Seeing an advertisement for ‘My Murder’ a couple of weeks ago, I decoded black faces in ‘urban’ attire, and slang. Another negative London gang drama I concluded, until the narrator stated the drama was based on true events. Seeing the advertisement a second time I realised I had read of Shakilus ‘Shaki’ Townsend’s murder a few years ago.
On the night of the drama’s original airing I was out, but my whole Twitter feed seemed to have been tuned in making a running commentary. Not only this but the #MyMurder hashtag was the most popular topic in the UK as well. The majority of sentiment was resentment towards Samantha; the ‘Honey Trap’ who callously led ‘Shaki’ to his death.
An article posted on The Guardian prior to the show coming on TV queried and was titled: ‘Gang violence is complex – will the BBC ‘honeytrap’ murder drama reflect this?’ My answer – no it didn’t. Not due to poor acting, or dodgy slang and in fact I commend the actors/actresses for their portrayals, which for the most part were excellent. However, the complexities, ideologies, culture and patterns which led to Shaki’s death were not expressed in the one hour show.
Being already familiar with the story, I felt the portrayal did little more than a newspaper article in ‘reporting’ the events. We did not really get to grips with Samantha’s character at all, and her portrayal was very one dimensional. Also the decision to attack Shaki, including the research into finding out who he was, the conversations that would have been had by the attackers, Danny’s thought processes were all rushed over.
Shaki’s murder was senseless. But such ‘honey traps’ are a dangerous recurring phenomenon. As a teenager I saw and heard similar incidents regularly, ‘getting set’ was a common consideration. My Murder’s attempt to encapsulate the process though gallant – missed the mark. One hour simply was not enough, and this was reflected in the disgust most people felt towards Samantha’s simple character. Undeniably the act that she was a part of was terrible, but the manner in which the show presented her as a one-off perpetrator was naive to say the least.
If anything the drama did go some way in bringing to light the sub-culture which exists in Britain, whereby societal rules are forgotten and youths feel they can take a time-out from reality to be reckless. As My Murder unfortunately dictates, not all are so lucky.
