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Bainbridge, Jason. "Seduction of the Serial Killer: Representing Justice with Lecter, Dexter and the Death Note." The Australian Journal of Crime Fiction 1. 2 2015. Accessed 8Jan. 2016. <http://www.australiancr ... on-of-the-serial-killer>. Added by: joachim (1/8/16, 1:01 AM) |
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| Resource type: Web Article Language: en: English Peer reviewed BibTeX citation key: Bainbridge2015 Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: "Death Note", Crime comics, Cultural criminology, Japan, Justice, Manga, Ōba. Tsugumi, Obata. Takeshi Creators: Bainbridge Collection: The Australian Journal of Crime Fiction |
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| Attachments | URLs http://www.austral ... -the-serial-killer |
| Abstract |
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The idea of seriality producing mythology has been a recurring theme from the Ancient Greeks to Andy Warhol. What then are we to make of the serial killer, those murderers whose multiple crimes similarly feature a recurring theme or motif that regularly elevates these killers to the status of myth? Since Jack the Ripper, the serial killer has been the monster at the heart of modernity, the irrational urge law and society has sought to control and understand. And yet the popular cultural trend (from the 00s on) has been towards the representation of sympathetic, almost seductive, serial killers in media texts like Hannibal (2001), Dexter (2006-2013) and Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s 2003 manga Death Note. This paper analyses how these millennial serial killers are often offered up as alternative justice figures, operating outside the constraints of law or morality, to punish those criminals who escape or otherwise operate beyond the reach of the legal system, with Dexter and Death Note’s Light representing the end point of these killers, those who offer an entirely new system of justice (“a new world”) predicated on their ability to kill those they consider deserving of death. In these texts then, the serial killer becomes a discursive site where multiple discourses of law and justice, good and evil, excess and nihilism and celebrity and citizenry can be contested and debated. |