Serial Killers: Evolution of True Crime Episode 2
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VOICE OVER: Rebecca Brayton
WRITTEN BY: Mackenzie Aker
We know that true crime about serial murder is dark and disturbing – so… why do we love to watch? And are there real-life consequences for this genre's explosion? Welcome to our series How True Crime Became a Global Obsession! For this episode, we're looking at how true crime media turns serial killers into celebrities.
We know that true crime about serial murder is dark and disturbing – so… why do we love to watch? And are there real-life consequences for this genre’s explosion?
Welcome to WatchMojo’s series The Evolution of True Crime! For this episode, we’re looking at how true crime media turns serial killers into celebrities.
To say a serial killer is a celebrity is not to say he’s an admirable character. It’s to say: the way we talk about them, think about them, and represent them in media is comparable to how we talk, think, and represent other famous figures in pop culture. But how does this impact our understanding of crime and justice? In an era so saturated by media, does the line between actual crime and True Crime start to blur?
Serial killing has pretty much existed everywhere and always, but the English term was coined in the 1970s. While there is some debate about who exactly named it, what is important for us here is what it describes. A “serial killer” is generally understood as a murderer with three or more victims, with a time gap between so-called “killing events”. This is what separates them from “spree” and “mass” killers. Spree killers operate in a short timeframe, and mass murderers are more interested in scale.
Pop culture interest in serial killers is generally thought to have started with Jack the Ripper in the 1890s. These killings in the Whitechapel neighborhood of London generated tons of pulp media, rumors, stories, and general cultural hullabaloo. But the fact that the term “serial killer” entered the law enforcement lexicon in the 1970s is not random. This marks the beginning of what has come to be known as the “Golden Age of Serial Killing” in the United States (1970-99). Famously, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, the Golden State Killer, David Berkowitz (aka Son of Sam), Jeffrey Dahmer, BTK, Richard Ramirez, the Zodiac killer, and others were all active during this period. Investigative historian Peter Vronsky claims that over 80% of American serial killers were active during this “Golden Age”. Why? There is no one, definitive answer. But this era generated a huge proportion of the true crime stories we consume today. So let’s start with this: what makes a serial killer?
Quick facts: 92% of serial killers are male, most commit their first murder between the ages of 25 and 34. Serial killers rarely target victims outside of their ethnic group, but often target the opposite sex. Psychopathy and sociopathy are real conditions, but those living with them do not necessarily become serial killers. And not all serial killers are necessarily psycho or sociopaths. But experts say that people who could be predisposed to violent impulses (like psychopaths are) can be socialized into acting upon them. For example, if a kid with psychopathy is exposed to physical abuse at a young age, they may be more likely to reproduce this behavior themselves. And since empathy might not come naturally to them, they may struggle to identify this behavior as “wrong”. Children who experience severe trauma can also develop patterns of emotional suppression that can lead them to victimize people later in life, struggling to feel empathy or remorse.
If we go back to this ironic term, this “Golden Age”, let’s look at the timing.
Men aged 25-34 in the 1970s were born in the 1940s and 50s. World War II and the Korean War destabilized many young families across the United States during these decades, as many people returned from war with immense trauma. Many men did not return at all, leaving behind young families with their own trauma, higher rates of poverty, and so forth. Experts have pointed to this wave of destabilized homes as one factor potentially leading to the rise of serial killing in the generation that followed, because these children were more frequently neglected or exposed to violence and abuse. Experts have also pointed to the Great Depression as having a similar effect. There are of course many many different experiences of war and returning home. But for instance, Dennis Rader aka BTK, Richard Cottingham (the Torso Killer), and Joseph DeAngelo (the Golden State Killer) all had war veteran fathers and deeply unstable family homes. It’s a gross oversimplification to say that one thing directly leads to the other. But given the high rates of abuse and childhood exposure to violence reported by convicted serial killers of this era, a connection begins to emerge. Violence and trauma can cycle across generations.
Other factors that experts point to when examining the “Golden Age” are the massive cultural shifts of the 1960s and 70s. Rising youth and countercultures led to more transience among young people: more runaways, more recreational drug use, more hitchhiking, more women traveling alone. In other words, the pool of potential victims simply grew. There were suddenly a lot of young people wandering the world alone, linking up with strangers, going on adventures, not necessarily wanting to be found. Draft-dodging during the Vietnam War is also a factor here, as a lot of young people were traveling under fake names, using fake backstories. This made it harder to identify them once they were found, or to have them labeled “missing” in the first place. The construction of the interstate highway in the 1950s is also a factor: increased mobility, hitchhiking, isolated roads, lack of surveillance. All of these social and cultural factors made this generation more likely to kill, and more easily killed.
