redskins, and I don't loathe Parcells for the reasons SCMT outlined. I like to see (b).
ogged likes Kaus?
There was an extensive discussion of this, deep in the comments to an unrelated post. If you're interested, it starts here.
40, point 2: It's John Bolton--Josh Bolten is the OMB director, which is another story--and he fucking sucks shit at what he does, unless you consider what he does to be fucking up and alienating everyone. In this case, and maybe in some sports cases (and even, dare I say it, possibly sometimes in philosophy--don't have anyone in mind), it's like we associate being a bully with toughness, so people get good reputations because they're assholes, even if they in fact also suck.
Re Matt's point, somebody (oh god forbid, it may have been Kaus, hmm [google, google], nope it was yglesias debunking kaus) recently remarked that a profile of margaret spelling that showed her to be a bully was just a source greaser because that's a valuable reputation to have as a cabinet secretary.
don't have anyone in mind
You could probably get away with naming Leiter on this blog.
Kriston
Re Campo, I understand. The Red State Ray Handley. And that will tell you something about how I was raised. Although we agree on the old Bucs. Lee Roy Selmon. And their coach with the sardonic streak. "Coach, how's the offense looking?" "Our offense kills a lot of grass at midfield." What was his name?
As for Parcells himself, my feeling of anger, grief and loss and inability to reorient my understanding of how the man who coached LT and Jim Burt is the same repulsive schmuck I see now is disorienting.
Although I don't have Seaver hostility it is in some way very similar to what happened after the mets made "the trade" back in the 1970s. Now that he's doing commentary for the Mets on TV I really have trouble listening to Seaver. He sucks. And yet he's Tom Seaver.... How can this be?
Similarly, Bill Parcells, with that offensive line, how can this be? Perhaps it was Bill Bellichick all along.
Parcells is a pimp, he never could've outfought Seifert. But I didn't know till this day, it was Belichek all along.
I second the part about Seaver's TV commentary being awful. Though sometimes amusingly awful.
Kriston (#43): The thing is, I think bullies are great, and maybe even necessary, to reform an underperforming team. When everything has gone to hell, people looking at the onrushing train wreck will lick the toes of a disciplinarian who can begin to set things aright. I am suspicious, though, of claims that bullies can, for any reasonable length of time, get serious growth in performance above (let's call it) industry norms for a given talent level.
Weiner (#45): I defend you against ogged's malformed criticism, and then #45? Why you doin' me like that?
Michael (#47): I'm not sure (a) Weiner was talking about Leiter (he has before, and I don't recall it being particularly negative), or (b) we should be randomly attributing negative views about someone relatively powerful to someone who doesn't post under a psued.
Baa (#49): You like Seifert? You are a complex man, baa, a complex man. Did you get my note on the Cs re: Game 7? Hahahahaha.
baa, my hat is off. SCTM, did you miss the brilliance of the Corleone reference?
And Bob Murphy and Ralph Kiner were amusinglyawful. I don't know about Seaver.
I don't have much feeling either way about Seifert, but to make the Godfather quote work, it either had to be him or Walsh. And I liked Walsh more as the old Don, and Seifert as Santino (lesser, but still formiddable).
Of course now I realize that no one got the Godfather quote
Tim, I just wrote you back ~15 min ago!. I check that email box irregularly, so my apologies. Depresssing, depressing game.
Is Tom Seaver a bad announcer. That is depressing. Fortuantely the flame-throwing idol of my boyhood is never going to get an announcing job.
SCMT: Thanks for the backup on Leiter. I didn't mean Leiter, in fact didn't mean anyone at all; and tho' I didn't interpret Michael as thinking that I did, it's not my reputation on this blog that I'm worried about.
But--say something not entirely negative about John Bolton, and don't be surprised if you catch some fallout. My anti-Boltonism takes no prisoners, not even my allies (funny, that).
And their coach with the sardonic streak. "Coach, how's the offense looking?" "Our offense kills a lot of grass at midfield." What was his name?
You have to be talking about McKay, but that was before my time. I got stuck with Wyche, mostly, but I saw the dawn of the Dungy years.
I didn't mean to imply that I thought Matt was thinking of Leiter, I just meant that if he wanted to name a name and not worry about stepping on any toes at this blog, that one name was fairly safe.
I did in fact mean John McKay. Thank you. Now was he the one who said he was going to send Doug Williams to Iran to overthrow the Ayatollah, or did that come later?
