I Know What Jennifer Did…And I Don’t Give A Shit!

Monday is about movies. Sometimes TV. Today, the endless gush of true crime doco limited series’ for fans to salivate over. Ew!

I remember exactly where I was (The Paramount - R.I.P.) and when it was (not until 2006) as I walked out of my first movie. I don’t even remember the title of the film, but it was a film festival documentary about war, and I just…couldn’t. So…I didn’t. I instantly felt brilliant for leaving, and happier about my day, my life, and my decision.

Back in my student days, a bunch of us went to see Showgirls — for a hoot, or whatever. And instead, we got a whole lot of whatever. And most of the gang left. I prided myself on staying, but I needn’t have. Not really. I mean, I enjoyed the recent doco (2019’s You Don’t Nomi about the 1995 film) but I’ve never gone back to watch Showgirls again. And the weird badge of honour was one of survival, of making it through. It was much the same with Demi Moore’s Striptease and one or two other films of that ilk (Rock Star, Burlesque, Rock of Ages). Terrible movies that you sat through to say you made it.

I’ve not walked out of many films since 2006, but I’ve certainly left plenty of shows (theatre) at half time, and gigs. And one or two movies as well. There’s a great power in walking away.

Recently, I decided to walk away from the Netflix True Crime Doco-series. Not any one in particular, just the very concept. Fuck. That. Stupid-ass shows designed to hook us in only to stretch out 45-75 minutes of possibly worthwhile content across three or more episodes and at least 150 minutes, if not far longer.

I’ve watched so many of these that I can’t be sure that the Tiger King and Ted Bundy aren’t maybe the same person; that John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer aren’t in a band together; that the Tinder Swindler and OJ Simpson and The Night Stalker aren’t all at the bottom of The Staircase with their victims piled high — all just instalments in (and of) American Murder; all just aspects of The Devil Next Door. I mean, are Aaron Hernandez and Gabriel Fernandez different people? Were they ever? Because in my mind, they’re not now. They’re both just people I followed on TV for a bit after dinner one night and before the existential dread of getting up and managing my life in the morning took enough of a reprieve for me to get some goddamned fucking sleep eh! And by the time I was up and wiping the dust from my eyes I couldn’t tell a Fernandez from a Hernandez, and just wanted more murder for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But had to wait, fuck it, for another working day of several hours to pass before it was apparently socially acceptable to binge watch some other ghastly brutality.

Last year, after a few conversations along these lines, I said goodbye to all this true crime docuseries nonsense. I was never that all-in on the podcasts, but I ditched them too. I feel like, as someone who actually read books — proper, horrific, can’t un-read-them books about the House of Horrors and Dahmer and Bundy and Gacy and Ed Gein and a few other awful people and even more horrific situations caused by these psychopaths — the podcasts were tourist bullshit at best anyway. And the Netflix shows were, most often, a further dumbing down.

My theory around why we’re drawn to such things — and I’ve been right in there, checking out the documentaries for years, and reading some books — is because it gives us a chance to feel morally superior. Whatever bad shit I’ve done in my life, I’ve never murdered someone. I didn’t eat them, or beat them, or bully them until they killed themselves, and I’m not even trying to be fatuous (maybe it comes naturally, but then I wouldn’t know would I…)

We are drawn to the macabre, many of us anyway, because we simply can’t fathom it. And I get that. I’ve always maintained the reason I love horror and martial arts, and really dumb beat-em-ups, and even the more extreme ends of violence on film, is because I simply cannot understand it, and I’m not condoning it whatsoever.

But the way Netflix has with a true crime film or series, and the podcasts that spring from them, or in most cases are the actual source, feel altogether more dastardly; they have a way of making you nearly feel complicit. Just for watching, just for listening. They’ve also given birth to an era of armchair detectives who can also fuck right off!

So I decided in 2024 to swear off this nonsense completely, to step away from this garbage. It hardly increased my micro-learning opportunities elsewhere. I’m not at all suggesting I’m a better person than you for doing so. I mean, last week, I went to the new Planet of the Apes film at the cinema. So that’s what I’m doing with my time. So you see, it’s not about being better, it’s just about being different, doing something different. Not just sitting there and having the same old true crime laziness (in the telling of the tale, that is) wash over me. It’s all so formula. It’s a cookie-cutter format.

And then, last week, we were home early, and I had foolishly told Katy about a new documentary film on Netflix called What Jennifer Did. It starts, you see, with Jennifer being questioned by the police. And all poor Jennifer has done has phoned up in some form of dismay to share the news that her parents are now dead. You can perhaps see, already, where this is going…

I did.

I didn’t even feel clever. (I seldom do). I watched about 10 minutes of it and then predicted where it was going. A few more minutes in, Katy confirms, “I think you’re right”.

After about half an hour, I decided I was quite happy just falling asleep in front of this trash. And the next day when I asked if it ended exactly as I had guessed, Katy goes, “I don’t know exactly but it was all heading that way. And then I fell asleep for a bit too”.

Shall we not bother ever watching it all to find out? That was my suggestion. Katy agreed we didn’t need to.

And this is the confirmation I’ve needed that I’m on the right track by ignoring this lazy, exploitative nonsense. Fuck these grief-tourist filmmakers that just want our eyeballs on our content and don’t want to educate in any way at all. They’re cultural sodomites. The fuckers.

So Jennifer did what she did. And I don’t care. And this weekend I walked off to the cinema to see the Amy Winehouse movie instead. Which was okay. But I’d guessed that ending too. And couldn’t feel super great about that of course. But hey, you might have guessed that this newsletter would have a weak ending. Some sort of dumb joke. And you’d be right.