#bundyisbae -- An Irritated Response

Since apparently these days we're all watching the same things on Netflix, I'm going to hazard a guess and say that you have seen at least a little bit of Conversations with a Killer: the Ted Bundy Tapes. And, if you're a reader of this blog, it's pretty safe to assume it was not your first venture into the mini-industry that is true crime documentaries.

True crime has never exactly been niche--we've always been interested in the grimy details of even the most horrific incidents. Netflix and Hulu may be the frontrunners now, but they stem from the heyday of the 24-hour-news cycle, the age of JonBenet and OJ, Dateline and Unsolved Mysteries, where the supposed saturation really kicked into high gear with in depth looks at the stories behind the headlines. But it stretches further back--In Cold Blood set the standard for every crime novel since 1965, and records show of murders recounted in explicit detail as far back as the 1500's.

The numbers would reveal that apparently women are even more interested in the genre than men, as the supposed "women's networks" Lifetime and Oxygen regularly run shows and movies focused on crimes committed by and against women. That's not even touching the wealth of not-so-true crime content that floods every corner of entertainment--from the endless Law & Order/CSI spawns, to every other bestseller revolving around an inciting slaughter. Many people claim to dislike horror but will gobble up mysteries and thrillers, no matter how heinous the fictional crimes within.

So, true crime has been a successful and popular as a genre for decades, a fascination that the media itself created by covering every inch of atrocity over and over on the news, yet every now and then some spoilsport journalist has to come along and say "How can you possibly enjoy that?"

Conversations with a Killer may have just been another Netflix original that would have come and gone from the news cycle by the end of its release weekend. But it just so happened to coincide not only with the 30th anniversary of Bundy's death, but also the release of the trailer for Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile, a new Bundy biopic starring America's sweetheart Zac Efron. This created a fervor of conversation on various social media, because of course it did by its very design. And it took maybe the first hour of tweets before the news outlets began to voice their concerns.

Even if you haven't seen series, you've definitely seen these articles floating around documenting the youth of Twitter's sudden Bundy fandom, and all its disturbing implications. Netflix itself put out a tweet begging users to please stop "stanning" Ted Bundy. You can almost hear these journalists wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth in terror. "The kids are out here sexualizing a serial killer!" they cry. "Should you be worried? Because we sure are!"

Chilling stuff.

Insert long beleaguered sigh here.

I've read article after article so shaken by the female response to the Efron-Bundy amalgamation, so troubled by the idea that someone could even notice the charms of an established killer, that they chalk it up to be contributing to the problem that such men exist at all, that to give him any kind of attention only strengthens his legacy and leaves his victims forgotten. This thinking is, at the very least, painting with a broad brush.

First off, the reason Bundy was able to go on as long as he did was precisely because he was good looking, articulate, and charming. He did not appear dangerous, which made him exponentially more dangerous. Even under police custody and at his own trial, Bundy had a charisma that set him apart entirely from every other famous killer seen before, enough to only guard him with minimum security (which allowed him to escape, twice) and grant him permission to act as his own lawyer. He didn't seem unhinged or weird or evil--he was an educated, sophisticated guy that was being accused of crimes he couldn't possibly commit. He was so convincing of this persona that Bundy himself seemed to believe it until mere hours before his execution.

Secondly, Bundy has always had fans. He gained a notable female following during the trial, with young women passing love notes to him in court and proclaiming his innocence on TV. (Let's not forget, he did manage to get married while in police custody as well.) I'm sure the many doomed women he approached back in the day were disarmed by his handsomeness and charm long before they were disarmed otherwise. He was able to use the flimsiest disguise or excuse and still convince women to come with him. The man was able to approach a slender bikini-clad girl in a crowd of thousands and asked her to help him load up his sailboat, and she somehow didn't find it one bit suspicious.

Bundy even drew an inverted kind of fandom, with people even in surrounding states celebrating his execution with beer and hot dogs. The streets outside Florida State Prison were full of excitement as they awaited the countdown, setting up lawn chairs and selling tshirts. One wonders if he got any kind of pleasure out of that, seeing how much he liked the attention--if only he could have heard the cheers when he was finally pronounced dead.

Much more recently but long before the sudden Bundy boom we find ourselves in now, numerous online sellers have made bank on murder memorabilia, from actual artifacts and crime scene pieces, to cheekier merchandise featuring your favorite serial killer--everything from pins to bobbleheads to cross stitch patterns. Way back in 2001, eBay explicitly banned postings of murderabilia for obvious reasons, but it didn't stop the pioneers of internet crafting to make their own homages to America's most notorious. And wouldn't you know it, Bundy is a frequent and high-demand subject. This is because plenty of fans exist for Bundy and the gang--Ramirez, Dahmer, Manson--a number of them surprisingly not just Reddit edgelords, but young women who attempt to appreciate the more "human" side of these monsters of history, for better or worse.

