by Emma Nash

As a little girl growing up in Atlanta, I spent many of my weekends with my godmother’s mother, an inimitable septuagenarian whom I affectionately called Miss Lily. My parents were Northern transfers, and most of my extended family still lived in the Midwest; Miss Lily served as something of an adoptive grandmother. She was the type of woman who seemed made for the finer things in life—in my memory, she is constantly dressed in a silk robe and feather boa, constantly laughing, forever draped in diamonds and pearls. She was Blanche Dubois’s more respectable older sister, Scarlett O’Hara’s refined cousin—all elegance and gentility. On Saturdays, she would push the chaise lounges and authentic Roman busts to the corners of her ballroom and we would dance and eat Oreos until we felt sick. Once, when I was very young, Miss Lily was talking with my mother about a recent dinner guest she’d had over. The dinner was pleasant, but it had been a week and she still hadn’t received a thank you note. “Barbara,” she whispered in her perfect sweet-tea-James-Dickey drawl, “you would have thought they were Yankees”. My mother laughed and reminded Miss Lily that she was a Yankee herself. This prompted Miss Lily to pause in horror at the thought that she might have caused offense. After a moment, she spoke again, in a voice lowered to display her gravity, “Oh Barbara, darling, don’t you worry. Nobody’s thought of you as a Yankee in years.”

To me, Miss Lily was the perfect Southern lady. It wasn’t until I was nearly an adult I learned that, while I was growing up, she was dying of cancer, being stolen from by her caretaker, and in denial of her advancing years. With each new fact I learned about her bittersweet and complicated life, the more I understood just how much I had pigeonholed Miss Lily. As she became more three dimensional, so did my perception of what it meant to be Southern. The more I discovered, the more I saw was left to be discovered. So, even as a native Georgian, I cannot help but agree with Caroline that the South resists representation—even a lifetime of living here has not necessarily prepared me to comment with authority on its character. If anything, it has helped me better appreciate the trouble with representing the intricacies, ambiguities, and contradictions that comprise its enigmatic profile. Reading Caroline’s post made me wonder what, at its core, makes the idea of “the South” so elusive and captivating, and what makes it so distinct that it requires its own literary genres (Southern literature and the Southern Gothic are omnipresent manifestations of the region’s idiosyncrasies, real and perceived). I set about to form some sort of succinct, coherent explanation. The reader will be surprised to hear that, despite several Google searches and the benefit of all my twenty-one years’ experience, I failed. I comfort myself with the fact that there didn’t seem to be any particular consensus amongst the scholars whose work I read either. After encountering many answers and explanations, all of which seemed valid and none of which seemed to encompass the whole breadth of Southern peculiarity, I decided that my meager blog post perhaps might not be sufficient to answer such a multidimensional question. As such, here are a few suggestions as to the cause of what could be called the South’s “Otherness”:

The Civil War Undeniably, the Civil War had a large effect on the development of Southern identity and, by extension, Southern Literature. Mr. Jay B. Hubbell, writing in 1921, argued “It was the overthrow of the Confederacy and the bitterness of Reconstruction that created a posthumous demand for a Confederate literature—Confederate is a more accurate term than Southern”.[1] His argument suggests that Southerners felt the need to distinguish their literature from that of the North. While Mr. Hubbell’s suggestion of calling it “Confederate literature” is perhaps not as viable today, many scholars agree that the Civil War first created the idea of Southern literature as separate from and perhaps even opposed to American identity (see Michael Kreyling’s Inventing Southern Literature). Their perceived estrangement might account for the concurrent but conflicting tides of pride and shame in the Southern mindset. These contradictory perspectives, coupled with Southern separation, would doubtless be confusing to outside observers.

 

Christianity Christianity, in particular Protestant Christianity, is more strongly associated with the South than with any other area of the country. Truthfully, the “Bible Belt” nickname is apt; significant portions of the South’s cultural identity are based upon Christianity—many Southerners still largely draw their moral values from the Bible, and one’s involvement in the church often determines citizenship in a community. The close association between Christianity and the South allows that Southern people become inextricably identified with that religion and its values, whether or not they ascribe to them (see Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People,” “A Temple of the Holy Ghost,” and “The Life You Save Might Be Your Own”). Any particular religion is already alienating to those outside of it; a whole culture based upon a religion is thus even more inaccessible to outsiders (especially considering the implied hypocrisy of an individual within such a culture behaving against its values).

