Just because you're paranoid

[Jon L. Travis]

... does't mean there ISN'T a CSI investigating you.

Since the right wing declared "culture war" (read that as a war on culture) many of us artistic liberal types have felt slightly at odds with some mainstream culture. Particularly that barometer of public rage, the TV cop show.
As people, who because of the nature of their work tend to lead independent, slightly isolated lives it is easy to pick up the "outsider" tag as an artist. In the past this was viewed somewhat romantically, the "La Bohemme" vision of noble artists struggling in their freezing garretts.
In recent years I have noticed a trend in popular culture to bring this outsider stereotype into step with what society has come to believe is the archetype of the outsider loner; the cold blooded serial killer.

I watched an episode of CSI recently that featured a frustrated sculptor turning human beings into municipal installation art. The premise was that an unsuccesfull plumber/sculptor having borne rejection by his peers and art patrons turns to murder to make the public aware of the awesome scope of his vision.
Capturing innocent citizens (including a child) he gasses them, then somehow poses them and forces early rigor mortis. The victims are then brought to a public space and put on display like many of the realistic "everyday people" bronzes found in many cities.

I have to say out front, I like CSI.
It's creepy fun, moralistically simple, and how can you not like anything William Peterson has ever done. However on reflection of this episode a few themes and thoughts surface that I found interesting, if not disturbing.

1) Many of the "BIG CASE" serial killer episodes on CSI have featured artists as the killer.

Paul Millander, the sex change judge early on in the series was also a special effects make-up artist.

The ULV "blue paint killer" was an amateur erotic comics artist. The show featured several of "his"
drawings.

"The Miniature Killer" was a mentally disturbed young woman who killed folks after being triggered by the smell of bleach. Amazing she didn't have a higher body count as she worked as a cleaning lady.
She also left beautifully crafted, highly detailed miniature models of each of her kills at the crime scenes. Grissom refers to her as a gifted artist.

Also featured have been three photographers who killed models. My favorite of the group being the psycho high school photo instructor who kills herself on top of the corpse of her high school football hero lover and turns the tableux into another, you guessed it, piece of installation art.

Over the centuries there have been some examples of odd criminal and deviant behavior by artists. Carrevaggio murdering an opponent over a score in a tennis match, Van Gogh's famous self mutilation, and Richard Dadd's murder and dismemberment of his father come to mind. Historically though I don't think the artists' body count quite measures up to our current score on CSI.

2)Another aspect of this artistic bloodbath I find intriguing is the reaction portrayed on the show by people playing "established artists and critics". Jeffrey Tambour has a wonderful cameo as an established artist who seems far less concerned with the suffering and death of the victims than with the stiff unimaginative compostions the killer used to present their bodies.
Simialiary a college art professor in the blue paint killer episode seems to take more offense at the thought that he may have been responsible for the "crudely drawn comics done by a person with no training" than the fact he is a suspected serial killer.

Most of the portrayals of people in the art world in this show seem to echo this feeling. Depictions of self centered effete snobs who don't care about the problems of real people (ie; the victims) are commonplace. It seems to be an eerie echo of many of the culture war themes pushed by people like O'Reilly, Limbaugh, and Palin. It's no surprise to me that Jerry Bruckheimer, the shows producer has a long history of support for the Republican party.

Now I know there are folks who think that I'm just looking to build a case for the "vast right wing conspiracy" that some of us more paranoid liberal types believe exists.
Not so. I'm just looking for a little fairness here. How about for every two episodes featuring an artist murderer you have one featuring a bigoted hate crime killer, a gay basher, or a gun nut on a rampage at the local college?
Sure we artists are more romantic and imaginative than "just folks" with our killing sprees, but that doesn't mean that there isn't room for good old Joe the Axemurderer too.