Killer Interests
posted by Dominque Elliot | February 22, 2019 | In NewsRecently, Netflix came out with a new series called: Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, a documentary that goes over Bundy’s gruesome crimes, while playing back his recorded conversations. A featured movie trailer about the murderer, starring Zack Efron, was actually released this month, and both movies are causing quite a stir among America’s audiences while collecting a following.
Currently, movies and documentaries about infamous killers, such as Jeffery Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz, and Ed “the Butcher of Plainfield” Gein, have become popular. There are also fictional movies and T.V. shows inspired by, or even based off, classic horror movies, such as Texas Chain- saw Killer (based on Gein’s murders), Bates Motel (based on the movie, Psycho), Hannibal (based on the movie, Silence of the Lambs), American Horror Story and many more. From true crime communities on social media, documentaries on TV, and biopics that drop in theatres–American’s serial killer obsession seems to come in all shapes and sizes. Yet, this begs the question: Why is America so entertained by serial killers?
Dominique Francis, computer science major, shared some of his thoughts on why society seems to garnish such a fascination:
“I think people like to learn about serial killers because they like to understand why they do the things they do.” Francis continued: ”Why do they not see human in the same light people do? What makes them do these atrocious crimes? I like learning about serial killers because I think it’s interesting. They’re not like normal people some of these guys are really, really smart and I’m like: How did you get caught? What is that happened?” He concluded: “Sometimes I’m like I just want to know what happened.”
Visual arts major Bristol Mclean believes it may hint at our society’s own gruesome side: “I think society has a weird fascination with horrible things and people. It’s entertaining to hear about what they did and why they are the way they are. I have a fascination with it, just because I like to see how people tick in general. And I believe it’s an indicator of how desensitized our society has come.”
Other students, such as Staisha Cain, political science major, can’t understand or relate to the fascination with serial killers in our culture. ”I like horror and gruesome stories but I’m not fascinated by the Ted Bundy story. It’s one thing to watch a fictional killer, but it’s different when it a true event. Like Jason and Freddy, they’re fiction, but those are regular people they’re real,” Cain said.
It seems a lot of society fascination may just boil down to basic curiosity. For some, it may represent how detached our emotions can be from tragedy. For others, this serial killer fascination culture is just a grim reminder of what type of reality already exist.
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