Storytelling The South’s penchant for storytelling is well documented. Oral tradition is a large part of the historical culture. In her memoir, One or Two Things I Know For Sure, South Carolina native Dorothy Allison cites storytelling as her way out—both figuratively and literally—of the harsh realities of a life bounded by poverty and abuse. The Southern predilection for storytelling is often characterized by a preoccupation with the ugly and the surreal (think Southern Gothic). Describing Welty’s A Curtain of Green, Susan Donaldson notes that “In story after story, the possibility of alternative gazes, alternative perspectives, alternative narratives, is raised repeatedly, often by underscoring the limitations of the collective gaze leveled upon those labeled as strange, marvelous, grotesque, and suffering”.[2] Donaldson’s summary is applicable to much of Southern literature. Its preoccupation with the grotesque and reactions to the grotesque means that many depictions of the South feature over-the-top characters and situations. These likely contribute to the perceived “Otherness” of the South.

Stereotypes The factors listed above, along with many others, allow that Southerners are often stereotyped. According to much of the media, Southerners can be recognized by our disdain for orthodontia and secondary education, our unnatural fondness for trans fats, and our affinity for homemade alcohol. If one is to believe Deliverance, we also might have a taste for banjo music and inbreeding. As Caroline aptly pointed out, stereotypes limit a person’s understanding of what it means to be Southern. For many, the South exists behind a veil created by these stereotypes, many of which are rooted in the past and have not been revised since the nineteenth century or even earlier.

Regional Differences Stereotyping permits that the South often exists in the collective mind as one homogeneous region, bound by universal values and characteristics. Such thinking prevents an observer from forming a nuanced and realistic impression of the South. Just as Boston has a different culture from Hoboken, so Houston’s is from that of New Orleans. Accordingly, Pat Conroy’s South is different from Eudora Welty’s is different from Tom Wolfe’s. Thinking otherwise is injustice to both scholar and subject.

To me, much of the South’s personality stems from the peculiar intermingling of stereotypes and contradictions. It both wants to be understood and insists upon being individual, leaving even native Southerners (or at least this one) unable to fully assimilate its fickle nature. Perhaps this is my ultimate conclusion: that the South’s primary characterization is qualified by its defiance of characterization. Perhaps its allure lies in its amorphous silhouette, and attempting to define it is patently impossible.

[1] Hubbell, Jay B.. “ON “SOUTHERN LITERATURE””. Texas Review 7.1 (1921): 8–16. Web…

[2] Donaldson, Susan V. “Making a Spectacle: Welty, Faulkner, and Southern Gothic.” Mississippi Quarterly 50.4 (Fall 1997): 567-583. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol. 142. Detroit: Fale, 2003. Literature Resource Center. Web. 25 Feb. 2016.

by Caroline Todd

If there were some sort of test to determine Southern-ness I would pass with flying colors. My qualifications are almost laughably appropriate: I learned how to drive my dad’s truck in elementary school – in Meriwether County pastures, no less. I enjoy visiting New York, but I could never picture myself living there. I eat an egg salad sandwich for lunch every day and I go by my middle name. And if all that weren’t enough, my grandmother lives in a one-stoplight town known for its twice-yearly “Cotton Pickin’ Fair.”

Joking aside, I certainly don’t claim to be an expert on Southern studies, especially not from an academic standpoint. There’s a world of scholarship out there that I haven’t even begun to crack the surface of, but my own experiences have taught me a lot about the way things work around here. My hometown is small enough that everybody knows just about everyone else, yet big enough to hold a fairly wide variety of classes and races. Growing up with that exposure has been a privilege; I’ve heard and responded to many different points of view my whole life, and I’ve come to find that there’s not just one kind of “South.” And as a voracious reader I adore literature that gets to the heart of Southern life, whatever that might mean.

