I stumbled upon a documentary today called “Death Metal Murders” on the Discovery Channel today. From what I could tell, it was originally a BBC documentary part of their series “This World”. I’m not sure why, but when I flipped to it, I was kind of expecting a balanced view of the misconceptions of death metal, and how it is often misrepresented in the media. What I got, however, was one of the most biased and tactless documentaries I have see in quite a while, and it quickly became obvious what kind of audience they were fighting for. The documentary followed the father of a son who had gone missing throughout some of his memories of the experience of finding out that his son had been a part of the Beasts of Satan “cult”, and how the investigation lead to the realization of the murder of his son. Obviously a horrifying story, one could imagine that a documentary over this incident would be enough for a documentary in itself. This documentary, however, pulled no punches when attempting to link this to the influence of Death Metal on these kids, typically attempting to leave you with the “your kid could be next” feeling of paranoia so heavy-handedly, you would think you were watching a local news report. Even the tagline of the BBC article discussing the documentary. is so misrepresentative of the actual stories of these kids, that it’s almost funny:
“Murder, rape, satanism and necrophilia is the staple diet of millions of teenagers who listen to the lyrics of extreme heavy metal music”
Most of the people in this documentary being interviewed were the typical 45 year old paranoid parents trying to find any excuse they can for their kids hardships, followed by police officers and investigators saying outlandishly broad statements such as “This is the kind of thing that happens when kids listen to this kind of music”. They interviewed Glen Benton of the band Deicide, along with other performers and music fans at concerts. Even in these representations of the “other side” of the argument, it was obvious that the interviewers and editors had their idea of what they wanted them to say, and were able to throw in a few statements that could easily be taken as a case against the intended message of those being questioned, which they would quickly follow u with an emotional father or someone of respect arguing against that idea.
One thing that was mentioned enough times that I could have made a very successful drinking game out of throughout the documentary was the idea of these bands being “Anti-Christian”, which to those making the documentary, meant “Satanism” and the Occult. It was quite obvious that the idea of “anti-Christian” was represented as an ultimate evil, with the idea of Christianity as the ” One correct religion ” embedded so deep in this documentary and their intended audience that they didn’t even bother to hide it, and instead mentioned that these musicians and those kids that listen to them are anti-Christians enough time to make one question whether or not the makers even considered the idea of different religions at all. Plus, their outright sensational misunderstandings of Satanism and even Atheism were laughable at best.
I have no clue why I thought this documentary would be anything more than sensationalist hogwash, but I really should have known better. I don’t even listen to the music (anymore) or belong to the subculture described in this film, and I was offended by how obnoxious some of the thematic elements of this “documentary” were. Of course there will always be bias in any sort of documentary or news story, but when it’s something like this, it goes completely beyond the realm of “journalism” and into the same sensationalist reporting you would imagine seeing in an after-school special talking about how Marijuana will make you want to kill your family.