This era is the basis of the true crime frenzy we are living in now. Because while serial killing itself has sharply declined in the 21st century, we are still producing and consuming media about this era of killers. “Mindhunter”, “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile”, “The Good Nurse”, and “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” are all examples of this fascinating nostalgia. As these stories keep coming back into circulation with younger actors, cooler aesthetics, more violence, these real-life figures become further immortalized in pop culture memory.
But the relationship between serial killing and celebrity culture doesn’t just live in legacy. Serial killers (like the rest of us) are conscious of pop culture, Hollywood, politics, history, and so forth. These are cultural factors which shape our social world, and celebrity culture is a part of that.
The showboating, performative Bundy trials where he represented himself and got married in court … the Tate-LaBianca murders being deemed “the end of the 60s” – these are pop culture moments as much as they are major criminal cases. And even during this “Golden Age”, serial killers themselves were aware of their notoriety, their overlap into celebrity culture. During his peak as a celebrity-murderer, Richard Ramirez signed his artworks “Richard Ramirez, Night Stalker”, reinforcing his public persona, his brand. Dennis Rader suggested his own title (an acronym for “Bind Torture Kill”) in his infamous letters to police. As Dahmer’s murder pad was discovered by police in 1991, media rights were allegedly being sold within the hour. Exceptional acts and personas, public panic, and explosive media coverage converge to make killers into celebrities.
In the early 1990s several factors came together to bring serial killing to the center stage of media: first, as we have already seen, the actual real life problem of serial killing during this era. Second, the increasingly sensationalized coverage of these crimes, with identifiable figures and personas attached to them. The third is actually the release of “The Silence of the Lambs”, the book in 1988 then the movie in ‘91. Thomas Harris’ character and Anthony Hopkins’ portrayal were largely responsible for a resurgence of pop culture interest in serial killing in the 90s, coinciding with the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer and Aileen Wuornos (two super publicized cases). This is when “The Golden Age of Serial Killing” starts to transition into a “Golden Age of Serial Killer Media”. It creates a loop: serial killing is happening, the media reports on it, serial killing becomes “the thing everyone is talking about”, the media capitalizes on the social trend by releasing increasingly bold, sensational stories, which in turn increases the social stock and marketability of real-life crimes and criminals. Reality and storytelling blend together in nonfiction media, amplifying the persona of the killer in the public imagination.
Crime media expert David Schmid compares silver screen serial killers to other classic villain-protagonist tropes in American media, like gangsters and vigilantes. What separates a serial killer movie from a slasher flick is who the audience is meant to identify with: the killer or the victim. Slasher movies are all about the terror of the victims and how we imagine ourselves in the scenarios we see onscreen. “Don’t go into the basement!” “Why doesn’t she call the police!”, etcetera. A serial killer movie is different. It is about the persona and mind of the killer, this is who we identify with. Hannibal Lector is a perfect example. Hannibal the Cannibal is not some guy in a hockey mask stumbling around with a machete. He’s cunning, calculating, a master-manipulator - a genius in his fields (both psychiatry and psycho-killing).
In “The Silence of the Lambs” we see clearly the difference between Hannibal and “other” killers. He’s a monster no doubt, but also a brilliant mind, outsmarting those who detain him. He is the opposite of so-called “degenerate” serial killers like Buffalo Bill, who is cast as incoherent, queer-coded, living in squalor, incompetent. A similar dichotomy can be seen in nonfiction coverage of crimes during the 80s and 90s. Murderer-celebrities are often “guys-next-door” - middle class or affluent, active in their communities. The angle of their story focuses on their cunning; their ability to disguise their true form and walk among us; be part of “our” communities - Dennis Rader, for instance. On the other side of this dichotomy, during the same era we see a massive wave of reality and nonfiction media about the police cracking down on lower-level crimes. “COPS”, for example, was shot overwhelmingly in low-income neighborhoods, showcasing arrests of mostly people of color and immigrants.
Celebrity criminals are given an aura of exceptionality and genius, while the common criminal is anonymous, a symbol of moral weakness in opposition to the officers who arrest them. There are some serial killer celebrities like Aileen Wuornos or Ed Kemper who do not fit into the “walks among us” mold, but they are exceptional - Wuornos because female serial killers are rare, and Kemper because of the particular savagery of his crimes. But media coverage of their stories still reinforces the pattern: there is an angle to their stories that allows them to transcend “common criminal” tropes. They are not mastermind geniuses, they are chaotic, tragic figures. But this is also a trope that allows serial killers to enter into pop culture history.