The South is rich in stories and I was raised on them. I grew up hearing about my great-grandfather’s mill, my father’s summer job at a local peach stand, and the horse my aunt somehow managed to keep near downtown Atlanta. Some are nostalgic, others are funny, but most are a combination of the two. I have my own stories now, and even though I’m tempted to cry rosy retrospection at the days when my grandmother pulled my cousins and me around in a Radio Flyer wagon, that really is the way I spent my childhood. Recently, though, I’ve begun to understand some of the tragedy behind the stories told with less frequency, and though ignoring it can be tempting confronting it is the only way to make sense of it. That’s where literature comes in. There’s something to say for authors like Harper Lee who understand the nuances of where I come from and manage to turn that experience into words on a page. Lee, whose passing last Friday is an enormous blow to the American literary community, was my hero for a host of reasons, and I’ve learned from experience that Flannery O’Connor doesn’t exaggerate (remember the grandmother I’ve mentioned a couple of times? Rumor has it there’s a snakehandling church down the road from her house). These authors have a difficult job. Representing the South is a hard thing to do and it’s even harder to do well.

That’s because it’s not pretty. I might joke about my stereotypical experiences, but I’ve fought misogyny, racism, and small-mindedness, all hallmarks of Southern dysfunction, tooth and nail for as long as I remember. It’s an unpleasant legacy we bear for pretty obvious reasons. We have to acknowledge that we live in a region whose entire infrastructure depended on owning other people for far too long, and those scars remain very visible. Racial boundaries aside, too many people live below the poverty line and the cycle keeping them there is incredibly aggressive. But authors who aren’t from here like to either attack or romanticize the South, with nothing in between, and I’m convinced the only ones who approach the issue moderately are the locals. You have to be close to an experience to represent it well; “writing what you know” really is important. Some people just don’t get the South, and I’m of the opinion that they should quit trying while they’re ahead.

Over the summer, I read Marja Mills’ The Mockingbird Next Door, an incredible account of her friendship with Harper Lee and her sister Alice. Mills, a journalist from Chicago, was charged with interviewing Lee for an article in the Chicago Tribune and eventually became close friends with the Lee sisters. Quite tastefully, I thought, Mills withheld information about the Lees’ private lives while presenting an otherwise effective portrait of the two sisters. But writing about the South was a difficult process for Mills, which she learned the hard way. In writing one of her first articles for the Tribune, she made the mistake of writing the way Alice pronounced “Nelle Harper” – Harper Lee’s given name, by the way, is her mother Ellen’s name spelled backwards – as “Nail Hah-puh” and mentioning something about her soft drawl. Alice, of course, was incredibly offended by this diminutive representation, and I was a little more than miffed. It’s kitschy and belittling, and it feeds into the romanticized notion of slow-talking Southern do-gooders – what Flannery O’Connor calls “good country people.” Though Mills’ book is generally more respectful than this, she makes a point to call out other figures in the Lees’ social circle for what she deems irregular speech or behavior even after the Alice incident. Sure, peppering dialogue with a “somethin’” every now and then isn’t a problem, but calling people out for speaking in an accent traditionally associated with lack of intelligence is completely unnecessary. And I promise that two octogenarians drinking iced tea on their porch isn’t an occurrence atypical enough to merit a full-out anthropological investigation.

On the opposite end of the spectrum I hear many a belittling comment, often accompanied by an eyeroll, about the nature of Southern life. In an election year this comes out in full force. Yes, an embarrassing number of lower-class Southerners have come out in support of candidates like Donald Trump, but there’s got to be a reason why that no one feels compelled to investigate. One of Trump’s largest support bases happens to be high school dropouts. Is no one going to ask why so many Southerners choose not to pursue higher education, instead of mocking those who live a lifestyle that is incredibly hard to break out of?

As proud as I am to be Southern, I admit I live in a small-minded culture. It would be naïve to ignore the still pervasive racial tensions that mark Southern experiences across the board. Bigotry and ignorance, the worst kind of family heirlooms, get passed on from generation to generation and they’re incredibly hard to eradicate. Segregation was our grandparents’ reality and their parents saw days when women couldn’t vote. He’s ashamed to admit it, but my own father remembers a segregated waiting room in his doctor’s office years after the Civil Rights Act was passed.

