Melodramatic excess in fiction can presage real corruption scandals

Evidence

We were drawn to a certain kind of fiction because consensual reality, the commonsense world that we like to think we live in, wasn’t adequate to a figure like Savile. At the same time, it became clear that the elements in Peace’s writing that previously seemed most melodramatically excessive were those which ended up rhyming with the new revelations. It’s as if melodramatic excess is built into the Real itself, and the sheer implausibility of corruption and abuse itself forms a kind of cloak for the abuser: surely this can’t be happening? — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 197

Categorization

• XREF: Builds directly on ch9/ch10 reflections on period fiction, aestheticized settings and Peace’s Yorkshire — a real corruption being ‘unbelievable’ ties to the earlier point that fictional worlds outrun consensual reality. — connects to: Fiction fixated on past corruption renews in prophetic power later — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 196; A novel’s fictional controversy can closely shadow a real scandal it predates.; Fiction can dramatize an Islamophobic controversy before it erupts in public life — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 275 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: The idea that implausibility forms a protective cloak for abusers is a psychological mechanism worth probing further — why does the ‘surely not’ reflex shield rather than expose power?

Broader Connections

• A novel’s fictional controversy can closely shadow a real scandal it predates. #exemplifies (0.90)
• Fiction can dramatize an Islamophobic controversy before it erupts in public life #exemplifies (0.90) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 275
• Highly publicized novel crimes trigger a wave of copycat events before fading #expands (0.75)