MONSTERS: Why We're Obsessed With Psychopaths

It is not an uncommon notion that as a society, and as a species, we often show an intense interest in psychopathic behaviour. The ‘True Crime’ genre appears to be growing each year, highlighted by the continual release of murder and assault documentaries/TV shows.

There is no definitive answer as to why this is the case, I have my speculative theories, but we'll save them for another day.

The most viable reason is fundamentally Jungian at its core, as in Carl Jung the great psychoanalyst. He devised psychological archetypes or universal perceptual entities, in other words. One of these was ‘The Shadow’, what Jung believe to be the root of all human darkness and capacity for malevolence.

We all have a ‘Shadow’, but most of us do not have control over it, or in many cases refuse accept that it even exists.

~ SPOILER WARNING ~

What the audience witnesses in the latest ‘MONSTERS’ season, is two brothers Erik and Lyle Menéndez murdering their parents in the first degree.

The show is becoming increasingly popular, with a season 3 already in development.

Going back to the Jungian ‘Shadow’, this series, like many others, provides people an opportunity to witness, albeit dramatically, people act out their darkest fantasies and desires. Not only that, but we also observe them relishing their machinations and actions, to the point of oblivion as to the profundity of what they have done.

This is somehow satiating to the more twisted aspect of the audience’s psyche, although the original reaction may be of shock, the ‘Shadowic’ part of the psyche ultimately feels seen and exercised as a result of being given an opportunity to view an almost inconceivably dark act of violence.

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