The South isn’t all magnolia trees and Atticus Finch, but it’s not all fire and brimstone either. As Flannery O’Connor poignantly illustrates, the myth of “good country people” is just that. More often than not, people aren’t as “simple,” to put it the way O’Connor does, as they seem and if we’re too quick to judge or point and laugh we deny them their humanity. Life in the South is just as complicated as it is everywhere else, and only through understanding that can we move forward to achieve true progress.

by Meaghan Laetella

It’s no easy task to articulate what it means to be a writer. Maybe this isn’t something that you think about often. But for someone like me—a college student who is always turning in essays and short stories for my classes—the quest to be recognized as a “good writer” feels perpetual.

Last semester, I took a creative writing class called “Writing Outside of the Lines.” The goal of the course was to have us experiment with different forms of storytelling. Every assignment was a different variation on writing memoir. My very first assignment was to tell the story of “how I became a writer.”

The prompt bothered me for two reasons. For starters, I don’t have any recollection of when I first wrote something and actually enjoyed it. I racked my brains for some adorable childhood memory that could pass as a captivating narrative—but I came up blank. Writing my name for the first time? But that’s overdone.

Secondly, I have always felt guilty calling myself a “writer.”

It’s not that I don’t want people to think of me as a writer; I mean sure, writers often get branded as egomaniacs with tortured souls, people who think they know something about everything. But my reluctance to be branded by this stereotype isn’t why I refrain from self-identifying as a writer. My aversion stems from something much deeper. In truth, I feel as though I do not deserve the title.

So who is a writer? The short answer would be anyone who has ever written. But let’s break it down. Ernest Hemingway believes that a true writer is devoted to the craft. If he is writing, it may take him all morning to finish just one paragraph. If he’s not writing, then he is clearing his mind so that he can be sharp in the morning.

“…I learned not to think about anything that I was writing from the time I stopped writing until I started again the next day,” Hemingway said. “That way my subconscious would be working on it and at the same time I would be listening to other people and noticing everything.” I think Hemingway would agree that a writer is like an athlete in training. He puts in the work when he needs to, and he pushes himself to perform at his highest level in order to achieve the best result possible. But when it’s time to rest, he takes care to let his body and mind recover.

A professor once told me that when other people begin to refer to you as a writer—people other than your friends and family—you have officially earned the distinction. It’s safe to say that a “professional” writer is one whose words people would continually pay to read.

Harper Lee, the widely beloved author of To Kill a Mockingbird, once said: “I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.”

In other words, a writer must be able to take criticism. More importantly, a writer cannot let the fear of failure prevent him from writing. Perseverance is essential if a writer ever wants to be successful. John Steinbeck, the brains behind The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, advises writers to “abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page a day…then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.”

All writers will be rejected at some point in their career. The ones who make it are the ones who don’t take no for an answer. But what about writers’ block? What if you have the perseverance, you know that you want to finish what you have started, but you simply don’t know where the story is going? My favorite piece of advice to tackle this problem comes from James Baldwin, whose non-fiction work Notes of a Native Son exudes passion and authenticity: “…When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway…”

The insight that each of these authors possesses has helped me form my own definition of what it means to be a “writer.” In my opinion, a real writer is someone whose name stands the test of time; whose words are repeated for years after he or she has passed away; whose stories can be read and reread thousands of times without readers ever growing tired of them; people Like Hemingway, Lee, Steinbeck and Baldwin.

The truth is, I’m not trying to write the next great American novel. I don’t seek to be a bestselling author by the time I’m thirty, or to have famous directors calling me to claim the movie rights to my stories. I often wonder if my self-deprecating attitude towards writing stems from the fact that I don’t have any concrete writing goals. For me, writing is just something I have always seemed to be at least decent at, but not necessarily something that defines me. It’s an activity that allows me to be alone with my thoughts; it’s a cheap and accessible form of therapy.

So…what’s my point, you ask? Writing takes on many forms. It all depends on who the writer is and what their end-goals are. If you’re ambitious and talented enough, you can make a career out of the craft. But some writers are just destined to be mediocre. And that’s ok! If you like to write, you shouldn’t stop practicing just because no one besides your mother and your seven cats may ever hear your stories. And if you’re someone who has never tried writing anything for fun, I challenge you to take a stab at it. You may hate it; but you’ll never know for sure until you sit down and give it a go.

