…with “other things being equal, simpler explanations are generally better than more complex ones.” — Occam’s Razor
Read the above statement on Occam’s Razor.
This post is about the “docuseries” Making a Murderer, the Netflix “docuseries” that has a second season coming. This post is not about whether Steven Avery is guilty or innocent. It is not about whether there are injustices in our legal system. We know there are. This piece is about the cynicism behind making a piece of entertainment disguised as social crusading.
I was inspired to write this after trying to make my point in a series of online tweets. There was backlash from people who made it about a social cause, and that I was ignoring the issues in our criminal justice system. My point was simple: Making a Murderer is not about the correction of our legal system or justice for a man wrongly accused.
The series is about entertainment.
Manipulation
Set aside your Facebook Social Justice Warrior mentality. This is the difference between true, empirical data and rational thinking. It’s about examining ALL of the data and making an informed decision based upon critical thinking. To prove my point, many have petitioned The White House with a petition to free the series’ subject, Steven Avery. The President can’t pardon Avery. Only a governor could. Just another example of people spouting off at the emotional mouth in social medai outrage without looking at facts or understanding the details.
That’s boring in this infotainment age. Research requires “boring” due process and thorough examination of dull facts and evidence. It’s far more exciting to do arm chair forensics based on material packaged with fancy editing and a rousing, emotional score.
Most wish to be manipulated into a verdict based on the story the filmmakers wish to tell. You get validation by picking up the online social cause and slap it on your Facebook page to show how open minded you are.
True examination means stripping away fancy editing, manipulating musical scores and selected sound bites. It requires an emotional detachment. Viewers need to be disciplined and separate emotion from data. One good look at a comments section on your average news article shows what we are dealing with.
Neil Postman, author of “Amusing Ourselves To Death” called all of this a long time ago. The fictional film Network was more of a warning than a terrific piece of drama. We have now come to a point in our existence where we can no longer tell the difference between entertainment and fact. My previous posts discussed the line between the “docu drama” and just making shit up.
Real vs. Reel
Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin was RIGHTFULLY overlooked for the Best Screenplay nomination because his script for Steve Jobs was bullshit. It is fiction, not a hard researched piece on a man’s life. The issue Sorkin found was that the reality was less romantic, glamorous and rousing than the stuff he could just make up. READ HERE
Amused To Death
Postman argued in “Amusing Ourselves To Death” that a show like the respected science space program, Nova, is no different than Star Trek. Both are about space. Both entertain with musical scores. There are striking, computer enhanced visuals and celebrities. Much can be made that the “science” of Star Trek is sound: we have a shuttle named Enterprise, we have scientists working on tractor beams, cloaking systems, phasers/weaponized lasers, Tricorders. We have people working on First Contact. Nova and other science-based shows are scripted by writing teams with input from the scientific community. So is Star Trek.
I agree that Making a Murderer gets people talking about our society, legal system and the ideas of right and wrong. I will go further and say that Making a Murderer is no different than any season of Law & Order or the base level content of the Investigation Discovery Channel. They are one in the same.
Two filmmakers had a story to tell. They altered the data to create a narrative that would grip the audience.
Here’s another hard question: how is Making a Murderer deserving of such a special Netflix presentation when it’s more suited for your average true crime channel?
The Internet vomits new stories on the show revealing that all of the evidence was not used in the series. Hard core testimony from Avery’s nephew was left out. Damning evidence with the purchase of leg irons, harassing phone calls to the victim backed up with hard evidence were all ignored. Even Avery’s own lawyers admit evidence was left out of the series. Avery’s ex fiancee admits her man was a monster. There is even a nebulous statement from the two filmmakers themselves.
The two directors say they don’t have the definitive answer on guilt or innocence. They were providing a story for people to follow. They state they did not create any type of advocacy. While not a true about face or back pedaling, it is not a firm statement of Avery’s innocence. READ HERE
Read their defense of their series as filmmaking HERE
“This is a documentary – we’re documentary filmmakers…We’re not prosecutors, we’re not defense attorneys, we do not set out to convict or exonerate anyone. We set out to examine the criminal justice system and how it’s functioning today. It would have been impossible for us to include every piece of evidence submitted to the court. So we took our cues from the prosecution, what they thought was the most compelling evidence. That’s what we included. Of course we left out evidence,” she added. “There would have been no other way of doing it. We were not putting on a trial, but a film. Of what was omitted, the question is: was it really significant? The secret is no.” — Laura Riccardi, Making a Murderer director and producer
No. That’s not how it works.
You don’t decide what information/evidence is left out. It’s all or nothing. Like Steve Jobs, you either get it right and make it accurate, or you make a fictional film. This is Cynema because the filmmakers knowingly made a film that would prey on emotional heart strings and not logical, critical thinking.
Here is what the series is proposing:
A man who was wrongfully prosecuted for rape (DNA exonerated him) and sentenced to 18 years was accused of a new rape and a murder. A cabal of law enforcement, local and federal government workers came together to frame this man for the new crime.
Why? Steven Avery was planning a financially damaging and embarrassing lawsuit.
This conspiracy would need to involve the following:
A victim. Teresa Halbach. She would have to have been killed by coincidence and conveniently for the conspiracy to plant her forensic evidence on the Avery property. Or this conspiracy killed Halbach to frame Avery and stop his lawsuit.
2. Police from two departments conspired with state and federal authorities in a vast conspiracy and kept every conspirator quiet.
3. The cabal against Avery is profoundly stupid. It does not consider the power of the media that will focus on this latest arrest.
4. The cabal of seasoned professionals discounts sensationalized press and fails to realize that the conspirators themselves may fall under scrutiny in this Internet age.
