Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Luka Magnotta (3rd nomination)

Off-topic discussion

 * I would like to summarize some of the issues this case raises, some of which are being played out in the media:


 * 1. Is porn a "gateway" industry that erodes society's moral compass and leads persons down the road to something like this?
 * 2. Or, is society's infatuation with horror movies and websites encouraging this type of behavior?
 * 3. This person exhibited telltale signs of having fixations on murders and association with murderers in the past...why were the police not monitoring him more closely?
 * 4. The kitten-killing videos are classic examples of "gateway" crimes that psychopathic killers often do before moving on to the harder stuff. Yet, despite an international animal-rights campaign since 2010, Canadian police largely ignored the warning signs that experts in psychology and animal-rights activists so clearly pointed out in 2010.
 * 5. Our individual fixation with "fame" (such as with "reality TV" shows) through the internet, television, and social media has largely given an incentive to would-be attention-seekers to commit heinous crimes for the attention. Yet, even so, as it's been said with the Norway spree killer Breivik, "we cannot look away."
 * 6. Some of Magnotta's writings have been prescient...in particular, his essay on how to disappear from society, by breaking social contacts slowly, so as not to be noticed. That Magnotta was able to commit such a heinous crime, leave ample evidence of it, yet escape undetected, raises issues once again of societal priority. Also, Killing someone in a run-down "urban ghetto" is an often-ignored story, yet mailing body parts to members of society's elite power structures (political party headquarters) suddenly commanded this story's maximum media coverage. Even so, it seems that everything in this murder-for-attention-scheme was masterly planned in advance and executed according to plan. This fits the profile of the "Criminal Minds" TV show (which is fiction but has some degree of realism to it). No doubt there will be continued media interest and likely a movie.
 * 7. Media coverage and the LGBT slant. Some news outlets intentionally left out the "gay" porn angle, while others unfairly compared gay porn to killing kittens. Clearly, there are issues from both sides: are readers being "censored" due to political correctness in some "progressive" publications, while other right-leaning publications continue to use the "gay=social other" angle to generate public interest in the story?
 * 8. Beauty is only skin-deep: there is also the issue, raised in the news, of how society tends to give "good-looking" suspects the benefit of the doubt when it comes to being "profiled". It's not just that several neighbors have stated that they had no idea that this man, who seemed like a good person, would do something like this. No, the media's fascination with choosing images of Magnotta from his glamorized photos shows that, even with one of the most horrendous crimes imaginable, we have the media using superficial beauty to sell papers, and juxtaposing the actions of the (alleged) killer with what society expects from people who look like Magnotta did. For example:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Magnotta+fled+Paris+police+arrant+alleges+murder+unknown/6707033/story.html

"Magnotta had already gained notoriety online as the accused vacuum bag kitten killer, who posted videos of torturing and killing cats. An apparent former stripper and porn star, Magnotta’s extensive online profile reveals various glamour shots of a young man with chiselled features and pursed lips."

And here we see that the "Magnotta mystery goes back years":

You can also see comments about Magnotta obsessed with cosmetic surgery and outward appearance.

We can also see many media members agreeing that this story goes back years:

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/05/31/magnotta-mystery-goes-way-back

Unlike, say, the Seattle killer who killed six persons, including himself, this one murder and follow-up "mailing body parts horror" and "snuff film horror" really raises quite a bit of issues that society, not just newspapers, should be dealing with. That makes it more important. While this case may not become a Jeffrey Dahmer-level case, it is likely to leave an imprint far beyond this week's news cycle (the same could be said about the Miami cannibal attack, but that one raises far fewer issues...perhaps ones about drugs and homelessness). Ryoung 122 21:40, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
 * You're getting a bit off topic here, as much of what you've written falls well outside the scope of the discussion at hand. Bearcat (talk) 22:18, 31 May 2012 (UTC)