What do you think about this question? What “legitimizes” a writer? How would you begin to define what it means to be a writer? Do you consider yourself a writer? If so, what kind of writer are you?

by Hendley Badcock

A few weeks ago, I got a phone call from my mother. Her voice, strange and strained, carried grave news—our friend had passed away. The charismatic, disarming 25-year-old I had known for most of my life was suddenly gone, taken from his family and his friends.

On the topic of death and dying young, I gravitate toward Keats, another man who died at the premature age of 25, a year after he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Anticipating death, Keats’ ticking mortal clock haunted him and infected his poetry. His illness stoked a morbid obsession about which he composed beautiful, profound, distressed, regretful, and frustrated lines. Through his art, Keats produced some of the most revered meditations on leaving the material world before he might have been ready.

When I read “To Sleep,” for instance, my own fears about death’s power to take life are somewhat calmed. In the sonnet, Keats both praises a tender, romantic portrayal of eternal sleep and confesses his psychological unrest about his own mortality. In a form traditionally associated with love, Keats’ sonnet dedicated to death plays off an idea of adoration and suggests that perhaps, at the moment of composition, Keats was more comfortable with confronting his own passing:

O soft embalmer of the still midnight,                        1

Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,

Our gloom-pleas’d eyes, embower’d from the light,

Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:

O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close                5

In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes

Or wait the “Amen,” ere thy poppy throws

Around my bed its lulling charities.

“O soft embalmer” (1), Keats addresses death. “O soothest sleep!” (5), he says. The poets’ calls symbolize his viewing death as a friend or at least an approachable force near enough to which he can speak intimately. In the octave Keats commends sleep’s powers and asks to be overtaken by them; however, in the sestet he reveals the mental tormentors that inspire his request to die:

Then save me, or the passed day will shine

Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,—                10

Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords

Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;

Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,

And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul.                 14

While explicitly embracing death, the speaker simultaneously awaits his final slumber with anxiety. Each time he lies down “upon [his] pillow, breeding many woes” (10), his mind races with fear, with wonder, with sadness. Nevertheless, this is a moment for Keats to be “save[d]” (9) from earthly worries for the sake of “forgetfulness divine” (4). Not only can sleep expel man’s physical, material issues, it also constitutes a divine state which graces all beings upon death.

Although Keats was not granted a long life, he was given time to reflect, contemplate, and compose. How gratifying (or agitating) was this opportunity for him? Clearly, Keats had conflicting emotions about his impending death. Who wouldn’t? But surely writing such poems helped him process what was happening to him physically, mentally, and emotionally. In “Sonnet to Sleep,” Keats’ implies that he has grown tired of resenting, fearing, and maybe even cursing death and now has grown to accept its inevitability. There’s a great deal of hopelessness in the poem but also real understanding of what is out of his control. The poet works through all of these feelings in just fourteen lines. Keats’ poetry had to have empowered him through his darkest times. After all, if the act of writing about his death was not therapeutic for him in some way, then why did he compose so many poems like this? What was the point?

I want to press further and ask what’s the point of reading these poems. When Keats’ friends and family read them, did they help them cope and mourn? Did they feel like they could understand Keats’ emotional and mental processing of his death through his lyric chronicles? I feel like they must have. So then, if my friend had had the chance to scribble down a few lines, pen a letter, or, heck, write an entire book, what might he write in it? Would it provoke us to think about the memories of our loved ones, the value of our own lives?

Audiences, I believe, do get a therapeutic affect from literature on death. Why would it have sustained as a subgenre otherwise? Kevin Henkes’ Olive’s Ocean I read for fun when I was hardly twelve. Mitch Albom’s Tuesday with Morrie was required reading when I was in high school. And I just started reading Paul Hardy’s Tinkers earlier this year. These books all contemplate death and dying and appeal to a range of ages. All of them drew me to meditate on the impressions people make on one other throughout their lifetimes and even after their deaths. “Sonnet to Sleep” is no different. Any reader can relate to Keats’ feelings and fears about her own mortality just by reading it.