Now let's talk about Zac Efron. We can all agree that he's a national treasure. He rose up out of the wholesome maelstrom of High School Musical and has gone on to prove himself as a solid dramatic actor, a gifted song and dance man, an adept comedian, and all around great guy. He's the stuff of teen bedroom posters and a god among memes. Zac's the best--he's your handsome jock friend that also gets the lead in the school musical every year and although he's super popular and could easily be a jerk, he's really sweet and funny and friends with everyone and it's impossible to hate him. Believe me, I've tried, and it just can't be done.

Coincidentally, in the right wig, he bears a striking resemblance to Ted Bundy. But apparently, to cast him was a very problematic move. 

Frankly, it's a bit of a knee-jerk response to call the new film sexualized simply because the lead happens to be played by one of Hollywood's sexiest men. Attractive actors play horrible people all the time, but somehow we attach significant meaning to it when the character was a real person. Ted Bundy was, in fact, traditionally handsome and charming, a guy whose good looks put people at ease--it only makes sense to cast a handsome charming guy who no one would ever suspect of violence. It's what made him dangerous then and what makes him interesting now all these years later. 

To brush off Zac Efron as a tool in a grand Hollywood conspiracy to make Bundy a sex symbol is an insult to Efron's abilities as an actor and the young women considered his box office audience. A likeable actor playing a villain is always a treat to watch and an interesting acting exercise, but somehow it's super not okay for a former teen icon to play a serial killer because those silly little girls won't be able to tell the difference. 

More than anything, to wonder if it's problematic that we're so obsessed with "glorifying" such awful horrible white men is to entirely miss the point of why we tell these stories over and over again, why there will always be movies and books and binge-worthy documentary series about them. We are trying to learn from our mistakes. We are trying to understand why and how it happens so it can't happen again. Because these men exist, and they wreak havoc on their own victims in their own way every single day, and we still cannot see them coming.

If I have to sum up exactly what point I'm trying to make, let me just use my own experience. Like any other teenage girl, I had my own stable of fictional boyfriends, many of whom possessed certain traits that could be considered "problematic" by today's standards. Your Edward Cullens, your Jack Sparrows, and so forth. But one character has never made the cut (ha) in my collection of bad boys, and it's that one character I will take literally any excuse to talk about: Patrick Bateman. 

American Psycho is famously remembered as one of the most misogynistic books of all time and, conversely, one of the great feminist films of all time. Bateman takes a great deal of inspiration from Bundy, being clean cut and articulate and luring in female victims with his appealing demeanor. But watching or reading American Psycho is to get a glimpse under the mask, beyond "an idea of a Patrick Bateman" and deep--often, too deep--inside his twisted mind. 

The fact that he's played by Christian Bale is practically incidental, because his chiseled good looks can't hide his true self from the audience. Bateman is not heroic, or sexy, or even remotely charming. He's a murderous monster, but contributing to that, he's shallow, sexist, racist, dishonest, petty, and boring. He's hollow to his core, a bitter spoiled brat and a sniveling coward. 

The reason I can be obsessed with American Psycho but hold no love for Patrick Bateman himself is because I want to learn the lesson the character teaches, and practice it every day. That these men exist, and they are often not what they appear to be. It taught me to be wary of a certain kind of charisma, a certain poise and way of speaking, to not trust a nice guy face so easily. It gives me the tools necessary to take away the power of that kind of man--to see him coming.

For the record, I don't think anyone actually has a crush on Ted Bundy. This is the humor of the Twitter and Tumblr crowd, after all--surreal, sometimes problematic, often incomprehensible, but generally coming from a place of irony. We are talking about the same communities that made Venom (the CGI character, not Tom Hardy) a sex symbol. 

Anyone who watched Conversations with a Killer can easily see the monstrosity lurking beneath the mask by the finale. The truth we know was that Bundy was not a brilliant law student or psychologist, he was not a charming helpless stranger, and he was certainly not boyfriend material. He was a monster and a master manipulator that used his appearance and ability to hold a conversation as his greatest weapon, the sweet-looking fruit that hides a deadly poison. 

Lastly, and a small point but one I feel very strongly about: I deserve to watch the things I'm interested in without some journalist telling me I'm a toxic creep for it. That's the reason these movies and shows exist, the reason horror and thrillers are such profitable genres. We all deserve that comfort, the opportunity to try to understand such incomprehensible evil as a way as feeling in control of it. 