5. Avery would have to have the worst, shit luck in the world. Despite a history of alleged incestuous, sexual assault, domestic abuse and animal cruelty; Avery had no idea why he would be a suspect. The fact that he placed numerous, harassing phone calls to Halbach, greeted her in a towel during one visit to his home, would have to be ignored, and was in the show.
6. His own nephew with Forrest Gump IQ would have to create a story to frame his own uncle. Why? He was coerced by the cops to get Avery. The nephew claims he got his images of BDSM torture from a James Patterson book. You know, because this kid with a fourth grade reading level reads lengthy literature. He can barely retain the content of an ongoing phone conversation, but this type of literature burned indelibly into his brain.
Now I am going to use Occam’s Razor: wouldn’t it just be easier to kill Steven Avery?
Think hard and let go of the hashtag #freestevenavery #stevenaveryisinnocent bullshit.
The prosecutor had words taken out of context by the filmmakers when he proposed a similar scenario. There seems to be no doubt that prosecutor Kratz has his own personal issues and may not be of the finest moral fiber. However, he was not saying there was a plan to kill Avery or condoning such a thing. He was stating that instead of a high profile, expensive trial– instead of a vast and uncontrollable conspiracy, wouldn’t it just be easier to kill Avery?
The answer is yes.
So…
The filmmakers show evidence that the lead prosecutor made some alleged sex text messages to a woman and harassed her. While reprehensible, it is no more proof of evidence tampering than Avery’s animal abuse by burning a cat alive connects him to Halbach’s death. However, both show the capacity of both individuals to work outside the moral realm. Both show the lack of moral compass but neither implicate each man in the accused crimes.
The prosecutor is right. Kill Avery and the issue goes away. There might be a little dust up, but far less than going through the complicated machinations of a conspiracy involving enough people that could speak at any time.
Occam’s Razor–How To Kill Avery:
- Shoot him on his property or make it look like a suicide.
- Go out to his place on some kind of complaint or investigation. Say that Avery got upset, pulled a gun and was shot dead. If any public outrage comes, bring up the cat story, the fondling his nephew story or better yet, any of the variety of back woods rube stories about his family’s unsavory sex and violence escapades.
- Have a cop be the fall guy. Tell him to shoot Avery and he will then do some time but amply rewarded, thus bringing down the number of conspirators.
- Avery is simply found dead on a country road. His car veered off. Blunt force trauma. Something like that. A shame, but it’ll pass without major media meddling.
- Avery “commits suicide.” Only a few people needed to pull this off, and again, the story goes away a lot better than the giant one of framing him.
Karen Silkwood is likely to have died from some type of conspiracy for whistle blowing on the nuclear industry. She could have been framed in any number of ways. Someone or a few people decided Occam’s razor worked best: kill her. You have a better chance of surviving subsequent scrutiny than concocting a conspiracy on the scale of Avery’s.
Steven Avery pissed off state and county officials with some media and a lawsuit. Arguments focus on the “fact” that the lawsuit would bankrupt the county. Counties carry insurance. The damages found for Avery would be paid from insurance policies, likely not the county’s coffers. A long trial would cost money. A lot of it. There is the contention that the insurance wouldn’t pay. All the more reason to kill Avery than spend money in a lengthy, expensive trial and pay gobs of hush money to would be conspirators who can’t keep their mouths shut.
Killing Steven Avery is the simplest and most economic way to deal with the situation.
Is it possible authorities planted evidence and doctored data? Sure. There’s even the theory that a copycat killer set Avery up.
Conspiracy Theories
Those involved may have taken on an “ends justify the means” mentality to make sure Avery didn’t walk. This is not defensible in the slightest. I am not making a case for the legal authorities involved. What I am saying is Making a Murderer is entertainment and little else. It is well crafted and it is well written. It achieved its objective: it told a compelling story.
Is it scientific? Is it objective? Most of all, is it what so many want it to be: an examination of the justice system that has let down many? No.
Conspiracies do exist. They have occurred. They do happen. Bad things happen to good people. Cops can be crooked and the legal system has at times dispensed bad “justice.” No one is denying that. The filmmakers claim they expected heated reactions. Of course they did. So did Netflix. It generates word of mouth and gets streaming numbers up.
What they did was create a stance that allows them to say, when convenient, that their film is just that…a film. They cynically crafted the ability to keep a foot in the social crusading world and come off as two Erin Brockovich’s of the legal universe. They are speaking to those who feel left behind in a world that is really seeing a growing gulf between the haves and have nots. As a result, it appeals to the conspiracy-loving American in all of us.
Making a Murderer is a masterpiece of emotional manipulation. Since the release several of the prosecutors have received death threats–their families included. These threats come from people who just don’t know any better. One of the defense attorneys became an Internet “sex symbol” to groups of people who know little. It’s an emotional knee-jerk reaction no different than the idolizing of the young man accused of the Boston Marathon bombings. Facts get in the way, just go with your gut.
I was accepted onto a reality TV show called American Candidate in 2004. The premise was simple: American Idol for politics. The winner gets to run for president. I was grilled by the writers and producers of the show. They asked questions that touched on morality. When it was clear I didn’t align with their political agenda, I called home and said I would be back within the week.
The director of the series joined me for breakfast a few days later. He told me “you character doesn’t fit the story we are trying to tell.”
“That’s funny,” I replied, “I thought this was REALITY television.”
“It’s all written. There is no such thing as reality TV,” the director told me. I knew that. It was just nice to hear the head honcho say it.
You didn’t read a word of this piece if you are angry. You went by the pre-existing emotional agenda that in turn looks good to post on your social media.
Occam’s Razor and common sense says Avery’s innocence is in serious doubt. Here’s a simple question: would you or any of your loved ones take in Avery or want him to live next door? Would you allow him to babysit?
Sometimes the simplest answer is the one.
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