2010-09-24, 11:50 PM
Swerve Wrote:Christopher Hansen states on an NPR broadcast, "We pay retired generals for instance to give us insight on the Gulf War. We pay retired FBI agents to give us insight into serial killers. Perverted Justice allowed us to use its decoys for three of the investigations. It got to the point where Chris Hansen got paid for this, Chris Hansen’s cameraman got paid for this. Chris Hansen’s producer got paid for this."
The analogy draws the connotation that this is a "War on Predators" as Hansen paints predators in the same light as serial killers. The show indicates otherwise as in many episodes, normal people : college students, office workers, and mainly men of the working class are captured by Hansen and the police . The show does an excellent job of showing off the fact that predators do not have to be ostentatiously evil or give off this bad person vibe. The problem is that the show does not question why these supposedly "normal" men have developed these unacceptable sexual compulsions with younger women. In a South Park episode Hansen is characterized as being rude and inconsiderate as he tells Cartman repeatedly to, "sit down" and "have a seat." When Cartman attempts to explain why he doesn't want to be on the show, Hansen ignores him and repeats the same comments. A similar dynamic is revealed in the episodes themselves as Hansen tends to be over-confrontational during the intermediate segment of the show and tries to shame the predators in front of a live camera crew. Predators who try to run away during this segment of the show simply shorten their fifteen minutes of fame as they are arrested by a squad of police man (in certain segments they are carrying riot shields and clubs).
Hansen doesn't attempt to find a reason why these men have such a fascination with younger girls. In addition, the post-interview does not attempt to shed light on the reasons behind their actions. Even though the show recognizes that there are a large amount of predators roaming around, it does not attempt to find a root cause. Instead we are left with the message that there is one more sicko behind bars thanks to Chris Hansen and Dateline.