Dexter

I find the show 'Dexter' rather interesting from an educational standpoint, as it is a show depicting a 'good' serial killer. I never really got into the show too much, but I know many people that did.
There were a couple things that stood out to me right away re-watching the first episode: First, that there were three serial killers just in the first episode, indicating that serial killers are highly prominent, and Dexter would have an incredibly large pool to draw from. Second, that they are extremely easy to find, outside of the justice system. This indicates that our laws are holding us back from finding so many serial killers, and indicates that they should be changed to protect us. Thirdly, this show describes a psychopathic serial killer, and later they indicate that the entire reason he is a serial killer is because of the tragic event that happened when he was a toddler. This would indicate that it was never his fault, but rather something that happened to him.
This show tends to show quite a bit of 'would culture' (Schmid, 5), letting us view scenes of violence without having to publicly loiter around a crime scene. As a species, we tend to have a fascination with violence, or violent accidents. Dexter allows one to not only view these scenes without having to be there, it allows us to condemn the person that is being murdered, rather than the murderer. This is part of what leads to Dexter's popularity, allowing us to view such wounds in the privacy of our own home.
As Schmid discusses, we often view serial killers through a gothic lens (Schmid, 6). We have had fairy tales for as long as stories have existed, with monsters that do terrible things. Whether the point of the story is to be careful, to be kind, or to follow instructions, if one doesn't do what they are supposed to, they will be attacked by monsters in a ferocious way. Even Dexter calls himself a monster, acknowledging that he is killing other monsters as well. Being able to create a fairy tale with Dexter as the monster, attacking you if you attack others, creates a story that most people enjoy. It allows us to enter a world where we can do forbidden things, and not only feel good about doing them, but also be able to come back to reality an hour later.
Accoding to Schmid, for most serial killers, they are more infamous than celebrities, indicating that there are requirements for celebrities, but for fame, you just need to be known (Schmid, 9). Obviously, for a TV show, it is both. Dexter the serial killer is infamous, but Dexter the actor is both famous and a celebrity.
Overall, I would say that Schmid would be interested in both Dexter's popularity, and the people who watch it. How did Dexter become so well liked? He allows us to become our own monsters, killing for good, enacting monstrous scenes, and giving us a fairy tale to follow along with. This show tells us that serial killers are extremely common, and that it is relatively easy to spot them. That the law can almost never catch them. That the law even prevents us from catching them, and that one only need search a building without a warrant, see a website, and find a serial rapist and killer by a very unique tattoo that is placed in an easy way to see.

Adam Lanza

It is quite clear from the newspaper articles I read that, just like Frymer, everyone believed Adam to be an alienated youth. Some discuss his transition to and from homeschooling, others his penchant for video games, but almost all discuss how shy, reserved, and bullied he was. According to the New York Times, Adam's mother "frequently moved him in and out of school, and at times home-schooled him" (NYT, March 29, 2013). One thing that was brought up quite a few times was his love of violent video games. It seemed as if, yet again, media was trying to blame one simple thing for this disaster. "Mr. Lanza had spent most of his time in the basement of the home, primarily playing a warfare video game, ''Call of Duty.''" (NYT, March 29, 2013). They talked about how shy he was, especially after his parent's divorce, possibly looking yet again for another simple reason; "He always seemed like a quiet type. He was never really sociable. When you try to communicate with him, he would just kind of like have one- or two-word responses" (The Washington Post, Dec. 15, 2012). Another trait that is extremely common in these articles is the emphasis on the guns in their house. They gave details on exactly how many rounds he had, how many he'd fired, how many guns were in the house, even that a check was given to him by his mother to buy another gun. They discussed how "All three of the guns that Adam Lanza carried into Sandy Hook Elementary were owned and registered by his mother -- a pair of handguns and a .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle, his primary weapon." (Lowell Sun, Dec. 17, 2012). It was quite plain from the articles that not only did Mrs. Lanza own many firearms, so did Adam Lanza, although it is unclear why he only used hers. What is clear is that all of these articles are discussing gun control, when it is a difficult situation to control. In fact, in Frymer's article discussing Columbine, it wasn't the initial plan to shoot anyone, but to blow them up. It wasn't until the bombs failed that they resorted to firearms. What was also discussed was his mental instability. Depending on which articles you read, they may have only discussed how it made it hard for him to make friends, but some discussed how he was odd since he was five, and someone even commented "As horrible as this was, I can't say I am surprised . . . Burn in hell, Adam" (Daily News, Dec. 15, 2012). I do find it interesting that the Daily Mirror was so much more opinionated feeling than the other newspapers. One part that strikes that feeling in me is this, "Wealthy Nancy Lanza, 52, had first considered placing her tormented son, 20, in college and moving to London to escape him. But the gun-hoarding mum is said to have decided he needed to be locked up instead" (DM, Dec. 20, 2012). 