In the 2000s and 2010s we see characters like Dexter appear, a cool and sympathetic serial killer who audiences welcome as their protagonist. Having become accustomed to the “shocking and sensational” tone of serial killer stories, we come to accept them as a part of pop culture. Shows like “Mindhunter” and “Dahmer” push this even further, featuring real-life serial killers as written characters, with snappy dialogue and engaging personas. Onscreen, they are no longer real people who committed real crimes, but personas and concepts that become vehicles for the filmmaker’s story. Icons.
Another essential piece of the celebrity system is this: profit. And not just how media companies generate profit from covering tragic and traumatic events, but the concept of “murderabilia”. “Murderabilia” is an umbrella term for collectable items connected to violent crimes and their perpetrators. This can be artwork by murderers, their possessions, non-evidentiary items related to their crimes. The more famous the killer, the higher the pricetag. For example, a painting by John Wayne Gacy (a colorful portrait of his own Pogo The Clown character), sold at auction for nearly $13,000 in 2022. After the release of “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” in 2022, Dahmer’s actual aviator glasses went up for auction at $150,000 USD. Like Marilyn Monroe’s lipstick, the items are only as valuable as the image they conjure, as the ghost of their previous owner. Marketability is an essential part of celebrity culture, and while there are laws passed in the United States which prevent criminals from profiting financially from their crimes, it doesn’t mean that other people can’t. This feeds into and incentivizes further celebrity worship of murderers.
Now, viewers who lived through these historic events might have a more nuanced reading of these true crime retellings. Maybe you watched those explosive trials on TV or you remember seeing it on the news, so there’s a clearer connection to real events. But for younger viewers, who are learning about these events for the first time through aestheticized, bingeable, identifiable content, it may have a different effect.
In the sea of docuseries and Dexters, we become more distanced from the understanding that these events are real. Real people died, real families were destroyed. Many of those survivors are living, and reliving their trauma whenever new content is released. Beyond that, it’s essential to consider that there’s a well-documented mental health crisis among today’s young people, and treating real murderers as characters with their own “misunderstood” stories to tell can feed dangerous impressions about power and notoriety. The pressures of social media, an increasingly polarized political landscape, and a bleak outlook for the future, have contributed to higher rates of depression and general hopelessness among young people. And although serial killing has declined substantially in the 21st century, mass shootings have increased DRAMATICALLY, particularly in the 2010s.
While news media has been developing best practices for covering such events to avoid giving notoriety to the perpetrators, it’s essential that we apply the same critical thinking to the true crime and serial killer media we produce and consume today. It’s not “just a movie” – it’s real.
Welcome to WatchMojo’s series The Evolution of True Crime! For this episode, we’re looking at how true crime media turns serial killers into celebrities.
To say a serial killer is a celebrity is not to say he’s an admirable character. It’s to say: the way we talk about them, think about them, and represent them in media is comparable to how we talk, think, and represent other famous figures in pop culture. But how does this impact our understanding of crime and justice? In an era so saturated by media, does the line between actual crime and True Crime start to blur?
Serial killing has pretty much existed everywhere and always, but the English term was coined in the 1970s. While there is some debate about who exactly named it, what is important for us here is what it describes. A “serial killer” is generally understood as a murderer with three or more victims, with a time gap between so-called “killing events”. This is what separates them from “spree” and “mass” killers. Spree killers operate in a short timeframe, and mass murderers are more interested in scale.
Pop culture interest in serial killers is generally thought to have started with Jack the Ripper in the 1890s. These killings in the Whitechapel neighborhood of London generated tons of pulp media, rumors, stories, and general cultural hullabaloo. But the fact that the term “serial killer” entered the law enforcement lexicon in the 1970s is not random. This marks the beginning of what has come to be known as the “Golden Age of Serial Killing” in the United States (1970-99). Famously, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, the Golden State Killer, David Berkowitz (aka Son of Sam), Jeffrey Dahmer, BTK, Richard Ramirez, the Zodiac killer, and others were all active during this period. Investigative historian Peter Vronsky claims that over 80% of American serial killers were active during this “Golden Age”. Why? There is no one, definitive answer. But this era generated a huge proportion of the true crime stories we consume today. So let’s start with this: what makes a serial killer?
Quick facts: 92% of serial killers are male, most commit their first murder between the ages of 25 and 34. Serial killers rarely target victims outside of their ethnic group, but often target the opposite sex. Psychopathy and sociopathy are real conditions, but those living with them do not necessarily become serial killers. And not all serial killers are necessarily psycho or sociopaths. But experts say that people who could be predisposed to violent impulses (like psychopaths are) can be socialized into acting upon them. For example, if a kid with psychopathy is exposed to physical abuse at a young age, they may be more likely to reproduce this behavior themselves. And since empathy might not come naturally to them, they may struggle to identify this behavior as “wrong”. Children who experience severe trauma can also develop patterns of emotional suppression that can lead them to victimize people later in life, struggling to feel empathy or remorse.