That I don't know. Maybe Joe Gibbs, actually; he was the quarterback coach when Williams was in Tampa and he brought Williams to Washington from whatever European league hell he went to after Tampa.
Who was the coach who, following a loss, answered the question:
"What do you think of your team's execution?"
with
"I'm all for it."
I always thought that was apocryphal, but Google says it was John McKay. Were his coaching as good as his jokes. . . .
I had no idea Gibbs coached in Tampa. That somehow cracks me up. He is the best reason I can think of to root for the Redskins, although I imagine he is giving native washingtonians and long time residents their own "how can Tom Seaver suck" moments.
And baa, he is really bad. But if you don't know the importance of throwing strikes, you will after listening to him for a moment or two. Because what these young pitchers need to learn is....
Its not like he's wrong, but a) if it were so easy we'd all be Tom Seaver and b) we heard you the first time. I did some googling for examples and found that he won an emmy along with therest of his team -- although I give credit to Bill Webb.
How I miss Tim McCarver before the fall into smug.
Seaver sounds bad, but is he Joe Morgan bad?
I know zip about baseball, but I always understood that Morgan was one of the good announcers. Not accurate?
Tim, your taste in sports so closely mirrors my own...the horror, the horror...
He's not Joe Morgan bad. (Shudder). But he can see Joe Morgan bad from where he is.
I also thought Joe Morgan was considered a good announcer. But I haven't been watching baseball closely (except playoffs, sometimes) since the early 90s. I was also a big Giants fan for a while, so that may bias me.
The worst-announced baseball sequence I remember hearing was an inning or two of an AL playoff game during which Bob Costas and Bob Uecker (?) did just about anything except talk about the game. This may have also been the same game in which Costas referred to one fan, dressed in heavy warm clothing, as Nanook of the North, a comment that almost made up for the rest of the announcing.
The scary thing about Morgan is that he can repetitively make a point in about the same self satisfied way as Seaver, and be actually wrong about it. This happens particularly in regard to the stolen base, which he regards as a momentum changer in much the same way some Canadian old guard types think of hockey fights.
Dude, the home run happened because its Miguel Tejada or Garrett Anderson batting, and given that one of the best hitters in the league is up, why the hell would you want to risk getting thrown out before he's had his at bat? Etc etc. But then to hear that the home run happened not becuase of the hitter, but because of the stolen base makes me crazy. And baseball is supposed to relax me....
Bill James, I think, is the first guy on record noting the Great Joe Morgan Conundrum: viz., how is it that a guy who was so definitively a *smart* high percentage ball player can be so *dumb* as an observer of the game. Stolen base as a momentum play, benton, is *exactly* the type of thing I mean. Joe Morgan *is* the moneyball player -- lifetime OBP of 39% -- and he's the guy bashing Moneyball. Although given that he thought Billy Beane wrote Moneyball, I guess it's not quite clear what he's bashing.
TV is just a horrible meduium for baseball commentary. There's too much time, and too little to do. So what do you do to fill the time? Cliches are good. But better still is to introduce some explanatory schema in the second inning ("Mark Prior needs to throw more off-speed pitches"), and then spend the nedd three hours cramming every thing that happens into that schema whether it fits or not (Play-by-play guy: "strike-out on the high fast ball, Prior climbs the ladder on Mondesi." Color guy: "that whole at bat was set up by the threat of the breaking pitch, which Prior threw on 0-1...). As Bill Simmons would say, I feel very strongly about this. Morgan is a huge offender on this score. So too, alas, is the degenrate Morlock Tim McCarver we have to deal with now.
That Bill James piece is in the New Historical Abstract, possibly among other places.
59: Good Michael, that is actually what I thought you meant. But, it's not this blog that I'd be worried about!
I should add that what I said is definitely not true of Leiter. Leiter's name is well known among folks like me, who don't work in any of his areas, because of the information he compiles about department rankings and faculty moves.
What happened to McCarver? When he was first with the Mets he rocked. The thing that he had over the other commentors was theat he had a knack for explaining little things that players are coached to do, like positioning. That and he actually could relate stories involving some of the game's greatest characters - Gibson and Carlton. Is it just that there's no way to stay fresh and only a finite supply of "McCarver, what are you doing out here, the only thing you know about pitching is its hard to hit" stories?
You could probably do an econometric analysis of the life cycle of jocks in the tv booth. A kind of hazard model maybe. Ah, sweet procrastination.