Overall, these clippings do seem to support Frymer's ideas, the media spectacle surrounding this event pushed everyone to believe in their stories, bullies caused it, or violent video games caused it, or having weapons in the house caused it, or mental illness caused it. It is almost never approached as a bigger problem we may never solve, but rather everyone likes to claim they know why, or can at least speculate why. 

I would like to add that everyone likes to claim that they 'saw it coming', or 'knew he was a bad egg', but if someone had asked them about Adam a few days before, they likely would not have thought anything but, at the worst, a little odd. It is easy to predict the past, but actually predicting the future is much tougher, which is ironically what these clippings are trying (and not succeeding) to do.

Frymer, looking at these clippings, would likely draw quite a few similarities between the press' reaction to columbine, and their reaction to Sandy Hook.


http://ida.lib.uidaho.edu:3206/lnacui2api/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T25083887032&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T25083887036&cisb=22_T25083887035&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&selRCNodeID=15&nodeStateId=411en_US,1,15,12&docsInCategory=964&csi=6742&docNo=4

http://ida.lib.uidaho.edu:3206/lnacui2api/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T25083887032&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T25083887036&cisb=22_T25083887035&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&selRCNodeID=15&nodeStateId=411en_US,1,15,12&docsInCategory=964&csi=8075&docNo=7

http://ida.lib.uidaho.edu:3206/lnacui2api/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T25083887032&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T25083887036&cisb=22_T25083887035&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&selRCNodeID=15&nodeStateId=411en_US,1,15,12&docsInCategory=964&csi=151550&docNo=10

http://ida.lib.uidaho.edu:3206/lnacui2api/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T25083887032&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T25083887036&cisb=22_T25083887035&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&selRCNodeID=15&nodeStateId=411en_US,1,15,12&docsInCategory=964&csi=270099&docNo=17

http://ida.lib.uidaho.edu:3206/lnacui2api/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T25083887032&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T25083887036&cisb=22_T25083887035&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&selRCNodeID=15&nodeStateId=411en_US,1,15,12&docsInCategory=964&csi=145254&docNo=20

Casey Anthony

Looking up the Casey Anthony case, it is clear that everyone thinks she literally got away with murder. Every news source calls her a bad mother, Time even has a link to another article, "Moms who kill" right in their story. While CNN seemed to attempt to simply go over the facts, when you got down into it, it still described how Caylee was theoretically killed, taped, and dumped, and then her mom went out partying and participating in a 'hot body' contest. Fox news talks about how she allegedly admitted she killed her child, and paid her lawyer in sex! Every news source also discusses how she lied so many times, and even her attorney called the people in her lies her 'imaginary friends' (CNN). All of this fits right into Whiteley's 'mad' theme, with women who kill fitting into the mad and abnormal theme, versus men who fit into the bad and normal. Evil and demonic are indeed words that many have used regarding Casey Anthony, fitting right into Whiteley's description of how society reacts to a mother who kills her own child. As Whiteley describes, murder challenges the femininity of the subject, as homicide is a 'male' act. Almost every news source describes her, then, as a sexually driven woman who didn't care about her child. Multiple report her having traded sex for her lawyers fees, and going to nightclubs to party. Even a news source discussing the DNA expert the defense used almost immediately puts up a rather unflattering image of Casey Anthony. Other sources, not so much news as sensationalism, discuss that she was a loving mother... to her dog. In all media, Casey Anthony has been turned into a monster, even after her acquittal she is still living in the spotlight. Every happy thing she does is turned into a discussion of what a monster she is, enjoying anything after 'killing' her daughter. Even now, she is still thought of as a murderer, and worse, a killer of her own tiny defenseless child. Overall, Whiteley would say that this is the typical female homicide case, with a mother killing her own daughter, and being labeled both mad, and evil. This case was covered at an astonishing rate, and just like Whiteley discusses, female homicide is a bestseller.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/07/05/florida.casey.anthony.trial/
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/05/25/casey-anthonys-lawyer-admits-killed-daughter-caylee-investigator-says.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/casey-anthony-attorney-denies-trading-sex-for-defense_us_57488919e4b03ede4414bbdf?utm_hp_ref=casey-anthony
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/casey-anthony/os-casey-anthony-dna-expert-rejected-20160906-story.html
http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2077969,00.html
http://www.tmz.com/2016/07/14/casey-anthony-with-a-dog/

