Subject: Re: tp red herrings
From: cioffi@menudo.uh.edu (Delia Cioffi)
Date: 1990-10-05, 19:15
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

In article <ob38wjy00WBLI1z4E8@andrew.cmu.edu> dv0o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Doug vanderVeen) writes:
> >For those of you who get impatient with "red herrings" try thinking of
> >the mystery as a framework for social commentary.  Every scene is there
> >for a reason...

I wholeheartedly agree that TP viewers are missing an awful lot 
by fixating mainly on The Murder, or by categorizing
any information not illuminating that particular crime as "off the
trail". As PD James' crack detective Adam Dagliesh observed, a murder
investigation has this funny tendency to air *everybody's* dirty laundry; the
killer is never the only one caught in a lie, nor is she/he the only one
with things to hide. That's what makes mysteries so fun; by exposing
everybody's foibles and secrets, the lives of an entire community---not
just of those guilty of murder---are illuminated. In this sense TP is
classic (and stunningly successful) mystery. 


-- ================================================================= Delia Cioffi: -- University of Houston: cioffi@menudo.uh.edu -- Stanford University: cioffi@psych.stanford.edu