Escapist fiction suggests someplace you would like to escape to, for me at least. So escapism where the protaganist is accessory to premeditated murder for no reason... well.
I didn't say it was escapist for you. It's the protagonist's dark escapism; she regards her life as such that a criminal rampage across the countryside is a more diverting alternative. It's late-nineties nihilism at its best, with crime presented as a break from routine; you see this in a number of films in the period as well, like Go or The Doom Generation.
I don't respect that sort of story so I don't believe it needs to be deconstructed.
I don't respect romance novels, but I can see why they need to be deconstructed. You take them apart to see how they work. Kill Your Boyfriend spends a lot of time in the beginning framing the protagonist's life for a reason.
Morality plays need a bit more of a subtle moral than this for it to be a real morality play.
Not really, no. Morality plays do not have to be a brick thrown at your forehead in order to be a morality play, at least in the modern incarnation; the original morality plays were "Don't sin, you stupid bastard" for an hour, but in the current-day usage, they don't have to be that straightforward or unsubtle.
And cultural satire? Well, the police are adults and they react. Really, someone having a weapon and commiting random acts of violence is something the average person CAN'T react without seriously endangering themselves.
The average person reacts by getting scared and ducking for cover. "Trying to stop it" is just one of an entire host of possible reactions.
If you read the entire thing, everyone who reacts to the criminal rampage does so in a peculiar and muted way. Some are shown watching the events on television while sitting very still and repressed in their living rooms; others are so subdued about it that they look like a parody of stiff-upper-lip British behavior. I'd need to go reread the book, but I think the protagonist winds up wearing a bright blonde wig and red dress for a big chunk of the book, which makes her and her criminal persona the only spot of color in an otherwise very drab world.
It's a cultural indictment; it's her saying, this is what I have to do to feel excited, to feel alive. I only feel like I'm living when I'm fucking up your lives.
Yes, it's nihilistic, but that's the peculiar liberation of nihilistic fiction. You see somebody else doing what you may be sometimes tempted to do... then you close the book and breathe a sigh of relief that it's not that bad for you. Nihilism in fiction is a pressure valve, and if you've never been under pressure, maybe you can't relate.
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I didn't say it was escapist for you. It's the protagonist's dark escapism; she regards her life as such that a criminal rampage across the countryside is a more diverting alternative. It's late-nineties nihilism at its best, with crime presented as a break from routine; you see this in a number of films in the period as well, like Go or The Doom Generation.
I don't respect that sort of story so I don't believe it needs to be deconstructed.
I don't respect romance novels, but I can see why they need to be deconstructed. You take them apart to see how they work. Kill Your Boyfriend spends a lot of time in the beginning framing the protagonist's life for a reason.
Morality plays need a bit more of a subtle moral than this for it to be a real morality play.
Not really, no. Morality plays do not have to be a brick thrown at your forehead in order to be a morality play, at least in the modern incarnation; the original morality plays were "Don't sin, you stupid bastard" for an hour, but in the current-day usage, they don't have to be that straightforward or unsubtle.
And cultural satire? Well, the police are adults and they react. Really, someone having a weapon and commiting random acts of violence is something the average person CAN'T react without seriously endangering themselves.
The average person reacts by getting scared and ducking for cover. "Trying to stop it" is just one of an entire host of possible reactions.
If you read the entire thing, everyone who reacts to the criminal rampage does so in a peculiar and muted way. Some are shown watching the events on television while sitting very still and repressed in their living rooms; others are so subdued about it that they look like a parody of stiff-upper-lip British behavior. I'd need to go reread the book, but I think the protagonist winds up wearing a bright blonde wig and red dress for a big chunk of the book, which makes her and her criminal persona the only spot of color in an otherwise very drab world.
It's a cultural indictment; it's her saying, this is what I have to do to feel excited, to feel alive. I only feel like I'm living when I'm fucking up your lives.
Yes, it's nihilistic, but that's the peculiar liberation of nihilistic fiction. You see somebody else doing what you may be sometimes tempted to do... then you close the book and breathe a sigh of relief that it's not that bad for you. Nihilism in fiction is a pressure valve, and if you've never been under pressure, maybe you can't relate.