Dr Isabel Gilbert, Deputy Course Leader of Undergraduate Criminology, explores our fascination with true crime.
As a concept, True Crime presents a confusing and contradictory problem for fans and critics of the genre alike. On one hand, we accept the all-encompassing popularity of crime-related media, given its absolute domination of streaming platforms such as Netflix and Spotify. On the other, the very nature of this titillating and often terrifying content places it firmly within the realm of the unpleasant and grotesque. We must therefore grapple not only with the notion that many of us clearly spend our leisure time consuming and considering the world’s most tragic and graphic subjects, but also the continual, nagging question of ‘why’.
Those who fall outside the growing community of true crime fanatics have often suggested that the genre’s presence in popular culture marks a decline in levels of taste and propriety. Indeed, the 1980s ascension of the now iconic series Unsolved Mysteries to mainstream media popularity caused some audiences to claim broadcasting company NBC was ‘putting ratings before taste.’ This assertion is an interesting one given the myriad ways in which one might begin to define the concept of taste. According to theorists such as Bourdieu, taste is often a marker of cultural value and superiority, as those aligned with more highbrow tastes are perceived as more competent, educated and valuable in a sociological sense. According to Bourdieu’s theory, ‘choice making is a reflection of one’s taste' and this taste will establish one’s position within a landscape of class and hierarchy. If this is the case, we can infer that assertions Unsolved Mysteries falls outside arbitrary definitions of taste came because many NBC viewers felt that true crime was a low brow and inferior source of entertainment due to its sordid and taboo content.
Though debates on the ethics and cultural ‘value’ of true crime continue to rage, there is evidence to suggest an interest in crime, violence and death is an innate part of human psychology. The popularity of crime-related content suggests many people have a deep curiosity about the things they find unpleasant or alarming, and psychological research has identified potentially dangerous phenomena as a feature of the world humans are most drawn to attend to, alongside faces and people. We may have an instinctive need to understand or explain the things we find most alarming or frightening, and recent research suggests this may be down to our ancestors. In his recent paper on the subject by David March posits the idea that our ancient predecessors will have used an examination of things which were repulsive or unusual in order to learn lessons which may have later enhanced their chances of survival. So, who’s accounting for taste when an eventual interest in crime and all its grisly details may be embedded in our very DNA?
We should also not allow ourselves to be misled on the matter of true crime as a new or counter cultural form of media. The public’s descent into the realm of so-called bad taste did not begin with the eerie theme music and moonlight which accompanied Robert Stack’s moody introduction to another episode of Unsolved Mysteries. Many centuries prior to the first utterance of the term ‘true crime’, people in towns and cities across the globe would attend public forms of punishment and execution as part of criminal justice processes spanning multiple epochs. Indeed, London Museum traces the history of public executions in the nation’s capital from as early as the 12th century with the deaths of monarchs or significant members of the nobility drawing particularly large crowds of spectators. Tyburn was the most popular or well-attended site for public executions, holding such events only eight times per year, thus making them ‘much anticipated’ occasions in the cultural calendar. If the engagement of wealthier classes with specific cultural touchstones such as an interest in crime are to be regarded as indicators of taste, the desire to observe the oftentimes brutal and inevitably graphic displays at public executions fell solidly within the boundaries of acceptability. In an account from 1663 acclaimed politician and writer Samuel Pepys notes he sent his wife away in the morning so that she might get in position to watch the execution of Colonel James Turner. Furthermore, upon finding he had not missed the event, he rushed to the site and paid a shilling to stand on a cart wheel. Pepys details the lengthy prayers and pleas for mercy from the condemned and then states he was ‘at last flung off the ladder in his cloake.’ Despite the visceral nature of the scene before him during the execution, Pepys makes no effort to dwell on the subject, immediately proceeding to detail his consumption of two dinners and conversations with acquaintances.
Away from the blood-spattered streets and baying crowds that may have come with watching the end of human lives in person, a public intrigue related to both executions and the crimes which preceded them was fed in numerous other ways. In fact, true crime historian Joy Wiltenburg notes that early uses of the printing press involved the widespread distribution of documents detailing violent crimes and executions for the explicit consumption of the literate public. The central court of England and Wales, known as the Old Bailey, regularly published such pamphlets detailing its proceedings in an affordable and accessible format from 1674 onwards. The intended audience was naturally a rather large one given public investment in matters of crime and death with the pamphlets proving commercially very successful. This remained the case until the significant growth of the newspaper industry which ended the publication of the proceedings in 1913. Many years on from Pepys’ account of his recreational visit to watch a public execution, copies of the Old Bailey’s proceedings detail the nature and circumstances of a variety of crimes, from petty theft to murder. In each case, quotes from victims or witnesses are provided in great detail before a verdict is provided. In many circumstances this verdict simply says ‘Guilty. Death.’ In an edition from 1763, one Robert Hallam of Middlesex is indicted for hurling his pregnant wife out of a first-floor window and witness accounts detail the cries of fear that had come from Mrs Hallam alongside numerous ‘violent blows’. It is difficult, looking back at such records, not to draw clear correlations between the zeal with which members of the Georgian public consumed such lurid and graphic details and the way subscribers to various streaming services unflinchingly tune in to documentaries which feature incredibly similar first-hand accounts of the most serious, violent crimes.
If we were to eschew what we now define as true crime altogether, it would still be near impossible, at any point in history, to avoid the themes which have rendered it so deeply fascinating. An interest in the grotesque and an insatiable longing for that which incites fear cannot be escaped, even within the forms of media we might now consider to be rather highbrow. For example, the world of literature has long been shaped by dark and violent tales designed to incite curiosity in the mind of readers. The Gothic genre in particular can be traced back to the publication of Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto in 1764 which marked the beginning of a tidal wave of fiction focused on oppressive and pessimistic portrayals of human morality and suffering. In the same way that bearing witness to the real and complex processes associated with crime and punishment, gothic literature provides us with an opportunity to push ourselves to understand the darkest and most challenging aspects of the human psyche. The inherent difference between the two media genres however is the inclusion or exclusion of real people and real consequences, though the desire to engage with subjects which horrify remain consistent within both. Gothic literature is shaped by a society preoccupied with the role of death and deviance in people’s lives and is therefore naturally influenced by a cultural landscape wherein these desires must be fed in one way or another.
Given the consistency with which people have been intrigued by the very worst aspects of the human condition, it is difficult to say true crime is in any way an unnatural or lowbrow form of consumable media. Assertions that the genre trivialises the experiences of victims and marginalised communities are certainly valid and force us to reckon with the ethical implications of the content we choose to consume. However, there appears to be a historical inevitability to its existence in some form or another. If we are psychologically predetermined to be attracted to that which invokes fear or revulsion, it is no wonder the commercialisation of crime and its consequences have proven so popular and so profitable over multiple centuries. Despite allegations of lowbrow sensationalism, there is an argument to be made that the Netflix documentary watcher is not so different from renowned authors such as Pepys and Dickens in their desire to understand that which can never truly be understood.