I placed the knife on the table and turned around, pinning my gaze inside the plastic wrapped room that I had carefully prepared. An agonized face glared back at me, blue eyes burned beneath the black eyebrows. “What the hell is this?” I carelessly studied the forehead which tightened and twitched with tension and my gaze wandered off to his left cheek. “This... is the moment of truth.” I replied to his cry with ease. He was breathing heavily. Oh, this felt so good. It has been a very long time since I let my dark passenger come out to play. Thirty-eight days, sixteen hours, and twelve minutes to be precise, Trinity has kept me occupied long enough. Then I sliced his left cheek to take my blood slide.
Dexter, the ethical serial killer, appears once more on our screens running its fourth season of sensation on our screens. Changing the definition of scary serial killers as previously connoted in the media. But does Dexter represent a discourse on our understanding of serial killers? This essay is a discourse analysis which explores how the television show Dexter changed the representation of serial killers on prime-time television and the discourse of the ideological functions of serial killers. It will compare and contrast the differences in which the identities of Dexter Morgan and the Trinity Killer are represented in the media.
The media’s ideological perception of hero was almost always cops and prosecutors enthusiastically labouring to sew up the moral and social structure on television. Viewers enjoyed these characters hugging our screens, and devotedly follow them week after week as they appear with yet another criminal to prosecute. Admirers take pleasure in seeing yet another mutilated corps appearing in CSI-land. The ...
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...’s craftiest trick. Their hidden features don’t reveal itself as their subterfuge is extremely masterful. The artifice is similar to that of an optical illusion that alternately presents one of two possible realities. The human is actually a role-play in society only performed when someone is there to watch. The role of the husband and father, brother, colleague and friend, all in the name of blending in and sometimes are genuine, i.e. Trinity is portrayed as to genuinely loving husband and father.
However, there is another reality, the killer, and the one that makes the act of appearing normal to society successful. I.e. when Dexter has just killed someone, he is able to communicate with his wife on a better level, but his thoughts are represented to you by his voice-over, where you can see that he is rehearsing his role and what to say to his wife continuously.
Sarah Koenig’s riveting 2014 podcast series Serial investigates the muddled case of Adnan Syed, a teenager who was accused and convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Han Min Lee, fifteen years ago. In order to do so she must speak to those whom were close to Adnan and involved in his day to day life. However, this yields a problem because whoever was close to him wanted to believe he was innocent but their intimacy may have tainted their statements about his character. When Koenig interviews Saad and Rabia, Adnan’s best friend and his older sister, they obviously take the viewpoint that he is innocent; however, through their curious phrasings and tendency to oversell his eminence, their doubt
A society that presumes a norm of violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football field, or in the conduct of its business, cannot help making celebrities of the people who would destroy it. Unfortunately, such acts of rampage have become a prevalent factor in the Canadian culture. As a result of endless media coverage, Canadians now are constantly bombarded with numerous images of violence. Many of which often portray a victim avenging their opponent by means of force. Thus, indoctrinating a nation of individuals to believe that it is only through aggression that problems can be resolved. Rather than being punished for acts of violence, those who commit such offenses are often praised for their “heroism”. In addition, the success of films like The Godfather, Gladiator, and Troy further aid in reinstating the fact that we live in a society that praises violence. Furthermore, this ideology allows for individuals to partake in violent acts with little or no backlash from ones community. However, when an individual strays away from the “norm”, they are likely to then be viewed as a deviant. Such cases of rejection within a society, are often seen in the portrayal of serial killers. Although our society tends to condone violence when it is directed towards a specific individual(s), it does not allow the killing of innocent bystanders. Instead, crimes that are targeted against a number of people over a long period of time, entail the harshest forms punishments under the law. Sadly, in executing the law for said crimes, those in charge often face much public scrutiny. Such occurrences were apparent in the faulty murder investigations of Canada's most notorious serial killer Robert Pickton. This is due to the ...
