Cult-TV Theme Watch: Serial Killers

Vampire, Werewolf, Mummy, Zombie...Serial Killer?

At first blush, the formulation in the above sentence may seem strange.  But there can be little doubt that in the past quarter century of horror cinema and genre television, the serial killer has emerged as an important addition to the pantheon of famous"monsters."

A serial killer is (broadly) defined as a person who has murdered at least three people and done so according to some internal clock or schedule.  In general, serial killers are extremely intelligent, and boast some history of trauma or instability at home.  Serial killers were often abused as children, and began their "career" in death by harming small, defenseless animals.  The late 1980s and early 1990s brought a new awareness of the serial killer into the mainstream national dialogue. Ted Bundy, who killed more than 30 people, was executed in Florida in 1989.  Aileen Wournos, a female serial killer, was apprehended by police in 1990.  Perhaps the most notorious serial killer of this era was Jeffrey Dahmer, who murdered seventeen victims between 1978 and 1991, before his capture.

The new popularity of the serial killer as a movie and TV "monster" coincided with a period in the pop culture during which audiences had begun to demanding more gritty naturalism, and less theatricality or artificiality.  The serial killer movie format, often a police procedural, not only studied the psychology of this new monster, but detailed the scientific - forensic - methods by which to catch the beast.  No longer were crucifixes, holy water or "faith" going to do the trick.  Nope, we needed DNA samples, fingerprints and other tricks of the new trade.

The 1990s represents the great era of serial killers in film and television. This was the epoch of Silence of the Lambs (1991), Hannibal Lecter and his cinematic progeny (in Copycat, Scream, Se7en, etc.)  

On television, Chris Carter's brilliant initiative, The X-Files (1993 - 2002) often featured serial killers in standalone "monster of the week" episodes, including "Irresistible," "Grotesque" and "Paper Hearts," thereby setting this human "monster" deliberately alongside fictional creatures like Fluke-Men, shape-shifters, the Golem, the Djinn and more.

Carter's second series, Millennium (1996 - 1999) tread even more deeply into the territory of serial killers, gazing at human monsters that seemed made by our modern society, and which exposed some crucial aspect of life in the 1990s.  I've always made the claim that Millennium uses the individual serial killers in the program in much the same fashion that Star Trek utilized the different planets visited by the Enterprise.  Each week on Millennium, Frank Black had to countenance a different serial killer, and study, investigate and understand the context that had created him or her, as the Enterprise would look at the problems and accomplishments of each world it explored.  In undertaking his task, Frank was able to reflect meaningfully on some important or controversial aspect of American society as it neared the millennium.

Serial killers were featured on Millennium in episodes including the Pilot, "Dead Letters," "Kingdom Come," "Blood Relatives," "Wide Open," "Weeds," "Loin like a Hunting Flame," "The Thin White Line," "Lamentation," "Broken World," "Paper Dove," "The Beginning and the End," "The Mikado," "Through a Glass Darkly," "Darwin's Eye" and others.  

 Again, in many of these situations, the "monster" was merely the dramatic avenue by which Carter, Spotnitz and the other series writers could explore some intriguing aspect of our culture.  "Loin like a Hunting Flame" gazed at the line between reality and (sexual) fantasy in the new age of Viagra.  "Weeds" examined the notion that gated communities could provide safety for well-to-do residents, and concluded that the wolf might already be lurking inside the affluent sanctuary.   "Wide Open" also gazed at the idea of safety and security, and wondered whether security systems could prevent the "darkness" from entering our suburban homes.  "The Mikado" brilliantly and diabolically tallied the ways that new technologies could be exploited by a monstrous serial killer.

What I have always admired so deeply about Millennium is this notion that by facing the darkness created by serial killers, Frank actually observes and critiques the world that created such monsters.  Sometimes it seemed the world he faced seemed like one without real emotional connection between people ("Blood Relatives") and sometimes it felt like a world that had lost all sense of mercy or decency ("Through a Glass Darkly").

After Millennium, the most significant serial killer series in TV history is likely Dexter (2006 - ), which focuses on the anti-social Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), a blood-spatter expert who would have been a creature as monstrous as any Frank Black ever captured had his father, Harry (James Remar) not intervened early and become his mentor and role-model.  Now Dexter, according to Harry's Code, kills only those "monsters" (other serial killers) that the law cannot reach.  Dexter's monstrous drives and appetites have been harnessed and directed, so much so that many people view the character as a hero, not just a protagonist.

