VICENTE GARRIDO
(1958, Valencia) Professor of Criminology at the University of Valencia, has advised the Police and Justice in different cases.
In
True Crime
(Ariel) he analyzes what series, movies and books based on real murders teach us about evil.
In recent years there has been an explosion of series, films, documentaries and books based on real murders. Why is evil so attracted to us? Our brain is programmed to absorb any information that may be relevant to our survival. The
true crime
It provides a rich range of situations where people and institutions act in a way that is very harmful to our well-being.
By presenting real stories, our identification with the dangers (deceptions, kidnappings, murders, offenses to our rights and dignity) is enhanced, and both our emotional system and our imagination are captivated, that is why we say that evil fascinates us. not everyone likes that genre ... Of course, there are people more sensitive to the presence of violence or horror than others, and that is why not everyone likes
true crime
.
But for many people the expectation of spending a few hours watching a book, series or movie based on true crimes, especially if they constitute a valuable artistic product, is a compelling offer.
Because, let's not forget, the art that deals with real crime does not pose any risk to us, which implies the 'guilty pleasure' of enjoying the murder of others without fear for our lives.
This cannot be dismissed, as usual, by saying that people who love
true crime
are 'morbid', because there is nothing more human than to follow closely, for example, the events that surrounded the infamy that the former USSR committed with its citizens at Chernobyl, or why someone as 'normal' as Ted Bundy was able to kill the way he did without the police having any way to identify him.
The way the media narrates the crime, in what way does it shape the vision that society has of murder and murderers?
Culture has an enormous responsibility to create the images and beliefs that a given society has of criminal manifestations.
The media, without a doubt, are very relevant in this process, when choosing the facts to report and the way in which it is done.
But so do
true crime
cultural products
,
as evidenced by the case of the Charles Manson Family, in which an uneducated, psychopathic inmate was portrayed as some kind of prophet or genius of evil.
This tendency to simplify reality based on clichés and stereotypes can be largely corrected by
true crime
art
, since it has the means and the time to do so.
For example, if you read the chapter I dedicate in the book to Manson and The Family, and in particular the documentary series
The Lost Files
, you realize that Manson was a cunning and unscrupulous criminal, but he was far from a thinker or a privileged criminal mind.
In this explosion of the
true crime
that we are experiencing, there is a very notable number of screenwriters and directors who delve in an extraordinary way about human nature and reality, which undoubtedly supposes a vision light years away from the flat and simple discourse that for years has dominated this medium.
If you look, for example, in
Wormwood
, you discover that it is all a reflection on the impossibility of finding the truth and, therefore, justice, in certain crimes.
And the same happens in the magnificent
The Staircase
. Can reality programs of events manipulate and distort the view of the audience about a crime?
By definition,
reality shows
are aimed at a very broad audience who wants to know everything about a crime and who hopes that their favorite show will confirm their expectations.
A notable example was how Rosario Porto's alleged strange behavior (in the Asunta crime) was discussed ad nauseam while the events were being reconstructed.
Her gestures of apparent nonchalance were scrutinized to exhaustion, and it was concluded that her behavior was that of a murderer.
She was later convicted of the murder of her daughter, it is true, but there were many other reasons to explain what everyone interpreted as a sign of her wickedness.
In the same way, other comments and gestures by Dolores Vázquez - the sentimental partner of Rocío Wanninkhof's mother, murdered by Tony King and not by that one - were valued, and an expectation was created in those media that she was guilty, an expectation that was extended to the police, the Prosecutor's Office and the jury that convicted her.
As we know, his trial was later overturned and the real murderer was arrested. Does the art production on the real murders also influence the murderers? I don't think so, or at least not significantly.
I think fictional products, escapism, like
CSI
and others, where inventiveness leads to creating attractive but unrealistic characters, like Hannibal Lecter or Dexter, are
more influential
.
In a good
true crime
The murderer can be portrayed as a truly miserable or deviant, or as a loser, although he is attractive, because he represents the maker of extreme situations in which we can all identify ourselves.
For the rest, since art and popular culture exist there is the possibility that some subjects may be tempted to imitate some of the villains portrayed.
Is it possible that some potential murderer is determined to take action because he identifies with the Assassin of the Golden State, a subject who for almost 50 years managed to live as a free man, despite dozens of rapes and more than ten murders ?
It is possible, but let's not forget that the media and popular culture can also discourage crime.
Anyone who has a bad idea in his head may think, after what happened to a certain murderer, that it is better to stay put.Thomas de Quincey wrote in the middle of the 19th century his famous' Of the murder considered as one of the fine arts '.
Are there killers who really consider themselves artists and who want to express their creative impulse by killing?
