Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture (review)

Since the events of 11 September 2001, the spectre of serial murder in American culture may seem to have retreated back to the shadows, as public attention focuses on the foreign terrorist as the latest face of evil In light of thousands of deaths resulting from one spectacular act of mass murder, amid the constant threat of more to come, the terror evoked by any given serial killer may seem minuscule in comparison. While serial murderers continue to be arrested, the publicity surrounding their crimes is split with the latest headlines from Iraq. The self-styled “mindhunters” of the fbi seem to have shifted resources from pursuing lone sex killers to the more pressing task of gathering intelligence on terror cells and disrupting heinous conspiracies to kill thousands of Americans. Even the nation’s popular culture seems to have moved on; the days when Hannibal Lecter was a deliciously chilling icon of ultimate evil seem very remote indeed. However, as David Schmid argues in his book Natural Born Celebrities, the American fascination with serial killers both factual and fictional has not faded. Rather, the serial killer provides a multivalent template of villainy into which the figure of the terrorist can be folded to create a symbol of evil unsettling enough to enough Americans as to provide “public support for the dismantling of civil liberties in the United States and for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq” (246). Schmid documents that the categories of terrorist and serial killer are often deployed simultaneously in the popular media. For example, Schmid points out that the press in the United States often described Saddam Hussein as both a terrorist and a serial killer, and during the October 2002 sniper shootings in the Washington, D.C., area, the attacks were ascribed both to terrorists and serial killers (27). In fact, Schmid argues, the serial killer figure may have become familiar enough to Americans to be reassuring in the post–9/11 era, to enable them to return to a time “when evil had a comfortingly American face and one did not have to concern oneself with the bothersome question of why anyone would hate America enough to want to destroy the World Trade Center” (254).

Refreshingly, given the generally high-pitched, high-stakes rhetoric of moral panic that characterizes much popular discourse, Schmid maintains throughout most of his study that he has no interest in lamenting or deploring how serial killers have become celebrities or, put another way, how the definition of celebrity has become flexible enough to allow the inclusion of serial killers. Schmid makes the case, for the most of the first two-thirds of the book without sermonizing, that in the mid-twentieth century in America, the concepts of celebrity and fame diverged. Celebrities began to be denned by superficial attributes, such as cultural visibility, rather than by the qualities of merit, talent, or achievement that had previously been prerequisites for fame. Celebrities increasingly arose from the ranks of the sports and entertainment industry—again, individuals primarily notable for a ubiquitous media presence. In part, Schmid argues, the shift occurred because of a change in demographics in America, as the culture became increasingly urbanized and immigrants began to assimilate into the mainstream. Millions of American individuals were working through complex positive and negative feelings about their identities. Identification with visible public figures became more important and immediate than focusing on more abstract intellectual concepts, such as merit. The morality or immorality of visible public figures was beside the point in such an environment. Naturally, then, certain criminals in high-profile cases also became visible, or by the new definition of the term, “famous.” Criminals could become celebrities just as easily as—in fact, arguably easier than—many other types of public figures.

Of course, a celebrity outlaw, such as bank robber John Dillinger, is one thing, and a serial killer is quite another. Part of Schmid’s argument relies on the linkage he suggests between public...