What makes Dexter so intriguing is not merely his pro-social vigilantism, but rather the fact that the series positions the character -- again a Star Trek reference -- as a character very much like Lt. Data or Mr. Spock.  Like those predecessors, Dexter is an outsider from humanity, observing the "emotional" human race from some distance.  

Because (again like Spock or Data), Dexter lacks the capacity to feel or understand feelings, he can with great dispassion comment meaningfully on human contradictions, curiosities and frailties.  He is the serial killer as alien outsider, wishing he could be human, but knowing that his humanity is but a mask.  He'd like to belong, but he can't.

Lately, serial killers have been the beneficiaries of another interesting twist. In programs such as True Blood (2008 -- ), all manners of supernatural monsters exist and intermingle with man's world.  We've met vampires and werewolves, for instance.  But in the first season, the real evil is presented not by such creatures of the night.  Contrarily, it is a human serial killer, Rene (Michael Raymond-James), who symbolizes the ultimate danger, and therefore the ultimate villainy.  I suspect this development is a literalization of the notion that the evil lurking inside the heart of man, is, in some sense, the scariest thing we can imagine.

Creatures that go bump in the night are scary, but men that do so are downright terrifying.  We know they are real, and that in this case, there are such things as "monsters."

What I'm Reading Now: Dexter and Philosophy: Mind over Spatter!

I just received my contributor copies of Open Court's new book, Dexter and Philosophy. 

I've had a chance to leaf through the text this morning, and thus far the book, edited by Richard Greene, George A. Reisch, and Rachel Robison-Greene looks mighty impressive.

My entry, "The Killing Joke" (comparing Dexter Morgan to a superhero) is the first article following the introduction ("Knowing Thyself") and is found under  the section called "Maiming and Necessity." 

My essay is followed by a really intriguing piece that explicitly compares Dexter to Star Trek's Mr. Spock.  It's called "Dexter's Pointy Ears" and was penned by Abrol Fairweather, a Philosophy professor at the University of San Francisco.

Other sections in Dexter and Philosophy include "The Cut of Dexter's Jib," "What Would Dexter Do?," "Bad Blood and Bad Behavior" and "Dexter's Bloodline." 

So far, I've only had the chance to read four essays in the collection, but they're all very good.  I maintain Dexter is the finest genre show on television right now, and while reading this book, you can really see how the TV series has inspired a number of authors and professors to consider some basic life issues.  What does it mean to be human?  What value -- if any -- are emotions?  And can a man who is a serial killer actually be...a hero?  Is murder ever a social good?

You can pre-order Dexter and Philosophy: Mind over Spatter at Amazon.com, here, today.  It's widely available on June 1st, in both paperback and Kindle editions. 

Now Available for Pre-Order: Dexter and Philosophy (2011)

I'm proud to announce I have an essay entitled "The Killing Joke" featured in Open Court's upcoming Dexter and Philosophy book, due for publication on June 1st.  

This book on Dexter is the latest in the "Popular Culture and Philosophy" series, and is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com, here. 

This is actually my second occasion working with Open Court since I also had two essays featured in 2008's Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy. 

There, I had the pleasure of writing about both the original BSG and the recent remake, particularly their opposing moral approaches to storytelling.  I conducted an interview with the editors of that volume for the blog, here.

In my opinion, Dexter is one of the best TV series on the air right now (if not the best), so it was a great pleasure and a lot of fun to be involved with this new book.  

So if you like Dexter (and you like philosophy too, I guess...), go ahead and check this one out, you won't be disappointed.

TV REVIEW: Dexter: "Crocodile"

My newest TV addiction is Showtime's freshman serial killer drama, Dexter. We hear so much about morality in politics these days ("values voters" and all), but often morality is just a buzz word or a code for validating entrenched hate ( it's moral to hate gays; it's moral to hate terrorists; it's moral to exercise the death penalty, it's moral to give tax breaks to the rich and not the poor...at least according to some "values voters.")

Frankly, the question of morality (and what constitutes morality...) is often left unexplained or undebated in our national conversation.

So far as I can discern thus far, Dexter is a unique series in that it steadfastly addresses that void. As a series, it constantly asks the question: is Dexter Morgan - a sociopath - ...moral?

