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Romanticizing True Crime
BY EMMA DIMAIO
In 2019, the new wave of feminism is more alive than ever. Fresh off the peak of the #MeToo movement, the Annual Women’s March is taking place all across the country and the election of dozens of women into the U.S. House of Representatives, women’s control of the narrative is only getting started.
Entertainment is constantly changing to meet the newest fad halfway and become the latest thing to be obsessed over. Sitting just adjacent to the ability to stream music, TV and movies is the immensely diverse world of podcasting. This form of receiving news, advice, sleep aid, comedy and almost any other category of necessity has been a pivotal factor in the latest feminist wave, whether it meant to or not.
As these revolutions come to the forefront, women are controlling how the media perceives them in ways never seen before. Within the niche fad of true crime, women are spinning the narrative to emphasize the life and times of the primarily victim, rather than glamorizing the intricate minds of their killers.
Amongst the feminist movement's goal to ensure a safe lifetime for them, and their daughters, there is a clear yearning for the ability to thrust themselves into the world, at night, alone and unafraid. Many, cases have proven time and time again that this simple wish is not only outrageous, but tremendously unattainable.
TWO PEAS IN A PODCAST
This is where Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff come in. The hosts of the comedy podcast, My Favorite Murder have cornered the market of the guilty pleasure that concerns a hefty amount of the female demographic crave, homicide. There is a light form of therapy that arises in the act of lightening the load of tragedy, while also bringing awareness to the criminal justice system.
As much as that may come across as an opinion, the weekly uploads of the show truly deliver. My Favorite Murder, which debuted at #25 and made its way #3 on the iTunes podcast chart now has over 19 million monthly downloads and 70,000 loyal listeners.
Although, between 1980 and 2008 men accounted for 76.8% of murder victims, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, this doesn’t stop women from honing in on the murders committed against women for merely existing. According to FBI ViCAP data, women make up a monumental 70% of U.S. serial killer victims.
While the women have certainly been accused of romanticizing the idea of gruesome murder, it's truly limited to anomalies and the obscene. Plus a majority of the victims in the cases covered are substantially to completely innocent. That isn't usually the scenario with Jim Summey's projects.
"If you run with killers you can be killed. Notwithstanding, many victims are innocent as lambs. Men are involved in more criminality than women and thus, by our mischievous nature we are exposed to the wiles of our ways," Jim says, "Women are often targets due to physical disadvantages as well as sexually motivated aggression, still not often it is violence and power that are the real culprits in the mind of male killers. Some have pointed to early childhood longings and lacking in relation to the perpetrator’s mother that give rise to aggression against women. Either way, there is a strong case of mental illness and instability in most cases."
And he isn't wrong, the most famous serial killers tend to share several common traits: Adolescent head trauma, bed wetting, violence against animals, unhealthy maternal relationships, pyromania and impotence.
This cult worthy trend circles around the idea of those being killed by people not for petty reasons (i.e. sex, career, drugs, gangs, etc.), but for the dark role mental instability can play in the lives of serial killers and their victims. Kilgariff and Hardstark, both in therapy have had their own bouts with mental illness and substance abuse and are refreshingly open about the topics, encouraging others to seek help where they see fit.
FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY
Speaking to Margaret Chrusciel, a Criminal Justice professor at High Point University, I was able to get an introspective look into just how the peculiar fad ticks. "The media is powerful...especially in the context of crime," said Chrusciel, "the media tells the public who is and who isn’t a “bad guy,” or in the case of serial murder, who is or isn’t a “monster.” Other than pure entertainment value, I’m not sure that there is any positive consequences that will come from the explosion in true crime television. In some ways, it educates people and exposes them to realities beyond their own, but the stories are cherry-picked and thus don’t give a true representation of what crime is really like in America."
The love/hate relationship with this tantalizingly gory subject has fans of the podcast, or Murderinos as they call themselves, paying $100+ for a ticket to see the California natives live all over the country. In a Rolling Stone interview, Hardstark and Kilgariff talked with Molly Fitzpatrick about the impacts they did not expect to have. “To their surprise and delight, these conversations have had a profound impact on some of their audience members. “There are all these people that we meet, especially young women, who are like, ‘Because of you I got a therapist and it’s helped me so much,'” Kilgariff says.
So, why is My Favorite Murder a true crime, comedy podcast? The gore and horror of the stories told very week are charmingly accented by the hosts’ impeccably timed dark humor. This comedy is a sort of coping mechanism that doesn’t intend to make inappropriate light of the situation, but to be able to process the graphic content in a healthy way.
TAKING BACK THE NARRATIVE
“My Favorite Murder teaches that embracing our morbid interests can make us stronger and bring us together. We don’t have anything to be ashamed of, as the hosts insisted back at Dorrian’s Red Hand over brunch – and that’s exactly the message they hope to pass on to their audience. “As a middle-aged lady,” Kilgraff says, “that’s all I want the young girls to know: You get to like what you want, and you get to do what you want and say what you want.”
"Glorified serial killers like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and BTK play a huge role in the true crime explosion," says Chrusciel, "However, a lot of it comes from the sheer volume of crime television shows such as CSI, Criminal Minds, NCIS, etc. that has painted picture of a Hollywood-ified world of crime. This helped open the doors for true crimes shows like the First 48, Forensic Files, and others."
My Favorite Murder takes the plunge to overcast what the media has done for centuries, to portray the victims, which consist mostly of women, in a vastly different and poignant light. Instead of posing them as damsels who may or may not have brought on their own strangulations, rapes or stab wounds, they are turned into stories of triumph and the need for change. “People talk about how women may or may not be responsible for their own deaths, instead of, ‘Who is this [expletive] that could do this?'” Kilgariff says.