I do not think it’s a vain attempt to try to hear my friend’s words—or you any late friends’ words—in the poetry of someone who, like Keats, had the opportunity to write down some thoughts about his own death. I believe that Keats can speak in retrospect for those of whom death sneaks up on and takes quietly, suddenly, and unexpectedly. I truly hope to find consolation for myself and others who grieve unexpected deaths in his words. Whether Keats’ warning was, to him or his friends, a blessing or a curse, he nonetheless has given us tools with which we can try to process death’s untimely taking of a truly loved and missed young man, my friend. As Keats puts it, death took my friend and “[shut], with careful fingers and benign, [his] gloom-pleas’d eyes,” but this divine sleep has undoubtedly transferred him to someplace better than he knew here.

by Nolan Doyle

Note: This is a continuation of a previous blog posted below. As promised, we’ll discuss three important narratives in modern true crime: Serial, The Jinx, and Making a Murderer. Also, a caveat, reading this will surely spoil the ending to these programs.

 

Serial

“One story told week by week.”

Its title a play on words, Serial is a serialized audio narrative. (We’ll discuss the first season, but its second season is currently airing, and you can find it here.) In the first season, show-runner Sarah Koenig re-examines the murder of Hae Min Lee, a case that “initially generated only local interest,” but garnered “international attention” when it became the subject of Serial. That international attention manifests itself in 68 million downloads and, among these millions of listeners, serious doubt about the guilty ruling against Adnan Syed. The publicity of the evidence and the podcast’s massive following combined to stir up an online movement to have Adnan Syed re-tried. As of this week, that movement saw some progress: a hearing for the re-trial was held in Baltimore.

 

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst

“What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”

Called The Jinx for short, the HBO documentary mini-series reconsiders the shady history of accused murderer, Robert Durst. Like Serial, the show investigates cold case files. Specifically, The Jinx examines the 1982 disappearance of then wife Kathie Durst, the 2000 execution-style killing of writer Susan Berman, and the 2001 death and dismemberment of Durst’s neighbor Morris Black. Unlike Serial, the show’s end produces more certainty than doubt. In a television moment stranger than fiction, Durst admits to all three murders on a “hot mic” off camera during the series finale. The show gained widespread notoriety when Durst was arrested on first-degree murder charges the day before its finale aired.

 

Making a Murderer

“Are you sure?”

Another title that deals with wordplay, although slightly more suggestive in this case, the Netflix documentary miniseries Making a Murderer reconsiders the murder trial and subsequent conviction of Steven Avery. The show begins with discussion and footage of Avery’s criminal history, which includes 18 years of imprisonment for sexual assault for which he was exonerated in 2003. Following his release, Avery filed a civil lawsuit against Manitowoc County, Wisconsin to the order of $36 million. Soon after filing the lawsuit, he was accused of the murder of Teresa Halbach, a photographer last seen on the Avery property. With intense attention to detail, the show follows the investigation of Avery and nephew Brendan Dassey, the evidence upon which they were both convicted, their trials, and their subsequent sentencing. Without overtly supporting a re-trial, it does seem that the show somehow suggests it. It seems as if something in this case is not quite right and, again, the show’s viewers saw this as a potential avenue for change: 128,000 signed a petition to President Barack Obama seeking pardon. As a matter of fact, the case is not within the President’s jurisdiction as it is a state case. Like with Serial, it seems that there is some desire among the viewers of this program to affect change.

 

Reconsider Replay

Who Watches the Watchmen?

Although it is tempting to take these true crime narratives at face value, possibly even to join in on the Internet movements to see to it that justice is served, I think it’s important to bring a little bit of critical thought with you (it’s dangerous to go alone). Serial is a massive commercial success and has been immensely well received, critically speaking. That said, it is ethically problematic for some: “live investigation” allowed for the release of full names and addresses of people connected to the crime, and the show-runners use a real murder as a subject for entertainment. The Jinx is another critically acclaimed hit. That said, it has been accused of charting an uncomfortably close line between storytelling and journalism. Making a Murderer is another exceptional program in true crime television. It has been accused of being one-sided, emotionally manipulative, and of having omitted key evidence from the trial. Reporter Jonathan Mahler titled his New York Times piece “Two Maxims at Odds: Tell a Story, Tell the Truth.” His article was written with particular focus on The Jinx, but I think its message could be extrapolated upon all three, and possibly more broadly, the true crime genre. Though it’s tempting to act as an armchair umpire, in the case of true crime or instant replay, it may be important to consider that the filmmaker is dealing with two maxims at odds—the story and the truth.