48 Hours on Crack Street

It was interesting to watch an episode of 48 hours from so long ago, and still see many of the same arguments there as are being argued today. Chiricos' moral panic was very apparent in this episode, with everyone interviewed stating that there is a very sudden increase in drug use over the past year. While it is not argued that drugs have been in the U.S. for many years, this episode paints a picture that not too long ago, the U.S. was a utopia, a near perfect place where drug use just didn't happen, kids simply went out dancing and drinking soda pop. Chiricos even admits that drug use has been a serious problem, but for many years, not a sudden increase. I find it slightly appalling, at least to my scientific method sense, that they investigated for just two days (I know, the title of the show), dealers they interviewed were almost exclusively black, families were mostly white, and people overdosing were again, almost exclusively black. This seems to coincide with Chiricos' theory about mostly black criminals, and mostly white victims. The black criminal drug dealers seduce their white children into drugs, and they are the victims in this epidemic. These white victims seem to be middle to upper class, discussing how they need to play golf when their children are at school, not after, and how the maids cannot raise their children.
48 Hours quoted numbers that just aren't able to be known, such as exactly how many users there are in the U.S., and how many people have tried drugs. While we can estimate based on population and drug offenders, there is simply too many variables to be known. While they did show some white people who were drug users, most of what they said consisted of how they didn't see it coming, they seemed like good people. I also find it interesting that they interviewed almost no other ethnicities. For Chiricos, they did encourage the thought that cocaine use was spiraling out of control, when it is known that it in fact decreased after 1985 (p. 115). In order to boost their drug usage numbers, they included any type of drug at all, including marijuana, which was what most of the younger population admitted to using, rather than cocaine. 48 Hours used this data to distort the real numbers, exactly what Chiricos described.
48 Hours seems to have manipulated every scene, from the background noise (always an ambulance or cop car with sirens going by), to how many times kids have tried drugs, to empty vials that had crack in them turning up in schoolyards, to the idea that anyone standing on the street is selling. This episode is a prime example of moral panic, right in the years that Chirico discussed.

True Detective

I chose true detective because I had never seen it, or even heard of it before. Looking at a show with fresh eyes seemed like a good idea, and I do have to say that, after watching it, I did think about much of what Surette said quite often. This show, although risque, follows a narrative that Surette already identified. Although a few new points were brought up, most of what this show focuses on is just a more detailed display than what is already out there.
First of all, this show offers an extremely risque, morbid, and nauseating view of crime, the law, and justice in general. While most shows only insinuate the horrifying possibilities, this show features them. Behind the explicitness of the show, however, I do feel that it offers a different view on crime than most shows I've seen. The normal, everyday crimes, along with the somewhat sensational drugs, prostitution, and corruption within law enforcement, are depicted in the first season. While it does focus on the truly sensational aspects of crime that are, in reality, rare, such as rape, torture, serial murderers, satanic worship, etc., it also covers those less sensational crimes.
Although it does offer new views, it also fits into normal genres. Two cops, with more knowledge than even the ME, who work outside the system. When Rust looks at the first body, he notices where the blood settled, what each mark meant, and more, while the ME only states that her body was washed, she'd had sex, and she had drugs in her system. No mention of anything that Rust had noticed, making Rust look smarter and more experienced than the ME. They are also smarter than any other cop or detective, and is able to easily navigate a predominantly black neighborhood, in which almost every resident on that block is running around with guns, and cops are swarming the place. Despite a helicopter and a multitude of cops, no one even spots Rust or the man he kidnapped. Furthermore, they are able to work outside the system, with Rust taking 'personal time', stealing drugs, snorting coke, and going undercover. There, he does more drugs, goes with several other offenders and breaks into a house, and then kidnaps the one they want. After kidnapping him, they beat him until he agrees to a meet with the man that he thinks is behind the murder. There, they falsify more evidence when Marty shoots one of the men in the head, and Rust has to 'make it look right', shooting up the place to pretend that they'd been shot at. All of this fools the rest of the department, yet again, and they are the smartest men there. All of this displays the 'insight' that Surette discusses, "with an almost psychic awareness of what people are thinking" (Surette, 115). Indeed, after Rust and Marty think they've caught their man, Rust goes on to become famous for getting confessions, because he knows what the suspects think. 'Everyday' detectives just aren't good enough to get the confession, so Rust is called in to solve it for them.

