American True Crime Streaming Shows about Serial Killers

Natasza Korczarowska

natasza.korczarowska@uni.lodz.pl
University of Lodz (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3130-128X

Abstract

According to Marc Ferro, sensational faits divers, such as stories about Jack the Ripper, are presented in cinema as symptoms through which the society can understand certain social and political issues. Adopting a similar assumption, the author analyses selected American true crime series – produced and distributed by various streaming platforms – in a broader sociopolitical context. The shows are placed in the paradigm of American “wound culture(Mark Seltzer) and 9/11 discourse (the proliferation of true crime genre as an expression of nostalgia for safe America before the WTC attack). The article proposes reflection on ethical questions (the fascination with serial killers as an example of David Schmid’s “natural born celebrities culture”) and on viewers’ active Participation (Stella Bruzzi’s “performative true crime”) as an attitude typical for the contemporary ‘culture of detection’.


Keywords:

true crime, serial killer, symptom, wound culture, active participation

Blake, L. (2008). The Wounds of Nations: Horror Cinema, Historical Trauma and National Identity. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7228/manchester/9780719075933.001.0001   Google Scholar

Bonn, S. (2014). Why We Love Serial Killers: The Curious Appeal of the World’s Most Savage Murderers. New York: Skyhorse Publishing.
  Google Scholar

Caputi, J. (1988). The Age of Sex Crime. London: The Women’s Press.
  Google Scholar

Caputi, J. (2004). Goddesses and Monsters: Women, Myth, Power and Popular Culture. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.
  Google Scholar

Carrigy, M. (2021). The Reenactment in Contemporary Screen Culture: Performance, Mediation, Repetition. New York: Bloomsbury.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781501359354   Google Scholar

Dyer, R. (1997). White. London: Routledge.
  Google Scholar

Ferro, M. (2001). Kino i historia (tłum. T. Falkowski). Warszawa: PWN. Foucault, M. (1988). The Dangerous Individual (tłum. A. Baudaut, J. Couchman). W: L. Kritzman (red.), Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings (ss. 125-151). London: Routledge.
  Google Scholar

Foucault, M. (2002). Ja, Piotr Rivière, skorom już zaszlachtował moją matkę, moją siostrę i brata mojego… Przypadek matkobójcy z XIX wieku (tłum. T. Komendant, G. Wilczyński). Gdańsk: słowo/obraz terytoria.
  Google Scholar

Gaynor, S. (2022). Better the Devil You Know: Nostalgia for the Captured Killer in Netflix’s „Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes”. W: B. Robinson, C. Daigle (red.), Serial Killers in Contemporary Television: Familiar Monsters in Post-9/11 Culture (ss. 135-151). Oxon: Routledge.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003263975-11   Google Scholar

Havas, J., Horeck, T. (2021). Netflix Feminism: Binge-Watching Rape Culture in „Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” and „Unbelievable”. W: M. Jenner (red.), Binge-Watching and Contemporary Television Studies (ss. 250-273). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474461986.003.0017   Google Scholar

Hoffman, M., Hobbs S. (2021). „Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered”: Depictions of Female Victimhood in Post-Me Too Crime. W: M. Mellins, S. Moore (red.), Critiquing Violent Crime in the Media (ss. 141-166). Cham: Palgrave MacMillan.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83758-7_6   Google Scholar

Horeck, T. (2019). Justice on Demand: True Crime in the Digital Streaming Era. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
  Google Scholar

Jenkins, P. (1994). Using Murder: The Social Construction of the Serial Homicide. New York: Aldine De Gruyter.
  Google Scholar

Kendall, E. (2021). The Phantom Prince: My Life with Bundy. New York: Ambrass Press.
  Google Scholar

MacDonald, A. (2013). Serial Killing, Surveillance, and the State. W: A. MacDonald (red.), Murders Representations and Acquisitions: Representations of the Serial Killer in Popular Culture (ss. 33-48). New York: Bloomsbury.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781628928211.ch-003   Google Scholar

McCormick, C. (2016). „Forward Is the Battle Cry”: Binge-Viewing Netflix’s „House of Cards”. W: K. McDonald, D. Smith-Rowsey (red.), The Netflix Effect: Technology and Entertainment in the 21st Century (ss. 101-116). New York: Bloomsbury.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781501309410.ch-007   Google Scholar

Murley, J. (2008). The Rise of True Crime: Twentieth Century Murder and American Popular Culture. Westport: Praeger.
  Google Scholar

Nichols, B. (2017). Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt2005t6j   Google Scholar

Plantinga, C. (2018). Characterization and Character Engagement in the Documentary. W: C. Brylla, M. Kramer (red.), Cognitive Theory and Documentary Film (ss. 115-134). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90332-3_7   Google Scholar

Robinson, B. (2022). Introduction – From the Shadows to Our Living Rooms: Serial Killers on Popular TV after 9/11. W: B. Robinson, C. Daigle (red.), Serial Killers in Contemporary Television: Familiar Monsters in Post-9/11 Culture (ss. 1-16). Oxon: Routledge.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003263975-1   Google Scholar

Rubenhold, H. (2021). Pięć. Nieopowiedziane historie kobiet zamordowanych przez Kubę Rozpruwacza (tłum. D. Konowrocka-Sawa). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Poradnia K.
  Google Scholar

Rule, A. (2022). Ted Bundy. Bestia obok mnie (tłum. B. Czartoryski). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Sine Qua Non.
  Google Scholar

Schmid, D. (2005). Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226738703.001.0001   Google Scholar

Seltzer, M. (1998). Serial Killers: Death and Life in America’s Wound Culture. New York: Routledge.
  Google Scholar

Smith, M. (2004). Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  Google Scholar


Published
2023-12-28

Cited by

Korczarowska, N. (2023) “American True Crime Streaming Shows about Serial Killers”, Kwartalnik Filmowy, (124), pp. 139–160. doi: 10.36744/kf.1702.

Authors

Natasza Korczarowska 
natasza.korczarowska@uni.lodz.pl
University of Lodz Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3130-128X

Professor at the Department of Film and Audiovisual Media, Institute of Contemporary Culture, University of Lodz. She specializes in the history of Polish film, contemporary European cinema, and the problems of historiophoty. She published the books Ojczyzny prywatne [Private Homelands] (2007) and Inne spojrzenie [Another Way] (2013) – the latter devoted to the images of history in the Polish feature film after 1965. Since 2008 she has cooperated with the Polish Film Institute and the National Film Archive – Audiovisual Institute on the educational project Academy of Polish Film.



Statistics

Abstract views: 198
PDF downloads: 159


License

Copyright (c) 2023 Natasza Korczarowska

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The author grants the publisher a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Kwartalnik Filmowy, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in Kwartalnik Filmowy should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). The journal is published under the CC BY 4.0 licence. By submitting an article, the author agrees to make it available under this licence.

In issues from 105-106 (2019) to 119 (2022) all articles were published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. During this period the authors granted a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in „Kwartalnik Filmowy”, retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.