In the Netflix series Mindhunter , the relationship between serial killing, commodity culture, and consumerism is more subtle, but nonetheless manifests itself at times — such as when convicted murderer Monte Rissell Sam Strike requests a can of Big Red soda in exchange for his interview Mindhunter 1.
The series adapts the non-fiction crime book of the same title by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker, which in turn is based on research conducted by a group of FBI agents and psychologists led by John Douglas, Robert Ressler, and Ann Wolbert Burgess in the s. The perennial popularity of films, mini-dramas, and documentary-style TV shows depicting the above-named figures — and others, such as Ted Bundy, Fred West, and Peter Sutcliffe — reflects the symbiotic relationship between the popular media, which helps produce the sensationalism surrounding these types of crimes, and our collective fascinated consumption of them.
As a culture, it seems we compulsively return to the scenes of these crimes. This article utilises a feminist psychoanalytic model to consider the phenomenon of this repetitious cultural return in relation to theoretical approaches to seriality, which is already related to the idea of repetitious consumption.
As Veronica Innocenti and Guglielmo Prescatore point out, the release of an episode is no longer a weekly viewing event, instead our consumption is more likely to be dislocated from a specific time and day as entire series are available for binge watching upon first release on platforms such as Netflix or Amazon Prime. This article meditates on what our binge consumption and spectatorship of programmes about serial killers might reflect — first, by exploring the ways in which Mindhunter consciously underlines, critiques and contributes to the mythology of the serial killer, gender, and the serial killer genre.
Next, it consider aesthetics and problems of representation; lastly, I put this into dialogue with the notion of seriality and speculate on what our cultural return s to these traumas, and the nature of our remembrance, might reveal. Mindhunter draws attention to the peculiar Americanization of the serial killer through its billboard-like on-screen titles announcing the town and state as the detectives travel to meet their interviewees or investigate a crime. While a transgressive figure, the serial killer can nonetheless be viewed as serving conservative ends.
The last section of this article addresses this point with reference to a wounded culture that fails to mourn; the serial killer genre as it is reflects a society alienated from mourning practices. This is not to condemn the genre, which contends with serious problems for which it is not in and of itself to blame. Indeed, for Annalee Newitz,. Even as audiences learn about the profound violence to which alienated labor can lead, they are alienated from their own discovery. The repetition of the true crime stories suggests our confinement in something that they represent — though what they represent may shift and transform.
The disproportionate sensationalism around serial murder constitutes a form of discipline over the female subject, who is most regularly depicted as victim. However, Mindhunter does not visually revel in the violence of the crimes committed; rather, they are orally described in a gratuitous manner — such as when Ed Kemper describes raping the severed neck of his beheaded victims.
The verbal, rather than visual, representation of murder may be seen to evade the frenzied sensationalism and gore of the genre, which regularly revels in visual representations of brutality against women.
On the other hand, the descriptions of such events may also have a somewhat sanitising effect, prioritising the perspective and voice of the murderer and repressing the violence to a certain extent. Some of them looked pretty good. Ever think you were depriving the rest of us? However, he also expresses anxieties regarding the authenticity of her pleasure and her fidelity, which in turn mirror the anxieties of his interviewees, whose statements imply the myriad ways in which women threaten them.
However, he also reveals that he initially intended to rape his first victim, but when her response to his assault was to perform pleasure, thereby taking away his power as aggressor, he spontaneously reacted with rage and murdered her.
The vital difference, though, is that when Holden sees Debbie flirting with Patrick, her fellow student, his obvious anger does not become sinister; he leaves the venue. Similarly, when their relationship ends Mindhunter 1. In other words, while the relationship between normative and brutal masculinities is explored, the connections are complicated. Contrastingly, in his compelling comparison of the representation of serial killers and gay men in American culture in the mid and late twentieth century, Edward Ingebretsen suggests that the conflation between serial murder and homosexuality serves to inscribe traditional gender roles.
The serial killers is seen to be a threat to the domestic sphere because he fails to conform to typified masculine behaviours.