 

Sources

Carr, David (November 24, 2014). “‘Serial,’ Podcasting’s First Breakout Hit, Sets Stage for More.” The New York Times.

“New hope for inmate from Serial podcast.” CBS News. February 9, 2015.

Bankoff, Caroline (March 15, 2015). “Robert Durst Arrested for Murder.” New York Magazine.

Hale, Mike (December 16, 2015). “Review: ‘Making a Murderer,’ True Crime on Netflix.” The New York Times.

Goldstein, Jessica (November 20, 2014). “The Complicated Ethics of Serial, the Most Popular Podcast of All Time.” ThinkProgress. Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Mahler, Jonathan (March 22, 2015). “Two Maxims at Odds: Tell a Story, Tell the Truth.” New York Times.

Dirr, Alison (January 19, 2016). “Seven Details left out of Making a Murderer.” USA Today.

by Nolan Doyle

Note: On the eve of the second episode of a series that documents one of the most culturally captivating “true crime” narratives of our time, American Crime Story: The People v O.J. Simpson, here are some thoughts on the significance of the genre.

The consensus was that no title on Jack the Ripper ever gathers much dust … the hottest backlist titles now, in the true crime genre, deal with serial killers
– the more gruesome and grotesque the better.[1] 

The above quote comes from an article in Publisher’s Weekly in 1993. With some slight modification, it could have been published last week. True crime still dominates media from a publisher’s backlist to Netflix. As the quote suggests, this is not a new phenomenon. It is, has been for centuries, a genre of consistent popularity and dubious respect. Respect aside, literary or otherwise, I’ve noticed a recent trend: its titles are growing increasingly popular. It’s beginning to shake its Rodney-Dangerfield-syndrome.

What is True Crime?

In case the moniker doesn’t describe the genre sufficiently, a definition:

True crime is a non-fiction literary and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people.[2]

Do forgive the phrasing of this definition: it sounds just like the opening credits disclaimer for Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. As a work of fiction, SVU happens to be classified as a “legal drama,” a fact for your consideration. Unlike SVU, in true crime the author examines a real-life criminal case. The author acts as an investigative journalist, who reports to the audience. For the author, that it is an “actual” crime adds consequence and importance to the case. As for the viewer, that these are “real” people adds the gravity of human consequence. In tandem, it may be that the pleasure in a true crime narrative is in participation in a larger, culturally significant story. And, in the modern incarnation of the narrative, the degree of “audience participation” has been amplified.

Origins:

There has been much speculation with regard to the origin of “true crime.” One of those speculators and part-time true crime author, Joyce Carol Oates attempted to describe the phenomenon in 1999:

Accounts of true crime have always been enormously popular among readers. The subgenre would seem to appeal to the highly educated as well as the barely educated, to women and men equally.[3]

According to Oates, true crime does not have any intellectual barriers; anyone can participate. It seems to be the case that true crime is accessible. Since its accessible and engaging, it tends to be popular. As a function of its popularity:

“true crime” has become a crowded, flourishing field, though few writers of distinction have been drawn to it.[4]

That she says that few writers of distinction have been drawn to it is an interesting statement: with herself and Truman Capote as two that I can name off-the-cuff. Historic appeal to writers of distinction aside, a few things have changed since Oates wrote on the subject: namely, the subject matter and the storyteller’s medium.

Modern True Crime (continued in part two):

Once home to gruesome, grotesque retellings of serial killers’ lives and murderous careers, the genre has pivoted in an interesting, engaging way. Typically an arena for heavyweight investigative journalism (think: In Cold Blood) the genre has become host to the revisionist court case. The revisionist court case, where the author/investigator reports on the investigation and the audience supplants the jury.

