Outside Source

After reading Rafter chapter 3 "Slasher, Serial Killer, and Psycho Movies" I went out and rented the movie American Psycho because it sounded interesting and heard it was a good movie by a friend. This movie reminded me on what we went over in class on what to look for in a serial killer.  Christian Bell plays the lead character Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. He is handsome, smart, and well educated, and looks like a normal typical male. He has OCD on everything being clean and he loves women. The movie has a lot of gruesome scenes but it also tries to keep it tasteful at the same time. This has to be one of the scariest movies I have seen in awhile and it also, had a very confusing/twisting ending. I still don't know if he killed all the women or if he was dreaming the whole time.

Rafter Chapter 3

The films depict even violent criminals as sympathetic figures, attractive and heroic which keep these killers within the human fold. Rafter explains in this chapter the ideological frameworks of violent films to explore what they say about criminal nature. He looks at slasher, serial killer, and psycho movies. Slasher is usually about teenagers and sex. Usually has an heroic teenager in the story. You have to kill the villains more than once and the villains usually return for a squel. They tend to be not true crime films. Serial killer films portray killing as a compulsive, recurrent behavior. Most serial killer movies is to construct a stereotype of the violent predator: abnormal, incomprehensible, beyond the pale of humanity, bloodthirsty, sexually twisted, and lurking in our midst, a threat to us all. A good example to this would be American Psycho. Psycho films have predators who have an excuse such as money or revenge for their psychopathic behavior.  They believe they have to take the law in their own hands. Most psycho films have a predicable ending.

Movie: Silence of the Lambs

I don't like scary movies, so I didn't like this movie at all. I found this movie very creepy with a weird story line. An FBI must get help from an incarcerated serial killer to help her find another serial killer who kills and skins his victims.  This movie is exactly what we learned how all serial killer movies are similar. Hannibal Lecter is clever and has attention to detail. The killer makes one mistake and gets caught. It's a girl cop and the killer goes after her. They have a history of sexual crimes. I'm glad the Clarice could connect with Hannibal because she is missing that father figure. She connects with him because he isn't like all serial killers because he is cultured and he acts like a gentlemen and very protective in a fatherly way.

Ian Conrich: Mass Media/Mass Murder: Serial Killer Cinema and Modern Violated Body

It weird to read that a serial killer uses the internet to select his victims and serves as a key link. All serial killer movies seems to be all a like. The serial killer movies portrays them as very smart and clever. That the cop or detective involved is always one step behind if they are male but if a women they usual come after her. The killer always makes one mistake that gets them caught. They have the most gruesome crime scenes and the killers have attention to detail. They usually have a sexual crime history and find more bodies then expected. Like realistically they look like a normal guy with a loving family.  

David Schmid: Idols of Destruction: Serial Killers

David Schmid wrote of the phenomenon of serial killers and how they become celebrities. He says they become celebrities because consumers love to collect their merderabilia and this type of business is booming. I believe serial killers become famous when producers make movies about them, re-telling society their stories on their rampage killings.  Also when they write books about them and want to interview them.  This is what they want attention the feeling that society will never forget what he or she did. Them selling their merderabilia is sicking and something that isn't morally right to me. I'm glad ebay stopped selling merderabilia on their website. The article explains that you don't have to do good things to become famous.  Now you can do bad things and become a celebrity. Serial killers are famous because that is who they truly are.  They are authentic, normal looking guys and they provide us with something we want in a celebrity, now what we would called a modern celebrity.  There is no one reason why some people in our society are fascinated with serial killers. I believe people like people who are crazy and are way different from someone normal in our society. We stay connected with serial killers because we are curious about why they did what they did and just want answers from them. 

Cathy Bullock & Jason Cubert: Domestic Violence in Newspapers in WA and Outside Source

In the article I learned that domestic violence isn't seen as a social problem when really it needs to be. The article is a content analysis on domestic violence fatality and how they are portrayed in newspapers.  The media has the power to bring awareness of domestic violence to our society but fail to do so.  The media always seems to conclude in their stories that the victim (usually the women) deserves what came to her because  she did something to provoke the man. One thing the journalist who write on domestic violence stories are mainly relying on the police as their reliable source and don't bother getting the information from the victim. They also, never go in depth about their story, they usually tell us, who, want, when, and where. They never tell us why it happened or what lead up to domestic violence which would be a key information the public should know I think. Also the news media always portrays domestic violence as the same story over and over again. They don't put enough effort when writing these stories like making each event unique instead of making them all sound the same.