And in any case, we are all susceptible to morbid curiosity. Everyone has their way of finding it, whether its blood-soaked thrillers or leering at car accidents or pimple-popping videos on Youtube, no one is above wanting to see the things that can't be unseen. Basically what I'm saying is, we don't need to further scandalize an already scandalizing story just because people are paying attention to it. True crime can be messy and sensational, and sometimes exploitative and disrespectful, but there is a reason people can't get enough of it.

There is a reason we still respond to the story of Ted Bundy so strongly, whether with disgust or fascination or an odd mixture of both. It's because he's still out there, the spirit of that dangerous kind of man, and it's important, I think, to recognize these roots go deeper than the internet age. That our monsters haven't changed much in 30 years. Bundy wasn't the first and he won't be the last, and the best we can do is try to notice him next time before he can do so much damage. As women, we need to look out for each other and tell our friends when something feels off about that boyfriend or Uber driver or stranger at the club, and the men in our lives need to believe us when we feel uneasy about a seemingly charming friend. 

It's a lesson that needs to be learned again, because it keeps happening. I would like to think we're all a little smarter than these journalists seem to believe. I would like to think that a girl watching the Ted Bundy Tapes or Extremely Wicked will learn from it, that just because a guy looks like Zac Efron does not make him incapable of horrible things. 

Bateman Forever: A Love Story

American Psycho is my favorite movie of all time. I watch it at least twice a year, and I can quote nearly every line, verbatim. The first thing people see when they come into my house is the giant poster of nude, blood-flecked Christian Bale wielding a chainsaw. I can't listen to "Sussudio" on the radio without grinning like a maniac. I've wanted to dress as Patrick Bateman for several Halloweens now, but I just can't find the right raincoat (nor have I recreated that perfectly moussed coif). I am completely devoted to this movie, but it was not love at first sight.

But this shirt certainly was.

I first saw the movie near the end of high school. Following the guidance of Bravo's Scariest Movie Moments series, I had created a list of films to beef up my education in horror. American Psycho had been featured on the show, spotlighting the "Do you like Huey Lewis and the News?" scene. The commentators briefly discussed it as a dark, satiric take on 80's culture. I was already fascinated with serial killers, I liked 80's music, and like any 17-year-old girl, I'd sit through anything with Christian Bale in it, so of course I sought it out as soon as I could.

An hour and half later, I watched the end credits roll by with a thousand-yard stare. I was shaken up and dizzy, as if I'd just gotten off a boat and was struggling to regain my footing. I hit eject on the remote and stated to an empty room, "I don't know how to feel about any of that."

I would realize later that the film really shocked me, and all my teenage "edginess" was completely unprepared for the assault. It was revulsion padded with confusion with a few moments of uncertain, helpless laughter in between. But for weeks afterward, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I went over and over in my head what that bizarre fever dream of a movie could possibly mean. How could a movie I didn't even like completely consume my thoughts?

Before I knew it, I was buying the DVD and watching it again, and again, and then again. Quite out of nowhere, I realized I was in love.

I discovered it was a comedy--a hilariously over-the-top, yet tight-lipped satire--and suddenly the most unsettling moments were seen anew with unhinged glee. I realized that Patrick Bateman was not the suave seductive vampire Lestat, nor the charismatic troublemaker Alex de Large. No, for all his chiseled looks and expensive furniture and restaurant reservations and mountains of cocaine, Bateman's a fucking bore. He really is "an idea of a Patrick Bateman." He's a mass produced, plasticine imitation of a human being, with all the personality of a perfume ad. He is the ultimate poser and the worst kind of hipster, following "the pleasures of conformity and the importance of trends" with unchecked devotion and preaching shallow humanitarian buzz words with saccharine insincerity, before lecturing you about Phil Collins' greatest hits being of works of musical genius. Tell em why, Pat!

And of course he does fit in, so much so that he is constantly mistaken for other people, hence he makes a perfectly elusive killer. But the idea that such a bloodthirsty unstoppable murderer could be hiding in plain sight and also a bit of a buffoon is pretty damn funny. The biggest joke of all is that everyone around him is so self-absorbed they don't notice his murderous behavior even when it's right in front of their faces.

I was in my senior year of college when I finally got my hands on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis, and it only intensified my fascination with Patrick Bateman. I was studying creative writing and still fancied myself to be edgy, so against my professors' tastes, a lot of my writing was influenced by what some would call pop trash, like Chuck Palahniuk or Stephen King. It didn't take much for me to get hooked on Ellis' deadpan style and hostile perspective. The book is a horrifying experience for many reasons, not the least of which that you're seeing everything from an obsessive psychopath's broken point of view, detail by excruciating detail. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Bateman murders his co-worker Paul (Jared Leto) with an impeccably polished axe while Huey Lewis and the News plays on the stereo. It's a shocking, bizarre scene, but it's also one of the film's funnier moments; personally, I can't watch it without a big smile on my face. In the book, the scene is exactly the same, only placed under the psychotic microscope of Bateman's eye, and I was struggling not to vomit.

