Monsters in our midst
Mar. 7th, 2008 11:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_prodigalI'm watching Dexter this week. I like it. I'm not in awe or anything, but I really like how they treat the issue of the main character wanting to appear normal, to blend in. I guess looking at the world through the eyes of a psychopath with a morality code is as good a device for that as any.
For those who don't know the show, Dexter is a blood splatter specialist, and a serial killer who only goes after murderers who have killed indiscriminately. Dexter has no empathy, but intellectually he knows right from wrong and is determined to act accordingly. I can imagine that lots of viewers find themselves identifying with him. I know I do.
In the last episode I watched, Dexter was sitting next to his girlfriend who was crying her eyes out at some movie they'd rented. He thinks, "Maybe if I don't blink, my eyes will tear up." I laughed my ass off at that. God, the number of times I've had that exact same thought!
For those who don't know the show, Dexter is a blood splatter specialist, and a serial killer who only goes after murderers who have killed indiscriminately. Dexter has no empathy, but intellectually he knows right from wrong and is determined to act accordingly. I can imagine that lots of viewers find themselves identifying with him. I know I do.
Don't worry; it's not the part about the killing I identify with. For my part, I never wanted to cut anyone up. Well... in theory, yes, I would like to exact revenge on some of those assholes who harmed people who never did anything to them. Turnabout is fair play, and all that. So that part of the show is strangely satisfying. Everybody feels like a vigilante sometimes, at least from the safe position of the couch. But when it comes down to it, I couldn't take the law into my own hands, I don't think. I'm just not the bloodthirsty type, nor do I have the ability to switch off the simple empathy with anyone who's not in a position to fight back. Anyone. I don't believe I could have even harmed Hitler, if I had been placed in a room with him and he was helpless.
What I do identify with, strongly, is all the trouble Dexter has, trying to fit in among normal people. Playing the game, wearing a mask. Being aware that people like him and that they think he has feelings for them. I think everybody has felt at some point or another that their emotional response to something - or lack thereof - was inappropriate. Feeling like an outsider, having to fake normalcy... this is very common, I think (?) and I like the way this show explores that and pushes it to the extremes. It's very funny and somehow alleviating to watch.
I'm like Dexter in some ways. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't have emotions. I can get very emotional, but it's just... often not about the things that people around me get emotional about. How many times have I tried to console a boyfriend, or a friend, or a one-night-stand, forchristssake, who was crying and hoped that they wouldn't notice how unmoved I was? Or had someone pour their heart out to me, all the while thinking how I could get away without insulting them? Hell, I've been in that general kind of situation so many times with so many different people, whether they were feeling sorrow or ecstacy... knowing how they felt but not feeling anything myself. Hoping, desperately, to feel something, or at least to not let it show that I wasn't. Thinking I must be a cynical, cold-hearted freak for not sharing in the big brouhaha.
What I do identify with, strongly, is all the trouble Dexter has, trying to fit in among normal people. Playing the game, wearing a mask. Being aware that people like him and that they think he has feelings for them. I think everybody has felt at some point or another that their emotional response to something - or lack thereof - was inappropriate. Feeling like an outsider, having to fake normalcy... this is very common, I think (?) and I like the way this show explores that and pushes it to the extremes. It's very funny and somehow alleviating to watch.
I'm like Dexter in some ways. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't have emotions. I can get very emotional, but it's just... often not about the things that people around me get emotional about. How many times have I tried to console a boyfriend, or a friend, or a one-night-stand, forchristssake, who was crying and hoped that they wouldn't notice how unmoved I was? Or had someone pour their heart out to me, all the while thinking how I could get away without insulting them? Hell, I've been in that general kind of situation so many times with so many different people, whether they were feeling sorrow or ecstacy... knowing how they felt but not feeling anything myself. Hoping, desperately, to feel something, or at least to not let it show that I wasn't. Thinking I must be a cynical, cold-hearted freak for not sharing in the big brouhaha.
In the last episode I watched, Dexter was sitting next to his girlfriend who was crying her eyes out at some movie they'd rented. He thinks, "Maybe if I don't blink, my eyes will tear up." I laughed my ass off at that. God, the number of times I've had that exact same thought!