Wow! How can I ask such a question? I must be a crazy liberal, right? Well bear with me okay. Consider the facts: Dexter protects and nurtures his sister, Debra. That's "good" isn't it? He also takes wonderful care of his girlfriend Rita's children. He protects them and makes them happy. That too is "good," right? Dexter even boasts his own moral code: he follows the "Rules of Harry (James Remar)," his deceased Dad. And Dexter punishes the guilty (admittedly outside the confines of law...). Is enforcing "justice" not the very definition of righteous; of morality? What do you think? Am I barking up the wrong tree here? Is there a case to be made for Dexter as a moral man?

So...Is a man who can feel nothing...capable of morality? That's the enduring and provocative interrogative that Dexter has so expertly raised, and I have to admit, I'm obsessed with the notion. Can a serial killer with no milk of human kindness, no emotions, no feelings be termed good? Can someone totally dispassionate and boasting an insatiable urge to kill, contribute to the betterment of society? Can someone who has never felt emotional pain, truly understand what it means to be human? Or, does he - lacking the barometer of emotions - better understand our existence than those of us who have our judgment clouded? I wonder. And I'm very happy that a mainstream TV series has dedicated itself to tackling so valuable a notion. It proves to me that television has indeed arrived in a new golden age. Like Twin Peaks, Star Trek or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dexter looks to me like it can be analyzed in the same manner as great literature. Based on the first two episodes, it merits that comparison.

Many questions about morality occupy "Crocodile," Dexter's sophomore episode. At one point, Dexter even asks (in voiceover) "if God is in the details - and God is in this room - God is with me." It's a fascinating point to consider: Dexter employs eye-for-an-eye, Old Testament-style judgments against the evil, and he's learned to "always be sure" that his victims are guilty. So would our society, nay should our society laud and embrace a man like Dexter? Or shun him? Would you want him marrying your sister? Raising your kids?

Before you answer, consider at least that Dexter doesn't fool around with kids, practice graft like some very prominent Conservatives in Congress. Those men are worse than Dexter in my book. They are hypocrites who have hid their bad behavior under the label "moral" for years, right? They have judged others immoral (like President Clinton), when their sin was infinitely worse than his.

In its details, "Crocodile" confirms some of what I blogged about the premiere. To wit, Dexter comes flat out and notes that he is "the outsider looking in" on human society. This is troubling to him, however, because although he can see the pain of others, he "can't feel their pain." This observation comes up in regards to a gangster's brutal murder of a cop and his wife. Dexter attends the funeral and feels out of place. He's bored having to look grief-stricken when he really feels nothing. That's not nice, or even patient, but it doesn't speak directly to Dexter's morality. We can be moral without being polite, right? What does speak to Dexter's morality is that he wants to punish the guilty, and must weigh the consequences of doing so. To wit, he has an opportunity to kill the man who ordered the hit on the cop and his family, but to kill him then and there (in a men's room) would also expose Dexter and end his future capacity to punish the guilty. So which is the greater morality? Killing the bad guy, or preserving oneself to kill many bad guys? That's a true moral dilemma, folks.

Another one of Dexter's bad guys is Matt Chambers (alias Matt Brewster, Matt Rasmussen), a serial DUI murderer who has escaped justice in Boston and now Miami. If Dexter kills the local gangster, Matt Chambers gets away...and can kill again. So Dexter makes a choice.

What I like about this episode of Dexter, as well as each episode I've seen thus far, is that Dexter raises all these questions about morality but doesn't seem to boast a particular agenda. It seems more interested in observing and examining morality than in taking a definitive stance on it. The series doesn't sentimentalize Dexter. He calls himself a monster and does terrible things. Valid points. He also often responds to grotesque, macabre situations with tongue-in-cheek humor. So the series does not view him as a saint or anything like that...and yet he does good works. In recent years, television has given us many unusual heroes with foibles. Think of Monk, the detective with OCD; or Denny Crane, the crusading lawyer with alzheimers and a penchant for romancing younger ladies and talking out of turn. Dexter purposefully carries this trend as far as it can go, asking us to observe the life of a crusading sociopath; a man with no feelings, but who definitively does "good," who cleans up society's trash; and who is decent to his family and extended family.

Some people decry moral relativism in our culture. But after years of hearing some prominent politicians discuss "evil doers" across the globe and then categorically deny health care to children at home, I'm delighted to see a series that acknowledges that there are shades of gray in our world. Everything isn't black and white, and Dexter is the most philosophically deep program to come down the line in quite some time. It is consumed with dark questions about our existence, and what constitutes human morality.

Frankly, I'm riveted.