These cops are extremely masculine, cursing constantly, drinking, smoking, and having sex as often as possible. They constantly show both men drinking and driving, although especially Marty when he loses his mistress, and then his wife. Through the whole show, it depicts these two men as loner cops, the only ones who can solve it, and it plays right into their masculine depravity. Rather than call any leads in, since they believe it goes high up, they keep all leads to themselves, and are credited with solving it when it breaks. This lets them both be a 'heroic man of action' (Surette, 118).
It indicates that women are sex crazed, and have nothing much else to do with the story. At every turn, each woman in the show is driven by sex, and has little else to do with the story besides being Marty's family. Every episode has some level of nudity, usually with women in strip clubs or trying to have sex with Marty or Rust. This risque level of nudity takes the usual narrative of women being there for sex, and steps it up several notches. The idea, however, of women being sex crazed is not new, Surette discussed it in women in corrections (Surette, 169). It is not discussed, however, in the chapter when Surette talks about the masculinity of rogue cops, but I would suggest that, as part of that masculinity, it must involve sex. Rust asked Marty "You can't spot crazy pussy?" when Marty's mistress followed them to the bar, and Marty went crazy seeing her with another man. It exemplifies the view on women being manipulative, sex crazed, and irrational beings. For Rust, however, he does not usually follow up on the offers, the exception being Marty's wife. Even when a prostitute offers herself, he turns her down, continuing the investigation instead. Although this might seem like it should make him less masculine, it only creates a more mysterious, perhaps more 'good' masculine man.

In episode three, Rust states that "The world needs bad men, we keep the other bad men from the door", perpetuating Surette's discussion of detectives who are also 'rogue cops' (Surette, 100). It plays right into the two competing frames, first being the CSI type shows that display the good cop, working within a decent justice system, and proving the crime doesn't pay. Second, our rogue cop, working in a system that just doesn't work right. In this case, not enough time or other officers to help solve the murder, bosses who tell you to leave the case be, state officials that have corrupt family, and an overall lack of any kind of organization. As discussed above, they work outside the system initially to find the man they thought was solely responsible. Years later, they discover that there were many men involved, and according to the survivor, the worst one is still out there. Since neither of them still works for the state police, they work together outside the system to solve it. They, yet again, commit many crimes to solve it, including kidnapping a sheriff, shooting near him, breaking into houses, and threatening the mentally slow woman. It reinforces the idea that our system is so broken, the only way to solve any crimes is to work completely outside of it, and on the other side, any crime that is worked within the system will not get solved. Indeed, throughout the season, it is the system turning on Rust that is displayed. Rather than believing him, they go after him as the murderer, and attempt to convince his old partner that it was Rust who was behind it all. Rust even states, "I can't decide if it's a coverup or a garden variety incompetence here".
The main criminal in this investigation, the man with the facial scarring, plays right into Surette's 'Predatory Criminal' (Surette, 60). Although he is not of high social status himself, his family is. This is what kept him from being found before, and does play a large role in his life. He is white and middle aged, and he does commit violent senseless crimes. He is the 'Ideal Offender' (Surette, 207), a stranger who seems to lack any essential human quality. Often, he is portrayed as a monster, with the first witness describing him as literally, the spaghetti monster with green ears. As the show moves forward, the most common theme for describing him was his horrific facial scarring. The victims, too, also play right into Surette's 'Ideal Victim' (Surette, 207), children who should have been protected, naive and truly innocent. Instead, they are brutally used and murdered, and the only survivor must keep herself practically catatonic to keep living. Even among the prostitutes, there were some close to the ideal victim, because although no longer innocent, most of them had been abused when they were children, and simply kept playing the ideal victim throughout their lives.