The novel is notably criticized for its pornographic nature in its vivid descriptions of both sex and violence, and that's not without merit. Every page is hyper-detailed, and it's something akin to torture getting through some of the bloodier interludes (most people point to the rat scene...I'm more squeamish towards the Bic lighter). While the violence is intense and upsetting, it's nothing compared to the agony of listening to Patrick describe everyone's outfit down to the pattern on their socks. For being a book that allegedly outraged the nation when it was first released, it's a fairly thick novel that has spends great lengths being pretty damn boring, with only a handful of violent moments that come and go within a page or two. If it were released today, I feel the criticism would be aimed the other way around.

It certainly helps to see the movie before reading the book, just for a sense of place and tone, or at the very least some sense of separation. It helps to put a face and some hint of personality, however little there may be, to Patrick Bateman before delving into his head. It helps to already be committed to the character before listening to him drone endlessly about Whitney Houston and Louis Vuitton. It makes the idea of this person all a little less terrifying, especially when you find your inner monologue is beginning to sound eerily like his (that goes away once you're done with the book... eventually).  You need to feel safe with him if you want to enjoy his madness, from a literary standpoint, anyway. Enjoying American Psycho is similar to enjoying Paradise Lost, in that if you can humanize and identify with the devil to some degree, you're better able to entertain his philosophies, no matter how blasphemous they may be. In any case, it's not a book I really recommend to people.

For my part, I am empowered by Patrick Bateman. That may seem strange to say, with me being a woman and the book being called one of the most misogynistic novels of all time, but it's true. Being a sullen, insecure English major with a lot of time to smoke pot and brood while reading it, I liked the idea of liking something dangerous, of possibly being something dangerous. I embraced the fantasy of seeming harmless on the surface but being capable of terrible atrocities. Not that I ever wanted to actually kill anyone, but the idea that I was secretly violent gave me a strange confidence, and the feeling of confidence eventually burrowed in and ingrained itself as something more based in reality. My self-image as a predator mellowed into something less threatening, but no less capable. Bateman gave me that taste of the overinflated, unearned, incomprehensible, MALE swagger. For as pathetic and anonymous and inconsequential as he is in his world, his delusional sense of superiority rarely wavers, never questions itself. I strive every day for that kind of resolution with self, though I try not to be nearly as pretentious about it, and with a decidedly feminine touch (and without the murderous streak).

And speaking of gender, I happen to believe Ellis when he said he intended to write a feminist novel. Patrick Bateman is not a tragic hero. He is barely a narrator, he has no redeemable qualities, he's not even cool. He is not an ideal for anyone, hence the presence of "psycho" in the title. Bateman is a pampered, deluded, cruel, and cowardly man with bloodthirsty tendencies. He is just the worst. To me, it's pretty empowering to know that just beneath the high-and-mighty face of that beastly kind of man is a sniveling self-involved loser who will one day end up in pieces on his office floor, sobbing on someone's voicemail.

What a dork.

Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner pulled an amazing movie out of a dense, demented, unfilmable novel. They streamlined it into an elegantly twisted downward spiral and exposed it for exactly what it was: a funhouse mirror of the angry American male. Not just rich yuppies with too much power and free time, but a caricature of the entitled, hateful, greedy, impotent Man. The guy who is angry and ignorant yet wears the facade of the righteous, and sees himself as the ultimate example of what is true and just and all-American. Remind you of anyone?

Despite all that awfulness, I still love Patrick Bateman. I love him the way other horror fans love Freddy and Michael and Jason, with a loyal, fanatic affection. Sure he's a stoic babbling monster, but he's my monster just the same. Sometimes you don't know why you fall in love, you just know when it's right.

Being the theater geek that I am, I've been anxiously following the development of the musical adaption of the film. The show was first developed in London a little over a year ago, and after a great deal of hard work and dedication, really talented people have come together to make something that sounds pretty damn cool, and it's going all the way to the city that inspired it! What seems like a bizarre combination feels oddly fitting, given Patrick's fondness for music, and the fantastic nature of the killings lend themselves to more theatrical staging. The show's first preview performance on Broadway is mere hours away and I wish everyone involved the absolute best. Though I may never make it up to New York to see it, every fiber of my being wants that show to do well.

I am thrilled to live in a time when not only is my favorite guy's name suddenly getting tossed into political articles and satirical videos, not only is a deserving work of literature finally being reexamined, but best of all, I get a rocking new soundtrack to obsess over! Yes, I've pre-ordered it.

(As I was placing the finishing touches on this post, iTunes informed me that my soundtrack had arrived fully downloaded. My weekend is going to be fucking great.)