Fascination with modern crime shows

For the past several days the two hottest things on my twitter feed have revolved around Miley Cyrus at the VMAs and Breaking Bad. Since I could not possibly care any less than I already do about Miley, let's talk for a minute about the second thing. And hell, why don't we throw in a few others as well.

Let's talk about Breaking Bad, Dexter, and White Collar (since these are the ones that I happen to watch). Not too many people watch the last, so the primary focus will be on Breaking Bad and Dexter, but I happen to enjoy the witty banter between the two main characters in the USA show so I feel like mentioning it.

Breaking Bad is, according to wikipedia, "the story of Walter White, a struggling high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer at the beginning of the series. He turns to a life of crime, producing and selling methamphetamine with a former student, Jesse Pinkman. Walter's primary goal, when he begins manufacturing the methamphetamine, is securing his family's financial future before he dies."

Dexter, with the same source, "centers on Dexter Morgan, a blood spatter pattern analyst for a fictional Miami Metro Police Department who also leads a secret life as a serial killer."

White collar, similarly, is about a conman that agrees to work with the FBI catching criminals to get out of prison.

These are shows about crime, specifically criminals. They differ considerably from shows like Criminal Minds or CSI or NCIS, solely because the criminals are the main characters.

But they're great because we root for the bad guy. 

People want Walter and Jesse to get away, even though we know they'll probably end up in jail or prison. We want Dexter to escape to some country that doesn't extradite to the United States, even though he will also probably end up in prison. 

What this goes to prove is that perception plays more of a role in life than we intend to let on. These shows, with main views on the lives of these criminals, show just that. The daily life of an average human being, with a little bit added on.

People are fascinated with the concept of breaking the law, but, in a sense, are much too afraid to do so themselves. Watching someone else break the law is amusing and not at all dangerous. There's no chance you can go to prison for sitting on your couch watching Walter White make meth or crossing your fingers in hopes that Dexter won't get caught by the same people he works with. Unless you're pirating everything, of course. 

But we're fascinated by murder weapons and motives and why people do the things that they do, if only because we're explicitly told, throughout our lives, not to do them. Mother tells us not to do drugs, the law tells us we aren't allowed to kill people.

Yet there's a desire somewhere deep down to engage in things like this, the forbidden fruit. It's been human nature since the written times of the bible with Adam and Eve.

Wanting to break the law is in our nature, yet we value our lives too much to do it ourselves. Thus we turn to watching the shows from the safety and comfort of our own homes.