TV REVIEW: Dexter: Series Premiere

Showtime's new series, Dexter, is a humdinger. Based on a novel "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" by Jeff Lindsay, this hour-long drama follows the life and pursuits of Dexter Morgan, (Six Feet Under's Michael C. Hall), a blood-spatter forensic analyst living in Miami.

Sounds like some variation on CSI or the like, right? A crime scene investigator working in a major American metropolis? Well, here's the first twist: the charming, handsome and well-liked Dexter also happens to be a sociopath...and a serial killer too. He readily admits this in the series premiere (in a well-written voice over); that he has no feelings whatsoever for anyone in his life. Instead, he feels nothing at all. Dexter can almost feel emotions for his sister, Debra, but otherwise...there's just an overwhelming void in his heart. "You can't get emotionally invested," he warns Debra - a cop - during her investigation of a serial killer who drains the blood from his sliced-and-diced victims.

When Dexter says that, he's speaking from experience...

Again, people reading this review might say "ho hum," another TV show about a serial killer. What's the big deal? Well, first of all, here the killer is the protagonist; not a villain to be hunted and caught by well-dressed (but ultimately interchangeable...) stock cop characters.

Even more impressively, Dexter adopts a wonderful narrative twist and central conceit. You see, Dexter's Dad (James Remar), also a cop, discovered that his (adopted) son Dex was a sociopath when Dexter was still very young. When he learned this fact, Dexter's Dad decided that his boy's urge to kill could be co-opted and re-directed for good, positive purposes. He realized that Dexter could exercise his urge to be "bad..." on bad people...murdering the perpetrators the police simply couldn't catch because of legalistic loopholes. Then Dexter's father taught his son how to hide his own sociopathic tendencies while spotting them (or targeting them...) in others. Flash forward to today: Dexter tortures and kills menaces like Mike Donovan, a child murderer who has evaded the police and gotten away scot free. While killing Donovan, Dexter notes his repulsion for the serial killer, and moreso for the murder of children. "I have standards," he notes; defining the difference between himself and his brethren.

The first episode of Dexter is filled with clever observations (again, usually in voice over) from Dexter about the normal populace he interacts with and hides from. Thus, in the time honored tradition of science fiction programs such as Star Trek, he is essentially the "resident alien" or "observant outsider." Lacking a conscience and lacking any emotions whatsoever, Dexter is a character who can look coolly and distantly at us. He has a perspective on humanity that comes from outside it. "Normal people are so hostile," he trenchantly notes at one point. "I'm a very neat monster," he realizes at another point, proving that he is also able to turn the microscope on himself.

Can a sociopathic serial killer utilize his "handicap" or "disease" (or whatever you call it...) productively for society at large? That's the central question of Dexter, and it's the most original idea for a TV series I've seen in some time. You watch this show and you're immediately drawn into Dexter's world view. You see things how he sees things: without passion or prejudice; without love or bias. He is a monster, and yet he's human through and through. Still, he lacks the essential trait that makes us all what we are (that being feelings...) and yet - thanks to his Dad's teaching - he boasts a moral code of sorts. Sure it isn't legal; but vigilantism never is.

Michael C. Hall is terrific as Dexter Morgan, and it's awesome how funny - and truth be told, how deep - this series is. For instance, there's a subplot involving Dexter's inability to understand "mating rituals" and sex. In fact, part of his plan to hide his sociopathic tendencies from the rest of the world involves a girlfriend named Rita (Angel's Julie Benz). She was raped some time back and now vehemently distrusts men. This means she doesn't want to have sex, and that suits Dexter just fine. He finds intercourse "undignified." Unfortunately, Rita realizes how much she trusts and likes Dexter, meaning that is ready to have sex with him...an idea Dexter can't stomach.

Dexter Morgan is an unusual and highly unconventional protagonist, and it looks like many episodes will involve his cat & mouse hunt of the serial killer also preying on the population of Miami. His new nemesis carves up bodies...but leaves no blood at the crime scene. Dexter is impressed by his opposite's skill, and learns that he manages this feat courtesy of a refrigeration truck. In the first episode, Dexter hunts him by night, and interestingly, the as-yet unseen serial killer is also aware of what Dexter "is," and thus throws down the gauntlet: he dumps a decapitated head on Dexter's car during their first night-time encounter.

Fascinating and boasting a distinct point of view, Dexter is already appointment television. It's an inventive series, splendidly acted and written, but what I like about it most so far is the high quotient of black humor. For instance, Dexter keeps a sail boat. Not because he likes sailing so much as because it is handy for body disposal. The boat is named "Slice of Life..."