Channing wrote:
"I think the days of the trench-coated gumshoe myth has
finally come to an end. He had a great run of 50+ years but I
think modern audiences are looking for something new and
different. The Real Modern P.I. is more of a computer geek
who does most of his leg work in front of a computer
keyboard. His main source of income is divorce cases and
insurance fraud, not very sexy or exciting."
While allowing that your main point may be regrettably true,
you're mixing myth and reality here. Yes, that's what the
Real Modern PI does, but isn't divorce work also what the
Real Oldtime PI did (albeit sans computers)? Was reality ever
what PI readers were looking for? At least by book sales,
Mike Hammer was probably the most popular PI of all time -- I
doubt anyone ever mistook Hammer for a real person (or wanted
him to be more human).
"That's why I think more violent occupations have become the
modern fad for books and TV shows."
There have been a number of recent attempts at PI shows, but
you're right, they haven't been very popular. Even Veronica
Mars (great show) gets far less than stellar ratings.
"The myth of the P.I. was replaced by the myth of the sexy
superspy in the 60's, which in turn has been replaced by the
myth of the Serial Killer Profiler."
Or forensics expert (or both), at least on TV.
"Cops and lawyers are real. We see them on the news and on
talk shows all the time. But when was the last time anybody
saw a real Private Investigator on the news?"
During the Michael Jackson trial.
But were real PIs ever on the news, other than maybe the
Pinkertons, and most of the news they made was for
strikebusting, wasn't it? Hardly the makings of the mythic
PI.
While we like to think hardboiled is more realistic than more
cozy genres (highly debatable), I for one want myth as much
as reality in my PI novels. I do require a certain
verisimilitude, but that has as much, if not more, to do with
internal consistency than it has to do with external
validity.
Mark
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