The Atlantic Report: The Grisly, All-American Appeal of Serial Killers

Julie Beck logs in another of The Atlantic's pointless, meandering articles, this time ostensibly about the American interest in serial killers.

The article is launched by a new book, Scott Bonn's Why We Love Serial Killers, but doesn't draw much from the author. Beck instead believes that her own excellent reporting will carry the day.

So we get the typical left-media tropes--"we" (meaning you, the stupid American, not Beck) classify serial killers "neatly in [our] mind-cabinets" as white males, even as 40% are black. Minority victims of serial killers don't get as much attention. Americans may be fascinated by serial killers because of our high tolerance for violence. Ted Bundy is described as a "Republican operative" and not "suicide hotline counselor." There is a discussion of how we make serial killers an other by labeling them "evil" or "monsters," and we know how much The Atlantic hates to side against an other.

As usual, what's actually interesting is missed. For one:

Many of the serial killers who become cultural legends are white men. Dahmer, Bundy, Gacy, and Berkowitz were all white, as were Gary Ridgeway (the “Green River Killer”), and Dennis Rader (“Bind Torture Kill”). The Zodiac killer, while never caught, was described as a white male.
...
It’s been many years since any new serial killers were added to the canonical group... [N]one of these recent criminals have attained true celebrity status. There is no modern John Wayne Gacy.

One element not pointed out: the "canonical" killers listed in the first sentence were active from the early 70s to the mid-80s. My guess is that this says something about the decline of the middle class, which was cresting during this time. Bundy and Gacy in particular operated in that world, which made their savagery all the more striking.

But more important is that serial killers are most accurately depicted in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer--that is, as scummy, rootless individuals who pick off isolated and vulnerable victims without a lot of planning. Ted Bundy's fake cast and rigged Volkswagen, drawing cute brunettes from public places--all that is not the norm and novelty is what makes "canon."

Probably the best way to think about serial killers is as predators. Not as wolves who pick off the sheep, as serial killers themselves like to think of themselves, but as hyenas who scrounge for the weakest.

And, anyway, the serial killer ship has sailed. Jeffrey Dahmer was the last "famous" killer and the public's interest in the phenomenon peaked in the early 90s. Beck is correct in saying that the archetype has become mainly a trope in fiction.

I think that America's "fascination" with serial killers is hardly different from our interest in other famous criminal cases or disasters. They are horrible, unique and, one hopes, rare.