Alongside the more extreme misogyny of the interviewees, Mindhunter addresses the subtle victimisation of women through Wendy, who is subject to repeated unwanted sexual advances at a work party Mindhunter 2. Her independence is likewise problematized. For example, when she takes to feeding a stray cat by leaving food next to the open window of the laundry room in her apartment building: Across several episodes, the viewer watches her as she walks down to the laundry room, on one occasion wearing only her nightwear, and there is a sense of dread as she approaches the window in the dark.
Her state of dress conveys vulnerability, and — due to the nature of the genre — the viewer is aware of what may befall women who live alone and risk leaving windows open. This subplot culminates in Wendy finding the food rotten and uneaten Mindhunter 1.
Just as female independence is simultaneously represented and unsettled, the characterisation of domesticity is similarly disconcerting. When investigating the murder of a young woman named Beverly Jean Shaw, found raped, murdered, and mutilated post-mortem, Tench and Ford consider a married suspect named Alvin Moran.
Tench remarks that if a married man had committed the murder, he would have tortured Beverly first:. Resentment builds on both sides. A thousand tiny cuts. Notably, if this particular rage were to be enacted on the body of the young woman, her fate would have been worse than her rape and murder. The fictionalisation of the married BTK killer directs his rage squarely at the home and family unit: he murders families in their homes.
In one of the vignettes depicting his life, his wife returns home and we see her in slow motion approaching a door that seems to be straining and rattling at the weight of something; when she opens the door she finds her husband dressed in lingerie and engaging in autoerotic-asphyxiation.
In this sense, the serial killer becomes a symbol of alienated masculinity and the repressed sexuality of the male subject within this context. Of course, this position appears to attribute blame onto women as they constitute the target of this rage. Just as feminist commentary highlights the home as a space of the historical exploitation and containment of women, the male characters in Mindhunter sketch a picture in which they are contained and repressed within the institutions of marriage and the family in a posts context.
In many of the best known depictions of serial murder in fiction and film, the crimes are highly aestheticized; there is a perverse genius lurking behind the criminal acts cf.
Wendy Carr, the academic working with Tench and Holden, lived openly as a lesbian woman while working at a University, but when she transitions to Quantico and the FBI she keeps her colleagues in the dark with regard to her sexuality. Mindhunter presents audiences with a series of conceits alluding to social guises and sociological theory regarding the ways in which we consciously or unconsciously adapt our behaviour to adhere to social norms.
More in Crime View all. Reporter Nancy Updike spends two days with Neal Smither, who cleans up crime scenes for a living, and comes away wanting to open his Los Angeles franchise, despite the gore — or maybe because of it. Sometimes criminals return to the scene of their misdeeds — to try to make things right, to try to undo the past.
Only a fool would believe that Pinochet will be sent for trial in Chile, and that was why more than 6, took to the streets of Santiago to demonstrate their anger when his plane touched down. Human rights organisations, students, workers, shantytown dwellers and ordinary people gathered peacefully outside the presidential palace, but again met repression from the police. Even so, they managed to lower all the flags at Constitution Square to half-mast.
This murderer could turn up at the inauguration of the new president on March And it would be highly embarrassing for the government, which did its utmost to bring the former dictator back to Chile, and for the British home secretary, Jack Straw, who released him. Above all, it would be an offence to the Chilean people.
The murderer returns to the scene of the crime. Tito Tricot, who was tortured under the Pinochet regime, writes from Santiago.
Topics Augusto Pinochet Chile Americas. Nobody 2 2 gold badges 7 7 silver badges 15 15 bronze badges. Is this saying about all criminals or just murderers? Do you have a notable source for this claim? EnergyNumbers: I'm sorry, I don't have a notable source. It is just commonly heard. I think the whole plot point for " Crime and Punishment " can be used as a notable source.
I suspect that the answer is yes, but rather than because of any compulsion, people basically are creatures of habit and tend to go to the same places over an over. Most murders are spur of the moment events so it is likely that they happen in places the murderer normally goes.
So chances are they will return to the vicinity of the crime at some point in the future. Show 7 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. My answer will only be partial, i.
Quote of the indicated book, 2nd edition, page Postoffense behavior exhibited may be a change in eating habits and drinking habits more alcohol consumption and nervousness.
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