All Actions Stem from Financial Gains - Such Is Life's Perpetual Circumstance
In a departure from the usual money-centered crime plots, the third season of The White Lotus explores an unusual motive. Timothy Ratliff, a wealthy patriarch facing financial ruin and the FBI's scrutiny, plans to murder his family to save them from the despair of poverty. This twist, reminiscent of the real-life Murdaugh family, underlines the boundary-pushing tropes found in contemporary fiction.
The Murdaugh family, a disgraced South Carolina clan, was involved in a double murder of their own. In 2023, Alex Murdaugh was convicted for the murders of his wife and son. Like Ratliff, Murdaugh was not killing for financial gain but rather as a distraction to divert attention from his financial fraud charges. This case serves as a testament to the oddity that sometimes reality exceeds fiction.
More straightforward money-fueled crime stories exist as well. In some instances, the need for money becomes a catalyst for characters to resort to crime. The security that money offers, whether it is enough food, shelter, or luxury items, is a time-tested device employed by writers when conventional options run dry.
In Sue Hincenbergs' novel, The Retirement Plan, four couples face insolvency after a bad investment. Desperate to regain their footing, they resort to crime. One group of husbands and wives hires a hitman for their insurance payout but discovers that their spouses have already stolen millions from a casino.
Real-life events provide inspiration for such stories. In 2018, four employees at a Miami-Dade County casino stole more than five million dollars over four years before being caught due to their lavish spending habits.
The fictional character Walter White in Breaking Bad acknowledges the importance of financial motivation when he calculates the sum he needs to ensure his family's comfort. Desperate and with no legitimate options, White turns to cooking methamphetamine. This initial impetus for his criminal actions sets the stage for his transformation from a high school teacher to a drug lord.
Another methamphetamine-producing case study is the Apple TV series, Dope Thief, which follows characters who are in the business of stealing drugs from dealers. The pressure to feed their families drives them to take larger risks.
Not all criminal motivations revolve around acquiring money. In the series Your Friends and Neighbors, a former hedge-fund manager faces unemployment and the loss of his children's private school education. Desperate for cash, he slipstreams into the homes of his friends to steal luxury items.
In the novel Finlay Donovan is Killing it, the protagonist, a mother, is financially struggling to keep her children and keep her ex-husband from custody threats. When faced with an opportunity to commit murder, she is compelled to entertain the proposition to secure her family's future.
These contemporary crime narratives challenge the traditional motives for criminal activities, demonstrating the complexity of human motivations and the captivating potential of such narratives. Hector, the hitman in The Retirement Plan, explains the allure of a criminal underworld: "'...in the business of bad people doing bad things to other bad people, you just try to be the last bad person to make a move.'"
Even though money may not always be the main driver for criminal activities in fiction, it is often the catalyst that sets the story in motion. By exploring the psychological, emotional, and moral motivations behind these actions, writers keep audiences enthralled with their dark yet tantalizing tales of crime and despair.
- In the novel 'Finlay Donovan is Killing it', the protagonist's financial struggles compel her to consider an opportunity to commit murder, demonstrating that entertainment can delve into the complexities of human motivations beyond monetary gain.
- Books and movies-and-tv, such as 'The Retirement Plan' and 'Breaking Bad', often present characters turning to crime due to financial pressures, showcasing how the need for money serves as a catalyst for captivating tales of crime and despair.