I would say that certain serial killers - who kill premeditatedly and over extended periods of time and who have a great capacity to live a 'double life' without being detected - seek to commit the crime because in this way they gratify a fantasy that for them it has an aesthetic and deeply emotional value.
But both aspects go together: that emotional fullness (of power and control) depends on following a ritual, a staging, that is, a specific aesthetic.
They, in this way, feel that they are "creating" something unique when they kill, because their personality expands into an omnipresent ego (there is nothing outside of what he wants to feel) whose material is the horror and the lives of his victims.
Ted Bundy, Ed Kemper, Joseph DeAngelo (the Golden State Killer) and Dennis Rader (aka BTK) are a good example of this; Charles Manson is perhaps, with the sole exception of Jack the Ripper, the murderer about whom the most books , series and television specials exist.
And yet he personally did not kill anyone.
What elements have made him one of the great stars of crime?
Manson was at the right time and place: California and the hippie years, where crowds of young people disappointed by the system gathered who longed to live in an alternative society, where love, peace ... and drugs reigned.
Manson, someone with a very powerful look, ignorant, but prison cunning, soon learned that a 'bad' guy like him could pass as something of a prophet if he learned to say something that sounded spiritual and profound.
It was as if a wolf was released onto a plain of lambs.
On the other hand, the crimes were heinous and affected famous people, which gave it a universal resonance.
The media almost immediately called him the representation of 'pure evil' - and was Manson?
Manson was just a poor devil, who knew, yes, read the life that was put before him when he got out of jail for the umpteenth time.
So he got a lot of drugs, he dedicated himself to hanging around parks and places where girls (especially, but also boys) who had run away or were spending a season without their parents gathered together, and he set about filling his head of those naive minds with absurd but attractive ideas in those years and in that context, such as that he was the only true man in the midst of a materialistic and hypocritical system.
Add to this music, living on a ranch with just enough, but with lots of fun and what seemed like an 'authentic' life, and you have the Family. Does technology and, specifically the internet, contribute to feeding narcissistic desires and public recognition of many murderers?
I have no doubt that the Internet allows visibility to people who a few years ago would have died in absolute anonymity.
Like all technology, the internet amplifies the good and the bad of our society.
It allows the creation of support networks for many people and in emergency situations, but it exacerbates the narcissism of those who need to 'be someone' in order to sleep at night.
I think the internet is a serious problem for a type of murderer: the multiples who kill many people in the same sequence, as has been credited by the cases of Breivik or Tarrant, the murderer from New Zealand.
Their impact can be global thanks to modern digital technology, inflaming the imagination and (sometimes) delusions of those who are willing to spend their entire lives in prison or even die in order to show the world that they are special beings. and that they require that we all know who they are and why they do what they do. Crime movies and series often pay far more attention to the killers than to their victims.
Why?
The victims are recognizable, they can be anyone, like us.
We identify with them, but they don't fascinate us, because we know them.
It is the murderer that interests us.
The limbic system (the one that governs the emotions) is triggered when it is seeing that that individual is capable of acting in such a rogue way.
He represents the threat, he is the one you should pay more attention to.
Would you be able to recognize someone like that if they came into your life?
What could you do to escape it?
Do you have any weak spots to hold on to?
That said, today more and more
true crime
pays more attention to the victims, as I expose in the book in the cases of the series
Creedme
or
Untouchable,
in the film
Lost girls
and the novel
Läetitia or the end of men.
Now, we may be deeply interested in these cases, awaken our empathy and our critical sense, but (as countless writers and filmmakers have said) the villain is always the most attractive character, with the exception of a possible vigilante or whoever stands up to him.
For example, in
True Detective,
the real character who fascinates us is the inspector played by Matthew McConaughey, not the pedophile murderer. Most violent crimes are committed by men, and most victims are also men.
However, women are the main consumers of books, television series and movies about murders based on real events.
What do you attribute it to?
Women have a greater sensitivity to danger, more fear of crime than men.
This is probably linked to their greater empathy, their most pressing desire to protect themselves and those they love from potential predators. 'Lolita', Nobokov's famous novel, is based on a true crime.
Who was the Lolita that inspired the Russian writer his famous novel?
It was a young girl named Sally Horner, who was 12 years old, and she was coerced by a pedophile to go live with him and tour many parts of the United States in the 1950s, just what
Lolita's
character
, Humbert, did. Humbert, shortly after, although this was her stepfather and did not approach her on the street, as did Sally's kidnapper, Frank LaSalle.
In the book I explain this case through the work dedicated to it by the great
true crime
writer
Sarah Weinman, which has been published in Spain.Of the countless movies and series about real crimes and murders, which one is your favorite?
My favorites are, among others,
Zodiac, Mindhunter, El gafe, El Palmar de Troya, Una novela criminal
(podcast) and
Chernobyl.
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