Originally published on Facebook 1 November 2017.

Spare me your wholly uncomprehending generalizations about how people who like horror or crime fiction, who read or watch (or write) narratives about bad people, are doing so only because it feeds whatever inhuman or evil impulses they have.

James M. Cain was not writing for an audience of psychopaths.

Jim Thompson was not writing for an audience of psychopaths.

Donald Westlake, when writing as Richard Stark, was not writing for an audience of psychopaths.

People who venerate THE GODFATHER see more in that movie and in GODFATHER II and in THE SOPRANOS and in BREAKING BAD than self-indulgent wankery about all the evils they would happily commit themselves if they only had a chance.

Some of us seek out those fictions, and others based on corrupt behaviors, to diagnose humanity, not to revel in inhumanity.

Stories like DOUBLE INDEMNITY — (and for me that starts with the novel, good as the very different movie is) — or THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE or that much newer classic, Scott Smith’s A SIMPLE PLAN, illustrate why we are what we are, and they are the other half of the coin presented by stories of human nobility.

If you thinks that makes their audiences suspect people, as I just saw a few of you say, you need to stop fooling yourselves on this simple fact:

It doesn’t work the other way around, either.

Reading or watching the stories of the unabashedly noble does not mean you possess special virtue, either.

You can own every Superman comic book every written and you can have posters of his well-meaning mug on your wall and you can want to be like him and you can STILL be a terrible person, as anybody who’s spent any time around fandom can attest.

The same thing is true of those of you who, like me, just adore Captain Kirk.

Kirk’s a hero.

But your love for his exploits doesn’t mean you possess his nobler attributes.

Or Luke Skywalker’s. Or Frodo’s.

Or Nicholas Nickelby’s.

Or Jean Valjean’s.

Any more than I can read about the murderous insurance salesman in the James M. Cain novel, and want to kill people for their money, or adore the symphony that is THE GODFATHER, and have that define me as a wannabe Corleone.

Your understanding is shallow and your premises are faulty. Your conclusions are stupid.

I don’t condemn you for not understanding.

I think you’re dismissive and ignorant in your lack of understanding.

Tags: Assholes, Donald Westlake, Double Indemnity, James M. Cain, Jim Thompson, Les Miserables, Lord Of the Rings, Star Trek, Star Wars, The Godfather, The Postman Always Rings Twice, writing | Category Books, Horror, Mystery, Writing