The above quote is representative of Dexter’s trials and tribulations on a daily basis and in a way, of every individual’s too. The quote suggests that each one of us have an alternate true self which may come out to surprise us any day. Where does this alternate self dwell? It dwells deep inside our unconscious mind. The question that arises then is why do we hide our alternate true self even from ourselves? It’s because reality is too terrible and traumatic for us to be able to handle it. It provokes too much anxiety for our conscious mind. In order to prevent our unconscious mind take over, we twist and distort reality and keep pretending that everything is just fine. The unconscious mind plays these neat tricks every moment on us, so that we can blend into the crowd and avoid numbing pressure of reality and go sleep at night.
The United States is responsible for 67.41% of the entire world’s serial killers on record, approximately 2,743 killers. One man who is a part of this statistic, named John Wayne Gacy, was born on March 17th, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois. Over a period of six years, Gacy murdered over thirty young men. For the first few years, police were not suspicious of Gacy, and he was only investigated for a few months before his capture. Due to the severity and nature of his crimes John Wayne Gacy was categorized as an organized, power-oriented serial killer.
Hickey, Eric W. Serial Murderers and Their Victims. Belmont, California: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1991. Print.
Gary Watson shares the true story of the serial killer Robert Harris in his essay “Responsibility and the Limits of Evil”. This inclusive narrative shares of a man who was once a very sensible young boy who found himself on the south tier of Death Row in San Quentin Prison. Through this story, the reader learns first about Robert Harris’s crime and then about his upbringing. Both of which are stories that one could consider hard to read and even consider to be a true story. Those who knew Robert Harris claimed that he was a man that did not care about life. He did not care about himself nor anyone else. Each inmate and deputy, from the prision, who was questioned about
Serial murder, which is defined as “the unlawful killing of two or more victims, by the same offenders, in separate events”(Lubaszka & Shon, 2013, p. 1), is a term that American society has become quite familiar with. At a ripe age, parents begin teaching their children not to talk to strangers in hopes of shielding them from the potential evil our world has to offer, but what if I told you the serial killer may not always be the scary man driving a van and offering candy? Our society, like it does most things, has placed a stigma upon serial killers. Although not all implied labels are untrue, this stigma makes us vulnerable to the hidden deviance lurking behind us, dressed in sheep’s clothing. Over the course of this analysis, I will discuss and elaborate on Christine Lubaszka and Phillip Shon’s work, “The notion of victim selection, risk, and offender behavior in healthcare serial murders”. My evaluation will consists of a thorough description of Lubaszka and Shon’s article, followed by a brief critic explaining how their work relates to other forms of deviance, social control, and the material studied in this course, as well as stating a few of the drawbacks and benefits of the authors’ work and suggestions for future researchers.
Sue Grafton once stated: “Except for cases that clearly involve a homicidal maniac, the police like to believe murders are committed by those we know and love, and most of the time they're right.” This is clearly the thought the Boulder Colorado police conceived in the case of little beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey. As many have observed from the onslaught of media coverage, the day after Christmas 1996, six year old Jon Benet Ramsey was found buried under a white blanket, bound, beaten, and strangled to death in the wine cellar of their Boulder home. With such a strikingly rare and glamorous story of a six year old beauty queen dead, who was a part of a “perfect American upper-middle class family”, combined with a lack of a lead and ever mounting suspicion piling up against the parents it was no surprise to find that it was fuel to the media and soon stories sold and became a matter of competition between the press. So, like wildfire, this heart-breaking story spread, stretching across the nation, shattering the souls of the world. News broadcasts, magazine and newspaper articles, and television specials all shaped and molded peoples perceptions of this beautiful child’s murder, especially her parents, John and Pasty Ramsey’s involvement or lack there of. The police and FBI’s merciless quest to connect Jon Benet’s murder to her parents, seemed to cause the them to overlook important evidence, or at the very least dismiss suspicious findings that would otherwise send red flags to investigators. There are many contributors as to why this case remains unsolved including lack of investigative expertise, failure to protect valuable evidence, and focusing too much on the parents as suspects but, ultimately, the over involvement of...