Outside Source

I read a story on CNN about a Texas judge who was videotaped beating his cerebral palsy daughter with a belt.  His daughter is the one who put the camera and hide it because her dad beat her on occasion. I believe this story is newsworthy because the criminal is someone you are supposed to look up to and has high status. Also a young disabled women is involved.  I believe in spankings when a child does something bad but not to the extent to where the parent is cursing at the child and pulling down their pants lashing them with a belt bare skinned. What her father did was an abusive act of violence.  He obviously has anger issues and thinks he could get away with anything because of his occupation and high status in society. He works in family court and I think abused his power and should all be taken away. 

The Movie ENOUGH

I really enjoyed watching this movie because domestic violence is something that happens all over the world and I'm glad to see it get some recognition.  I loved how she ran away to get away from her abusive and controlling husband and at the end learns how to fight back so he knows she doesn't have to take his shit anymore. I think this movie is a great inspiration to women who live in a abusive life style. This movie can show you that you do have a way out and you don't have to put up with men's shit and you can learn to fight back. Obviously this movie isn't realistic because many women are too afraid to tell people or it's too late and the man ends up killer her. This movie portrays how the males dominate our society and it's hard for a women to escape and to be heard.

Meda Lind-Chesney: Media Misogyny

We know when women play a role in the media they are newsworthy to the public because it isn't normal to see a women breaking the law or killing someone so it fascinates us. It was interesting to read this article because I had no clue that women gangs are growing and I didn't know women were becoming more violent. I also found it interesting that women's gang stories were popular all over the news and on talk host shows like "Oprah" and "Larry King".  The article mentioned that women's violence raised but not dramatically because what was being accounted for were stuff like assaulting their husbands, school fights, girls hitting their moms and small fights on the streets.  The rise wasn't happening because women are becoming out of control and are committing really violent crimes because they weren't. I believe women are committing more violent crimes because they are becoming more independent and can now commit the same crimes as men. Also, the feminist movement plays a part in this.

Mark Schubb: LA Riots and Outside Source

I loved how he started off his article with a comic.  The comic shows how the media portrayed the riots. I know news media only play certain news stories that will get them better ratings for their show.  Of course it has to be about a underclass culture and how blacks are being portrayed as a violent group and how they create riots. But really 60% arrest for riot related violations were Latinos, not blacks like the media all over the world was claiming. News reporters claimed the people were nothing but "savages" gangbangers and thugs in the street making all these troubles. They never once tried to get the real story out to the public and insisted on showing lies and misleading information on how the African community were the bad guys, which in reality wasn't true. They never mentioned how this was all created because of racism in our society.  Racial inequalities were a big thing back then and still is today and to see how the news reporters deceived the riot stories for their personal gain for ratings and what not is disgusting and shows you, you can't always believe what you see or read from news companies.

Outside Source:


One news media that is getting a lot of attention right now is the killing on the Virginia Teach campus.  Two bodies were found dead, one a police officer and a young male. They have not found the shooter and they have no reliable leads yet. The leads they did receive from the public got them now where and are still gathering their information to find the shooter.  I believe this type of story is newsworthy because a police officer was involved and it was on a school campus and Virginia Tech is known for this type of shooting because something like this happened on campus a couple of years ago and this hits home and is pretty scary the whole public should know.

Carol Stabile: Criminalizing Black Culture

In the article she tells a story about a white couple who was supposedly attacked by a black man who shot a man in the stomach and shot his wife in the head.  The story got a lot of media coverage and never ever looked into the husbands back ground because he was white attacked by a black man in a black community. They sympathized with the white gentleman and never suspected him as the criminal.  Like she mentioned if he was black he would never get this kind of media coverage because this is expected from the black culture. Even though later on the truth came out that he was really the killer after he shot himself. This just shows you how media against the black culture always gets misrepresented and seem to care if they do. They are trying to portray that blacks are only victims in their own culture and could never be a victim in the white culture. I liked how she focused her article on high profiled crime media stories like the Rodney King and O.J. Simpson.  I believe that theses are examples on how news media can enforce certain privileges and powers on certain cultures, like on the blacks and whites.  What we see the most on the news is what we are thinking is mainly going on in our culture and if the news media is blaming the black women to have more force in a relationship and is the cause of a dysfunctional family structure. This is believed to cause their children to end up being violent and causing them to commit crimes and how this could only occur in a black culture/community.