J.B. Helfgott, PhD Department of Criminal Justice Seattle University

1. CRJS 481MURDER MOVIES & COPYCAT CRIMEJacqueline B. Helfgott, PhDSeattle University Criminal Justice DepartmentWeek 2 – Crime and Murder Films and the Language of Violence

2. The readings included in this week’s assignments examine the depiction of crime in film, the complex dynamic by which media representations of crime, and everyday experience and perception of crime are interconnected, and the notion that aesthetic representation of murder is an alternate lens through which to understand the phenomenon of murder. J.B. Helfgott, PhD Department of Criminal Justice Seattle University

3. “Popular Culture and Violence: Decoding the Violence of Popular Movies” by Newman (Supp Readings/PCCJ Prologue Ch 3) • Why does Newman think it’s important to decode the “language of violence”in popular movies? • How does Newman define violence?Examples of movies displaying the two types of violence he identifies? • What rationales are used to make violence “acceptable” in a movie?Can you think of movies where violence is presented as acceptable/unacceptable? J.B. Helfgott, PhD Department of Criminal Justice Seattle University

4. “Media Loops” by Manning (Supp Readings/ PCCJ, Ch 3) • What is a “media loop?” • Manning suggests that in the future media loops will be even more extreme “…complicated media loops, virtual and cyber realities, and forms of hypertext (arbitrarily linked text) by which we assemble our lives, selves, and imagery will become more common” (p. 38). Examples of more complex media looping? Impact of media loops on crime and justice issues? J.B. Helfgott, PhD Department of Criminal Justice Seattle University

5. Media Loop Examples • The Beating of Reginald Denny • Columbine Cafeteria Shootings • 9-11 • Other examples??? J.B. Helfgott, PhD Department of Criminal Justice Seattle University

6. In The Aesthetics of Murder Black explores murder in romantic literature and contemporary culture and the ways in which fictional accounts of murder “aesthetically mediate” events, experiences, and behavior in real-life. The Aesthetics of Murder by Black Black asks (in thinking about the Hinckley/Taxi Driver and Chapman/Catcher in the Rye cases), “What, in short, makes fiction even more powerful than “reality” in shaping—and destroying—people’s lives?” (p. x). J.B. Helfgott, PhD Department of Criminal Justice Seattle University

7. “Customary Experience of Murder” • Black says that in Western philosophy and culture “our customary experience of murder and other forms of violence is primarily aesthetic . . .” • What does this mean? J.B. Helfgott, PhD Department of Criminal Justice Seattle University

8. An Aesthetic-Critical Analysis of Murder • Murder is as much a “general cultural phenomenon” as it is a social, legal, or psychological problem and that it can be studied as a “morally neutral phenomenon” from an “aesthetic-critical” perspective in contrast to the traditional “moral-rational” perspective. • What can be gained studying murder in this way? J.B. Helfgott, PhD Department of Criminal Justice Seattle University

9. Crime Films Shots in the Mirror by Rafter • Crime films reflect and shape our ideas. • Crime films have traditionally made two simultaneous arguments: • 1) Criticism of some aspect of society • 2) Identification with a character who restores order • Films made after 1970 reflect an alternative tradition that reject happy endings and show the social realities of crime and violence (or one might say, the aesthetics of violence) J.B. Helfgott, PhD Department of Criminal Justice Seattle University

10. Exactly How do Crime Films Shape Our Ideas? • Fragments of cultural information in our minds form themselves into cognitive schemata that we draw on to form assumptions, social norms, principles that guide and become scripts for our behavior and aggregate into larger mental structures or ideologies about how the world works. “Movies are a source of cultural information, most of which simply rattles around in our heads waiting to be called upon, but some of which feeds into our ideologies and other mental schemata. The schemata in turn interact with the external world, where we encounter new cultural phenomena (including new movies) that then feed back into our schemata, usually reinforcing but sometimes disconfirming them” (Rafter, 2006, p. 11). J.B. Helfgott, PhD Department of Criminal Justice Seattle University

11. Crime Films and Cultural Criminology • Cultural criminology is well suited to explore the intersection of artistic and aesthetic dimensions of and crime, criminalization, social control. • Cultural criminologists believe that the criminality and the criminalization of everyday life by the powerful are cultural enterprises and study “not only images but images of images, and infinite hall of mediated mirrors.” • Cultural criminologists situate themselves as close to the action as possible to develop a “criminological verstehen”and ask: • How do the symbols, signs, media mediated messages, and the “symbolic universe” shape public perception about crime, criminal justice policy, and criminal behavior? J.B. Helfgott, PhD Department of Criminal Justice Seattle University

12. One of the most controversial films of the 90s -linked to more copycat crimes than any other film. • Associated with at least eight real-life murders and numerous other crimesincluding 1995 robbery and murder spree by a young couple in Louisiana that resulted in a a civil suit that went to the Supreme Court in 2001. • Fundamental features that may have contributed to copycats -- media looping of fact and fiction, multiple formats and cuts, fast pace, and visual style likened to MTV. J.B. Helfgott, PhD Department of Criminal Justice Seattle University

13. What messages does the film conveywith respect to symbols, style, moral panic, serial killers, crime, the criminal justice system, etc. etc.? What about the film made it stand out so much(amidst so many other murder movies) to young would-be/to-be robbers/murderers, politicians, violent media watchdogs? Questions to Think about as you Watch the Film J.B. Helfgott, PhD Department of Criminal Justice Seattle University

14. Analysis of Crime/Murder Films Questions to Think About • What is the “language of violence” in this film? • What is the central function of this film? What does it do for the viewers? What general and specific messages does it send? • How might the “cultural material” in this film make its way into someone’s cognitive script, schemata, ideology and who would be more likely to internalize or make use of this material and why? • What type of crime film is this and where does it fit within the history of crime films?

15. Very different film in comparison with NBK • Until 2001 was not associated with any real-life crimes • What is the “language of violence in this film?”