The first 50 years of the 20th centuryFrom the 1950s to the 1960s, the number of serial killers tripled. From the 1960s to the 1970s, it tripled again. From the 1980s to the 1990s, the number of serial killers continued to grow. And then, just as suddenly as the serial killer emerged as an American phenomenon, he (and it is actually mostly he) has all but disappeared. What happened to American serial killers? And what does this phenomenon say about American society, criminology, and technology?
My guest today is James Alan Fox, the Lippman Family Professor of Criminology, Law and Public Policy at Northeastern University. The author of 18 books, Fox has been publishing on the subject since before 1974, when the FBI coined the term “serial killer.”
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In the excerpt below, James Alan Fox explains to Derek how he got into the field of serial and mass murder research and why Hollywood’s portrayal of serial killers is so different from reality.
Derek Thompson: You’re a well-known expert on serial murder and mass murder. How did that happen? How did you end up becoming one of the best-known figures in the study of serial murder and mass murder? How did that become your specialty?
James Alan Fox: Well, to some extent, I fell for that. But in the early 1980s, more than 40 years ago, I was talking to my colleague Jack Levin, and he wondered, “Have there ever been a systematic study of mass murderers?” And by the way, the word “serial murder” didn’t exist at that point, the word “mass murderer.” So we started to wonder, what patterns exist in serial killers, and how do they fit into the Hollywood image of a kind of hollow-eyed madman? Friday the 13th Or something like that—was it real or just a fantasy?
So we collected data on 42 cases, both serial and mass murderers, and wrote a paper on it. Then the Associated Press ran a story with the headline “Very Normal,” which wasn’t what people expected, but it was in hundreds of newspapers. It grew and grew, and I wrote six books on the subject. So, to be honest, I didn’t plan this. I teach two courses. I teach statistics and homicide. If you go to a cocktail party and someone asks you, “What do you do?” and you say, “I’m a statistician,” they ask, “Where’s the bar?” But if you say you study serial murders, they ask you all kinds of questions. I guess I’m popular because the subject is popular.
Thompson: I would like you to explain to me how real serial killers and mass murderers differ from the Hollywood image. Silence of the LambsBuffalo Bill is a recluse. He’s socially isolated. He’s very strange. He’s certainly not married. In your research, you said they were very normal. The typical serial killer is the polar opposite of Buffalo Bill. He’s sociable and lives with a partner. What are some other significant ways in which the Hollywood serial killer archetype differs from reality?
Fox: The Hollywood image — the bad guy, the dangerous guy, the weird guy — is not dangerous because we avoid him. This guy walks around with a hockey mask and a knife. We don’t go up and say, “Where’s the rink?” Serial killers, in particular, are very good at appearing safe and not weird, and that helps attract victims. Victims, you know, let their guard down when they’re confronted with someone like Theodore Bundy. [was a] Handsome. I understand that not everyone is handsome, but most people don’t find them repulsive, and they are dangerous because they are so ordinary.
Thompson: The ordinariness of serial killers can be especially surprising to people because in movies, they are often portrayed as surreal villains. Jason, Freddy Krueger are demons. They’re barely even human. They have a mystical invincibility, and Hannibal Lecter is a superhero who’s smarter than anyone else. So, as a society, we seem to distinguish serial killers from other murderers and treat them like evil superheroes instead of real threats. Right?
Fox: You mentioned Hannibal Lecter. A few years ago, I gave a talk at a Midwestern university, and on the poster for the talk there were pictures of four serial killers: Bundy, Gacy, Dahmer, and Hannibal Lecter. First, there was Anthony Hopkins. Anthony Hopkins is like Anthony Hopkins, but he’s an actor. But for most people, Jeffrey Dahmer and Hannibal Lecter are the same thing to them. People don’t really fear or scare themselves by serial killers. They feel like it won’t happen to them. So they enjoy serial killing because they don’t see it as a threat in their lives.
We don’t find mass shootings funny. People worry about mass shootings and think they will be victims. And we know this. Statistics show that 6 in 10 Americans believe a mass shooting will happen in their neighborhood. If you ask them, “Would a serial killer run down your street?”, they will say, “No.” This means that people can find serial killers funny and entertaining because they don’t feel threatened. Meanwhile, other types of crimes, like date rape, mass murders, mass shootings, school shootings, are not funny at all, they are terrifying.
This excerpt has been edited for clarity. Listen to the rest of the episode here and, Easy to understand English feed On Spotify.
Host: Derek Thompson
Guest: James Alan Fox
Producer: Devon Baroldi
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