Overall, Rust is played as the misunderstood loner, who seeks justice at all costs. Marty is portrayed, for most of the season, as the cheater drunk who has extremely low morals, but still wants to get justice. It isn't until the very end that they stop displaying Marty's conquests and the consequences of that, and instead show him to have the same need to get justice as Rust. Indeed, Rust is also shown as having no religion, instead believing we live in a never ending, 4th dimension time circle. It isn't until the very end that Rust almost dies, and experiences the love of his dead child, that it seems he may believe in something after all.
This show does offer some new insight, with not all of the corruption being weeded out, the 'bad guy' not being a white collar man, and it offers a more morbid, visually detailed view on crimes. With this morbidly detailed view, it stands itself apart from shows that simply tell you something happened. Despite this, it also falls into many roles, masculine detectives who work outside the system, who are smarter than MEs, street cops, other detectives, and sheriffs, trying to solve a murder by a monster who rapes, kills, and poses women and children. I think that Surette would argue that the risque behavior of this show just attempts to bring more attention to details he already saw in crime shows.

Orange is the New Black

The show starts out with several sex scenes, which encourage Surette's view of the women in the corrections system. Breasts are openly displayed, with women commenting on them, acting as sex crazed beasts.
The show displays the complicated nature of relationships within the prison, with guards that are using their positions, snitches, insults, and race barriers. This does break with some traditional shows, as it actually displays the conflicts within the race lines, even going so far as to show the Hispanic woman who doesn't speak Spanish is excluded.
For Surette, this truly is a lost world, separate from the 'real world', and with it's own rules, actions, and ideas. The prison is harsh, most of the inmates are ugly, cruel, and innately guilty. It does break with this with the main character, an attractive woman who is mostly innocent, guilty only of following her lover 10 years before.
It also reinforces most of Surette's ideas on the correctional officers, who are incompetent, indifferent to her suffering, and using their positions for their own pleasure (sex). There are, however, exceptions to this in the show, with the main character's officer. He seems to understand how the facility can work, and goes so far as to bribe another inmate to get information on what is bothering the main character.
I suppose that although the main character is shown in a sympathetic light, Surette would argue that it would not lead to any changes in correctional facilities.
Overall, this show does break with some of the previous ideas, but it also cannot stray too far without losing public interest, so it does include some of our preconceived notions of what prison is like. It reinforces many prejudices, and while it does help break a few, Surette would likely argue that it keeps within most of the boundaries of prison shows.

Media Trials

While many trials fit the bill for this assignment, my other choice being O.J. Simpson, I decided to go with The Grim Sleeper, because while it wasn't as notorious, it also wasn't as obvious. It did receive quite a bit of attention, as most serial killer trials do, but interestingly, most people don't talk about it now. Unlike Ted Bundy, or Amanda Knoxx, who are still talked about now, The Grim Sleeper was a sudden uproar, followed, for the most part, by almost complete silence.
This serial killer, whose name is Lonnie Franklin Jr., murdered women who were not likely to be missed (http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-grim-sleeper-serial-killer-trial-20160216-story.html), women of minority who used drugs, and whom he was able to lure to his car. He killed from the 1980's to 2007, a long career of murder. In that time, however, there were two victims that escaped, Einatra Washington and Laura Moore, both of whom testified at the trial. He was found guilty of 10 counts of murder, and sentenced to death (http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-grim-sleeper-sentencing-20160810-snap-story.html)
While there was not much media attention while the murders were happening, the trial brought to light the injustice that had been done to that community, where it was known for years that someone was targeting the women, and no one did anything.
According to Surette, this trial falls into the 'evil strangers, psychotic killer' category, being someone that the victims didn't know, and who was a complete predator, hunting down his victims, and brutally murdering them.
This case brought media attention because of the length of time that Lonnie Franklin Jr. was able to keep murdering women. In the 1980's, police corruption was a real problem, African American women, some of whom were prostitutes, didn't really 'matter' enough to put the effort in to find who killed them. Also to be noted, DNA wasn't available yet, and it took Lonnie's son's DNA in 2010 to find Lonnie. Even now, it would be difficult to find The Grim Sleeper without his son's DNA. This case does portray the criminal justice system as moderately corrupt in past years, discussing the lack of police intervention as the 'only' reason that The Grim Sleeper's reign continued for so long. While it did acknowledge that the victims were prostitutes and drug addicts, the articles don't really portray them negatively, but rather attempting to portray them as innocents. As Surette has discussed before, the truly evil criminal, killing the sweet innocent lamb.
Overall, this media trial event exemplifies the ability of the media to influence how we look at crimes, and criminals. With this 'psychotic killer', it portrays that serial killers are common, strangers are the most dangerous, and the police will hush murders they can't solve.