Ricard, Suzanne, Thompson, Jennie. “Women’s Role in Serial Killing Teams: Reconstructing a Radical Feminist Perspective.” Critical Criminology 17(4): 261-275
...ens should have more faith in the established institution’s ability to deliver justice over that of a vigilante serial killer, but for many, that is not the case. Second, Darkly Dreaming Dexter demonstrates that there is not as clear of a barrier between what is morally right and wrong as North American society sometimes believes, seeing as murder, which is usually regarded as undeniably wrong, can sometimes be justified and placed in the spectrum of acceptable behaviour. Blindly dividing actions up into right and wrong, then, is not only irresponsible, but also dangerous, as it can lead individuals to inappropriately oversimplify complex situations. Ultimately, then, a society that unwaveringly opposes all forms violence can be just as problematic as one that condones them.
Black Mass is a recent film based on the true story of Whitey Bulger. Bulger was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for a number of years, and was eventually caught in 2011. Since then, the book Black Mass was written about this infamous criminal and eventually a film was also made, carrying the same title. Bulger was a part of the Winter Hill Gang, running South Boston and having 19 murders on his record. The movie Black Mass is an attempt to portray the life of this man and his criminal acts on society. The violence depicted in the film definitely supports the status of Bulger in real life. He was a ruthless man who murdered people without second thought. The violence depicted can grip an audience’s attention and make a person cringe. Violence in the media, as a whole, has become something that people are attracted to. Not only that, it has impacted viewers in many ways. Black Mass shows the ways in which violence can have repercussions and can affect a number of people. Though this is just a film, its theme derives from the real life story of Whitey Bulger. The use of violence in Black Mass enhances its content tremendously,
This episode of The First 48 documents a case in Atlanta, Georgia where two innocent, young women were brutally murdered by Ardentric Johnson, a 36 year old drug addict whom was living in the abandoned house on Madrona Street where he committed these savage murders. Ardentric Johnson had previous convictions for carrying a concealed weapon, theft, false imprisonment, and battery. In Criminal Justice and English there are concepts like Rehabilitation,Evidence, Pathos, and Logos that help solve bloody murders, just like the brutal case we saw in The First 48: The House on Madrona Street.
A serial killer is traditional defined as the separate killings of three or more people by an individual over a certain period of time, usually with breaks between the murders. (Angela Pilson, p. 2, 2011) This definition has been accepted by both the police and academics and therefore provides a useful frame of reference (Kevin Haggerty, p.1, 2009). The paper will seek to provide the readers with an explanation of how serial killers came to be and how they are portrayed in the media.
Throughout society there are both individuals and groups of people with a wide range of perceptions about crime and justice. These perceptions are influenced by the media and what the media presents. Media presents crime stories in ways that selectively distort and manipulate public perception, thus creating a false picture of crime. Therefore the media provides us with perceptions and social constructions about our world. Firstly I will be discussing the role of the media in constructing knowledge about crime. I will begin by explaining why the media is important, and go further to explain that media representations construct knowledge of crime and since knowledge about crime is constructed it does not necessarily capture reality in fact crime stories are often sensationalised. I will then link this to my central argument that the media shapes people’s perceptions of crime and how this is important as it can lead to changes in the law. I will then explain what it is that the public or society needs to be aware of when reading and watching media reports about crime. We need to be aware of bias and moral panics that are created by the media and how the media shapes or influence’s public perception through this, it is important for us to be aware of misleading or false crime stories so that we are not swayed by the media in believing what they want us to believe.
Emotions and mental aspects are not to be overlooked when differentiating an appearance with reality. In the field of criminology, the general population is exposed to, and has interacted with the most well-behaved and the most polite of people. The kind of people who are perfect models of virtue and goodness. Underneath this shroud of morality, however, it is not infrequent that a man or woman is raging with anger or destructive thoughts. Take Ted Bundy, for example. On the outside, he was the perfect example of an educated gentleman, equipped with a one-tracked mind yearning to kill. Luring countless unsuspecting women, Bundy murdered, and raped with ease. Wearing the costume of a sophisticated and well put-together man, he was able to manipulate take advantage, and take the life of thirty