If we go back to this ironic term, this “Golden Age”, let’s look at the timing.
Men aged 25-34 in the 1970s were born in the 1940s and 50s. World War II and the Korean War destabilized many young families across the United States during these decades, as many people returned from war with immense trauma. Many men did not return at all, leaving behind young families with their own trauma, higher rates of poverty, and so forth. Experts have pointed to this wave of destabilized homes as one factor potentially leading to the rise of serial killing in the generation that followed, because these children were more frequently neglected or exposed to violence and abuse. Experts have also pointed to the Great Depression as having a similar effect. There are of course many many different experiences of war and returning home. But for instance, Dennis Rader aka BTK, Richard Cottingham (the Torso Killer), and Joseph DeAngelo (the Golden State Killer) all had war veteran fathers and deeply unstable family homes. It’s a gross oversimplification to say that one thing directly leads to the other. But given the high rates of abuse and childhood exposure to violence reported by convicted serial killers of this era, a connection begins to emerge. Violence and trauma can cycle across generations.
Other factors that experts point to when examining the “Golden Age” are the massive cultural shifts of the 1960s and 70s. Rising youth and countercultures led to more transience among young people: more runaways, more recreational drug use, more hitchhiking, more women traveling alone. In other words, the pool of potential victims simply grew. There were suddenly a lot of young people wandering the world alone, linking up with strangers, going on adventures, not necessarily wanting to be found. Draft-dodging during the Vietnam War is also a factor here, as a lot of young people were traveling under fake names, using fake backstories. This made it harder to identify them once they were found, or to have them labeled “missing” in the first place. The construction of the interstate highway in the 1950s is also a factor: increased mobility, hitchhiking, isolated roads, lack of surveillance. All of these social and cultural factors made this generation more likely to kill, and more easily killed.
This era is the basis of the true crime frenzy we are living in now. Because while serial killing itself has sharply declined in the 21st century, we are still producing and consuming media about this era of killers. “Mindhunter”, “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile”, “The Good Nurse”, and “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” are all examples of this fascinating nostalgia. As these stories keep coming back into circulation with younger actors, cooler aesthetics, more violence, these real-life figures become further immortalized in pop culture memory.
But the relationship between serial killing and celebrity culture doesn’t just live in legacy. Serial killers (like the rest of us) are conscious of pop culture, Hollywood, politics, history, and so forth. These are cultural factors which shape our social world, and celebrity culture is a part of that.
The showboating, performative Bundy trials where he represented himself and got married in court … the Tate-LaBianca murders being deemed “the end of the 60s” – these are pop culture moments as much as they are major criminal cases. And even during this “Golden Age”, serial killers themselves were aware of their notoriety, their overlap into celebrity culture. During his peak as a celebrity-murderer, Richard Ramirez signed his artworks “Richard Ramirez, Night Stalker”, reinforcing his public persona, his brand. Dennis Rader suggested his own title (an acronym for “Bind Torture Kill”) in his infamous letters to police. As Dahmer’s murder pad was discovered by police in 1991, media rights were allegedly being sold within the hour. Exceptional acts and personas, public panic, and explosive media coverage converge to make killers into celebrities.
In the early 1990s several factors came together to bring serial killing to the center stage of media: first, as we have already seen, the actual real life problem of serial killing during this era. Second, the increasingly sensationalized coverage of these crimes, with identifiable figures and personas attached to them. The third is actually the release of “The Silence of the Lambs”, the book in 1988 then the movie in ‘91. Thomas Harris’ character and Anthony Hopkins’ portrayal were largely responsible for a resurgence of pop culture interest in serial killing in the 90s, coinciding with the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer and Aileen Wuornos (two super publicized cases). This is when “The Golden Age of Serial Killing” starts to transition into a “Golden Age of Serial Killer Media”. It creates a loop: serial killing is happening, the media reports on it, serial killing becomes “the thing everyone is talking about”, the media capitalizes on the social trend by releasing increasingly bold, sensational stories, which in turn increases the social stock and marketability of real-life crimes and criminals. Reality and storytelling blend together in nonfiction media, amplifying the persona of the killer in the public imagination.
