Media Depictions of Serial Killers Blur Fact and Fiction

Serial killers are typically depicted as evil, ghoulish monsters in the news and entertainment media. Stated differently, the socially constructed identity of serial killers does not distinguish between real-life predators such as Ed Kemper or Jeffrey Dahmer and fictional killers such as Hannibal Lecter or John Doe in the movie Se7en. This is problematic because sensationalized, stereotypical depictions obscure the distinction between reality and fiction in the minds of the public.

The blurring of reality and fiction by the media in this regard can be traced back to the 1950s case of Ed Gein, a multiple murderer and body snatcher known as “The Plainfield Ghoul.” Gein’s crimes, committed around his hometown in Wisconsin, generated widespread notoriety after authorities discovered that he had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned trophies and keepsakes from their bones and skin. Incredibly, Gein created masks from human faces and made clothing from human flesh that he wore.

Following Gein’s capture, the news media sensationalized his crimes and transformed a mentally ill man into a cartoonish vampire and grave robber. Gein’s shocking case also influenced the creation of several iconic Hollywood characters, including Norman Bates of the movie Psycho, “Leatherface” of the cult film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and “Buffalo Bill” of the film The Silence of the Lambs. As a result of tremendous hype and exaggeration of his crimes by the news and entertainment media, Ed Gein remains a ghoulish monster in contemporary popular culture.

The author E.L. Doctorow argued that “there is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction, there is only narrative.” This statement is certainly true of the way the news media handled the infamous case of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. The news media seized upon the cannibalism theme of the Dahmer case in 1991 and created a connection with the fictional Hannibal Lecter from the highly popular film The Silence of the Lambs.

By linking him to Hannibal Lecter, the news media turned Dahmer into a supervillain with enduring consumer appeal. Author and academic scholar Joseph Grixti commented on the social construction of Jeffrey Dahmer’s public identity and its powerful impact on society when he said:

"Jeffrey Dahmer’s elevation to the rank of ambiguous monster-hero in the iconology of contemporary culture … is not restricted to readers of popular “true crime” paperbacks … Accounts involving such figures are very frequent and prominent in the mass media—in news and … a range of popular entertainment. In a sense, such celebrations usher figures like Dahmer into a hall of fame where historical murderers acquire mythical proportions … like Jack the Ripper … There they rub shoulders with a long line of fictional figures created over the centuries in variously loaded attempts to come to cognitive terms with evil by visualizing and personifying its threats and horrors in reassuringly recognizable forms. Within the popular cultural domains that underlie the construction of this chamber of horrors, boundaries between fact and fiction often tend to become blurred" (1).

The very important point being made by Grixti in the above statement is that Jeffrey Dahmer has become an entertainment commodity in contemporary society. There is more than ample evidence to support this conclusion. According to a former neighbor of Dahmer’s in Wisconsin, for example, there are people willing to pay $50 each to sit on a couch that the serial killer gave her and are also willing to pay just to hold a glass that he once drank water from.

Such obsession can have very negative consequences for society. My research suggests that it does not matter to the average person whether a serial killer depicted in the mass media is a real-life predator or a fictional one. They are equally frightening and entertaining for the public to behold because of the exaggerated serial killer identity that is well-established in popular culture.

The blending of fact and fiction in the social construction of the serial killer has obscured the reality of serial homicide by turning actual criminals into cartoonish ghouls like Freddy Krueger or Michael Myers in the Halloween film series. As a result, Jeffrey Dahmer has become a source of popcorn entertainment in contemporary culture just like Hannibal Lecter, and the two are now interchangeable in the minds of the public.