Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook568 pages8 hours
Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture
By David Schmid
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Jeffrey Dahmer. Ted Bundy. John Wayne Gacy. Over the past thirty years, serial killers have become iconic figures in America, the subject of made-for-TV movies and mass-market paperbacks alike. But why do we find such luridly transgressive and horrific individuals so fascinating? What compels us to look more closely at these figures when we really want to look away? Natural Born Celebrities considers how serial killers have become lionized in American culture and explores the consequences of their fame.
David Schmid provides a historical account of how serial killers became famous and how that fame has been used in popular media and the corridors of the FBI alike. Ranging from H. H. Holmes, whose killing spree during the 1893 Chicago World's Fair inspired The Devil in the White City, right up to Aileen Wuornos, the lesbian prostitute whose vicious murder of seven men would serve as the basis for the hit film Monster, Schmid unveils a new understanding of serial killers by emphasizing both the social dimensions of their crimes and their susceptibility to multiple interpretations and uses. He also explores why serial killers have become endemic in popular culture, from their depiction in The Silence of the Lambs and The X-Files to their becoming the stuff of trading cards and even Web sites where you can buy their hair and nail clippings.
Bringing his fascinating history right up to the present, Schmid ultimately argues that America needs the perversely familiar figure of the serial killer now more than ever to manage the fear posed by Osama bin Laden since September 11.
"This is a persuasively argued, meticulously researched, and compelling examination of the media phenomenon of the 'celebrity criminal' in American culture. It is highly readable as well."—Joyce Carol Oates
David Schmid provides a historical account of how serial killers became famous and how that fame has been used in popular media and the corridors of the FBI alike. Ranging from H. H. Holmes, whose killing spree during the 1893 Chicago World's Fair inspired The Devil in the White City, right up to Aileen Wuornos, the lesbian prostitute whose vicious murder of seven men would serve as the basis for the hit film Monster, Schmid unveils a new understanding of serial killers by emphasizing both the social dimensions of their crimes and their susceptibility to multiple interpretations and uses. He also explores why serial killers have become endemic in popular culture, from their depiction in The Silence of the Lambs and The X-Files to their becoming the stuff of trading cards and even Web sites where you can buy their hair and nail clippings.
Bringing his fascinating history right up to the present, Schmid ultimately argues that America needs the perversely familiar figure of the serial killer now more than ever to manage the fear posed by Osama bin Laden since September 11.
"This is a persuasively argued, meticulously researched, and compelling examination of the media phenomenon of the 'celebrity criminal' in American culture. It is highly readable as well."—Joyce Carol Oates
Unavailable
Related to Natural Born Celebrities
Related ebooks
Reading Rape: The Rhetoric of Sexual Violence in American Literature and Culture, 1790-1990 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCinema Civil Rights: Regulation, Repression, and Race in the Classical Hollywood Era Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerica's Culture of Terrorism: Violence, Capitalism, and the Written Word Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Every Step a Struggle: Interviews with Seven Who Shaped the African-American Image in Movies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrivileged Victims: How America’s Culture Fascists Hijacked the Country and Elevated Its Worst People Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBetter Left Unsaid: Victorian Novels, Hays Code Films, and the Benefits of Censorship Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Politics of Irony in American Modernism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMurders That Shocked the World - 70s Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDavid Dellinger: The Life and Times of a Nonviolent Revolutionary Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fictions Inc.: The Corporation in Postmodern Fiction, Film, and Popular Culture Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLovable Racists, Magical Negroes, and White Messiahs Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Silver Screen, Hasidic Jews: The Story of an Image Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Subject of Murder: Gender, Exceptionality, and the Modern Killer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFilm Criticism, the Cold War, and the Blacklist: Reading the Hollywood Reds Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTalking with Serial Killers: Dead Men Talking Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnder a Bad Sign: Criminal Self-Representation in African American Popular Culture Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhy We Love Serial Killers: The Curious Appeal of the World's Most Savage Murderers Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Study Guide for Anna Deavere Smith's "Fires in the Mirror" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwilight of the Idols: Hollywood and the Human Sciences in 1920s America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bobbed Haired Bandit: A True Story of Crime and Celebrity in 1920s New York Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Smart Culture: Society, Intelligence, and Law Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lynchings in Duluth: Second Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Democracy and the Political Unconscious Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGangsters: 50 Years of Madness, Drugs, and Death on the Streets of America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOur Vampires, Ourselves Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Under the Strain of Color: Harlem's Lafargue Clinic and the Promise of an Antiracist Psychiatry Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Contempt and Pity: Social Policy and the Image of the Damaged Black Psyche, 1880-1996 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sound Technology and the American Cinema: Perception, Representation, Modernity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDisloyal Mothers and Scurrilous Citizens: Women and Subversion during World War I Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Social Science For You
All About Love: New Visions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Witty Banter: Be Clever, Quick, & Magnetic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dumbing Us Down - 25th Anniversary Edition: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Denial of Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Men Explain Things to Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Close Encounters with Addiction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Verbal Judo, Second Edition: The Gentle Art of Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Human Condition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Natural Born Celebrities
Rating: 4.333333333333333 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
6 ratings0 reviews