Crime media expert David Schmid compares silver screen serial killers to other classic villain-protagonist tropes in American media, like gangsters and vigilantes. What separates a serial killer movie from a slasher flick is who the audience is meant to identify with: the killer or the victim. Slasher movies are all about the terror of the victims and how we imagine ourselves in the scenarios we see onscreen. “Don’t go into the basement!” “Why doesn’t she call the police!”, etcetera. A serial killer movie is different. It is about the persona and mind of the killer, this is who we identify with. Hannibal Lector is a perfect example. Hannibal the Cannibal is not some guy in a hockey mask stumbling around with a machete. He’s cunning, calculating, a master-manipulator - a genius in his fields (both psychiatry and psycho-killing).
In “The Silence of the Lambs” we see clearly the difference between Hannibal and “other” killers. He’s a monster no doubt, but also a brilliant mind, outsmarting those who detain him. He is the opposite of so-called “degenerate” serial killers like Buffalo Bill, who is cast as incoherent, queer-coded, living in squalor, incompetent. A similar dichotomy can be seen in nonfiction coverage of crimes during the 80s and 90s. Murderer-celebrities are often “guys-next-door” - middle class or affluent, active in their communities. The angle of their story focuses on their cunning; their ability to disguise their true form and walk among us; be part of “our” communities - Dennis Rader, for instance. On the other side of this dichotomy, during the same era we see a massive wave of reality and nonfiction media about the police cracking down on lower-level crimes. “COPS”, for example, was shot overwhelmingly in low-income neighborhoods, showcasing arrests of mostly people of color and immigrants.
Celebrity criminals are given an aura of exceptionality and genius, while the common criminal is anonymous, a symbol of moral weakness in opposition to the officers who arrest them. There are some serial killer celebrities like Aileen Wuornos or Ed Kemper who do not fit into the “walks among us” mold, but they are exceptional - Wuornos because female serial killers are rare, and Kemper because of the particular savagery of his crimes. But media coverage of their stories still reinforces the pattern: there is an angle to their stories that allows them to transcend “common criminal” tropes. They are not mastermind geniuses, they are chaotic, tragic figures. But this is also a trope that allows serial killers to enter into pop culture history.
In the 2000s and 2010s we see characters like Dexter appear, a cool and sympathetic serial killer who audiences welcome as their protagonist. Having become accustomed to the “shocking and sensational” tone of serial killer stories, we come to accept them as a part of pop culture. Shows like “Mindhunter” and “Dahmer” push this even further, featuring real-life serial killers as written characters, with snappy dialogue and engaging personas. Onscreen, they are no longer real people who committed real crimes, but personas and concepts that become vehicles for the filmmaker’s story. Icons.
Another essential piece of the celebrity system is this: profit. And not just how media companies generate profit from covering tragic and traumatic events, but the concept of “murderabilia”. “Murderabilia” is an umbrella term for collectable items connected to violent crimes and their perpetrators. This can be artwork by murderers, their possessions, non-evidentiary items related to their crimes. The more famous the killer, the higher the pricetag. For example, a painting by John Wayne Gacy (a colorful portrait of his own Pogo The Clown character), sold at auction for nearly $13,000 in 2022. After the release of “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” in 2022, Dahmer’s actual aviator glasses went up for auction at $150,000 USD. Like Marilyn Monroe’s lipstick, the items are only as valuable as the image they conjure, as the ghost of their previous owner. Marketability is an essential part of celebrity culture, and while there are laws passed in the United States which prevent criminals from profiting financially from their crimes, it doesn’t mean that other people can’t. This feeds into and incentivizes further celebrity worship of murderers.
Now, viewers who lived through these historic events might have a more nuanced reading of these true crime retellings. Maybe you watched those explosive trials on TV or you remember seeing it on the news, so there’s a clearer connection to real events. But for younger viewers, who are learning about these events for the first time through aestheticized, bingeable, identifiable content, it may have a different effect.
In the sea of docuseries and Dexters, we become more distanced from the understanding that these events are real. Real people died, real families were destroyed. Many of those survivors are living, and reliving their trauma whenever new content is released. Beyond that, it’s essential to consider that there’s a well-documented mental health crisis among today’s young people, and treating real murderers as characters with their own “misunderstood” stories to tell can feed dangerous impressions about power and notoriety. The pressures of social media, an increasingly polarized political landscape, and a bleak outlook for the future, have contributed to higher rates of depression and general hopelessness among young people. And although serial killing has declined substantially in the 21st century, mass shootings have increased DRAMATICALLY, particularly in the 2010s.
While news media has been developing best practices for covering such events to avoid giving notoriety to the perpetrators, it’s essential that we apply the same critical thinking to the true crime and serial killer media we produce and consume today. It’s not “just a movie” – it’s real.
