Murder as comedy?

Community Larp discussion
#1

One thing that struck me as awkward when I went to “Death by Chocolate” was a sort of comedy aspect to the idea of murder. That it was “fun” for us to be solving a murder, with giggles and what not. And that made the idea of murdering someone seem trivial and almost “funny” at times as people came up with wild and humorous suggestions.

Yes, I know it’s not a real murder, and the giggles were probably from nerves (for those non RPers in the group). And, yes, I know we’re all supposed to have been detectives and therefore hardened to the idea of death - but I just started to feel uncomfortable at a certain point.

Now, I’m not a fan of murder mysteries in general (I haven’t the head to piece together clues - I get pretty bored pretty quickly with that kind of game) so maybe that’s part of the problem. I like violence and death in games. Don’t get me wrong. When appropriate and part of the setting it is something that adds depth, fear, tension, angst, etc… It really just seems to be the whodunnit murder mystery genre that makes me scratch my head a bit.

Pondering Jackie continues to ponder …

#2

Fawlty Towers had an episode, called “The Kipper and the Corpse”, which dealt with a dead body in a hilarious manner. I wasn’t murder, but it was funny.

#3

Well, yes, I’m not saying that humour and death can’t ever meet.

I guess it was more the “Oh yay! There’s been a murder” vibe…

#4

I’m reminded of the movie Clue (based of the game, we call it Cludo here).
Actually, if you read Agatha Christie or Conan Doyle, they always address murder fairly lightly. I mean, Mrs Marples doctor joking prescribes a good murder as the cure to her malaise, and don’t even get me started on Sherlock Holmes - that man can’t live without a good murder case.

#5

Yeah, that’s a general culture thing with a long precedent. We’ve managed to ritualise and domesticate “murder” sufficiently to entirely remove it from reality into narrative. “Murder” as you find in any drawing room mystery doesn’t have much in common with murder; that’s something the noir period was already acting against, and the whole crime/police investigator genre emerged as a tonic for it. (And then promptly repeated the same ritualisation and domestication. Repeat ad nauseum.)

Imagine swapping out the murder in a mystery evening with a rape. It’s literally unthinkable (except as black, black satire on the very subject of the domestication of murder narratives.)

I’ve talked about this with a bunch of people over the years - its a weird cultural quirk and I don’t think it translates across cultures too well. But it seems, ultimately, harmless to me, although I can understand why someone else might be happier avoiding it.

Hmm. Not sure where I was going so will stop typing…

#6

[quote=“morgue”]Imagine swapping out the murder in a mystery evening with a rape. It’s literally unthinkable (except as black, black satire on the very subject of the domestication of murder narratives.)[/quote]The thing is, that event invited everybody to take a voyeuristic look at the suspects lives - even more so on the ‘online experience’ afterwards, and rape and child abuse were very much present in their backgrounds. The confessions that were made available at the end, in particular, didn’t shy away from the awful stuff. I ended up with the strange juxtaposition of feeling dreadfully uncomfortable, but also wanting to know exactly what had happened.

Do real detectives feel like that?

#7

[quote=“Stephanie”]The thing is, that event invited everybody to take a voyeuristic look at the suspects lives - even more so on the ‘online experience’ afterwards, and rape and child abuse were very much present in their backgrounds. The confessions that were made available at the end, in particular, didn’t shy away from the awful stuff. I ended up with the strange juxtaposition of feeling dreadfully uncomfortable, but also wanting to know exactly what had happened.

Do real detectives feel like that?[/quote]

Yeah, the DBC event definitely used this post-modern freedom to have our cake and eat it too - to lift the ethos of an Agatha Christie stately home murder, and layer in some grimy stuff from the reaction against it. Blame post-modernism again, it is always guilty!

Do real detectives feel like that? Lord knows. My best source of info is the Homicide and Wire TV shows, which were written by an ex-homicide police and an ex-police beat reporter; they frequently depict their detectives as indulging in gallows humour to cope with the job, distancing themselves from the victims and playing it out as a game. So I’d imagine that a long-term police detective wouldn’t feel uncomfortable, and in fact wouldn’t wan’t to know exactly what had happened for any personal reason - just to close the case. This always carries a personal cost for the characters, though.

#8

Anyone remember an old (1984) NZ movie called “Carry Me Back”

  • When Arthur and Jimmy Donovan persuade their father ‘T.K.’ Donovan to leave their farm for the first time in seven years and join them in a trip to Wellington and a Shield challenge by the local team, they just don’t know what they are letting themselves in for.

At first things go well, and after crossing the Straits the threesome join their mates at the game and watch Marlborough lift their mates at the game and watch Marlborough lift the shield from Wellington.

The next morning Arthur and Jimmy find to their horror that the old boy has died and that his will specifies that he must be buried on his farm if they are to inherit the farm. Their concern turns to desperation when they realise that the law states that to be buried on the farm their father must have died on the property. In short, they will have to carry him back…secretly!

Pretty funny movie and some gorgeous cinematography of NZ.