Stop, You're Killing Me!

Remember Trumps? No, not the bottom type noise, but the card game (aka trading cards in the US). Kids used to collect cards that had a specialist theme to it (eg: a pack of powerful sports cars), then the cards were dealt and opponents would pit their wits on a simple winner-takes-all game where the victor had a suite of cards displaying the most powerful technically specified vehicle. A card displaying a Ferrari would beat a Porsche card because it had a higher top speed, for example.

Specialised sets of trump cards came in different genres. The ones I remembered were: dinosaurs, motorbikes, fighter planes. In the USA the craze developed into peer pressure competition as some college kids started collecting Serial Killer Trading Cards. Is it worrying that pre-pubescent children had / still have this morbid fascination with the macabre? I can imagine these collectors waxing lyrical over why Ed Gein was "way cooler" than John Wayne Gacy "because he actually wore his victims as clothing, dude...". Doesn't seem right, does it? Images of gore are commonplace. Films, TV, graphic novels, 'tinterweb, etc, all easy to locate. Some types of media-productions are accused of glorifying these past atrocities while others re-enact them matter-of-factly.

What still baffles me is the attitude towards this type of graphic violence is so much more lenient than the erotic images that occasionally make it on to the telly or cinema (not including pornography here, I'd say that's more of a specialised market). Violence based on fiction or fact (an example of 'fact' may be a clip from a Middle Eastern conflict) is tolerated by a much wider audience than a scene of a couple in mid-cavort doing a bit of tongue-wrestling / flesh-squeezing.

Personally speaking, I don't give a monkeys as to what violent fiction my eyes gaze onto as I'm aware of what is story based and what isn't - I thought all the Final Destination films were a hoot. It's the non-fiction stuff that does bother me. The more of it you see, the more you may end up becoming de-sensitised to it.

The guys from Jackass have made self-harm into something watchable (depending on taste) and it's given them fame and quite a bit of financial fortune. Even with the "Don't try this at home kids" warning at the start of their show, you can bet your bottom dollar that they'll be a few kids who do end up copying a stunt. After all, they're kids and they may see this as the epitome of cool. We've all done it. Our ideas of playing "cowboys and indians" came from the telly (and for those of you who played "doctors and nurses"...where did you get your inspiration from?).

Young minds are impressionable. School leavers want that glamourous life that they see portrayed on the TV. Salivating over images of footballers arriving to work in their baby Bentleys, kilos of gold worn by musicians and their J-Lo bottomed model girlfriends in their sumptious "MTV Crib". Being patronising towards the kids? Who? Me?

An easy way out, perhaps, may come as they queue up for Big Brother auditions in the hope of becoming the next big nobody with talent the size of a mustard seed. The fifteen minutes may be granted to them, but life after exposure can take it's toll on the most sensitive of starlets that have burned out as fast as they were born. We all know this occurs time after time, so why do people still get suckered into these fame seeking exercises? Nevermind the fame, I want to be rich and anonymous. Always tick the "no publicity" box next time you post on your blog...

Is there such a thing as becoming famous for the wrong reason(s)? Yes, and if your name's Eddie The Eagle Edwards that may not be such a bad thing. But being regarded in freakish awe can't be all that pleasant, unless the wannabe in question is happy with what ever attention they can get.

Infamy is what makes those serial-killer trading cards so popular. Perhaps the next step would be to make a pack of cards based on people who were famous for having a natural talent or ability and then killed another person. There's quite a few to get us started, and I'm sure it's a list that will grow in time. Jade Goody ("of no fixed talent") used to be infamous. The list below (from Listology) represents the uber-infamous.

Fatty Arbuckle (beat a prostitute to death, probably innocent)
Robert Blake (shot his wife)
John Wilkes Booth (shot a guy during a laughline of a play)
Matthew Broderick (drove his BMW into some women)
William S. Burroughs (shot his wife playing William Tell)
Laura Bush (killed a man while driving drunk)
Gu Cheng (also killed his wife)
Ted Kennedy (drove off a bridge, leaving his passenger underwater)
Don King (shot a robber, also stomped to death someone who owed him money)
Leadbelly (shot a man in a fight over a woman, in true blues tradition)
Keith Moon (ran over his chauffeur)
Tom Neal (shot his wife in the back of the head with a .45)
Vince Neil (drunk driving killed Razzle)
Anne Perry (beat her friend's mother to death with a brick)
Albert Salmi (murder/suicide pact with his wife)
O.J. Simpson (cut up his wife and her boyfriend)
Phil Spector (shot Lana Clarkson)
Adlai Stevenson (shot a kid with a rifle)
Sid Vicious (stabbed his girlfriend)
Jayson Williams (drunk and playing with a shotgun)

What's next? World dictator trading cards? With Bush being the top trump chump?

I'm sure some card-trading company will make a nice little earner out of the above if they haven't already done so.