Yesterday, the Broncos defeated the Panthers in the Super Bowl. A few times during the game, the referees went to the booth to review a call. This brought to mind something we consider in regard to revisionist procedure: in football, we live in an era of instant replay—where the audience knows better than the referee, or at least thinks that he does…

Note: In part two, let’s consider three important narratives in modern true crime: Serial, The Jinx, and Making a Murderer. With respect to these stories, a look at audience size and critical reception. With audience participation in mind, we’ll examine the legal, cultural consequences of each story and why we like to feel involved.

 

 

 

[1] David Schmid (2010). “True Crime”. In Charles J. Rzepka; Lee Horsley. A Companion to Crime Fiction. John Wiley & Sons.

[2] Ray Surette (2010). Media, Crime and Criminal Justice: Images, Realities, and Policies. Cengage Learning. p. 92.

[3] Oates, Joyce Carol (1999), “The Mystery of JonBenét Ramsey”, The New York Review of Books, Vol. 46, No. 11, 24 June 1999.

[4] Oates, Joyce Carol (1999), “The Mystery of JonBenét Ramsey”, The New York Review of Books, Vol. 46, No. 11, 24 June 1999.

by Claire Sbardella

Last summer I read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. No more relevant time, I thought: what with the Josh Duggar scandal that had occurred earlier that summer, and the rise of misogynistic demagogues such as Donald Trump. The speculative fiction novel portrays a dystopian environment where a theocratic, totalitarian government overtakes the United States, and where strict interpretation of the Bible reaches its ultimate conclusion. One real world parallel to this is the Quiverfull sect, while another is misogyny in public figures. An example of a family that follows Quiverfull ideology is the Duggar family, former stars of 19 Kids and Counting. Donald Trump, currently a major public figure, has on numerous occasions displayed enormous misogyny, racism, and fear. An important outcome of both is an emphasis on female purity and their role of serving men, which leads to increased sexualization of women and distorted interactions between genders.

Atwood draws the principles for her theocracy from the Old Testament. For example, women were treated as the property of men and were bought and sold. If a man was rich enough to have female slaves, he was also intimate with them. For example, Abraham, the father of the Israelites, had a wife but also slept with his servant Hagar, eventually having children with both of them, which were considered his. The theocracy of The Handmaid’s Tale codifies these tenets and regularizes them. The hierarchy for women lies underneath men. The highest role a women can aspire to is that of Wife, but many, including the main character, are Handmaidens, women whose sole purpose is to bear children. To further subjugate women, the government does not allow them to read or even have names that signify independence from men – the main character’s name, Offred, means “of Fred.” Even clothes oppress: for example Offred’s red dress has a “skirt… ankle-length, full, gathered to a flat yoke that extends over the breasts, the sleeves are full” (Atwood 2). This scarlet dress demonstrates her rank as handmaiden, the red color symbolizing her sexual availability for procreative purposes.

As fanatical and unlikely as Atwood’s government seems, it is not much more extreme than some well-known subcultures today. When taken into context with the Duggars’ religion (stars of the former reality TV show 19 Kids and Counting), the religious sect Quiverfull, Atwood’s dystopia seems more immediate and pronounced. The name of the sect comes from Psalm 127:3, “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord. . ./Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.” Like the theocracy in The Handmaid’s Tale, practitioners desire to return to fundamental Biblical principles. Because women in this movement are expected to be homemakers and child-rearers, education beyond high school is discouraged. Modest clothing, such as long skirts and loose tops, are required for women. Birth control of any type is not allowed, due to the fact that they deem separating sex from procreation immoral.

As seen in the case of Josh Duggar, subjugating women under man’s authority leads to their heightened sexualization and exploitation. Josh was raised within the Quiverfull movement and starred on 19 Kids and Counting. He was later found guilty of various sexual offenses, the worst of them the molestation of his younger sisters. His parents covered the crime, and it remained hidden until the investigation by the news website In Touch. The nonchalance of Josh’s parents and their insistence that such “sexual exploration” was normal in their community was as disturbing as the molestation itself.

The psychological damage and fear that Offred endures day to day as a Handmaiden  parallels that of the gross traumas Josh inflicted on the women in his life. Josh’s crimes were hidden until the information was leaked last year, meaning that the victims were forced to keep their trauma quiet for years. Not only that, but Josh later wrote “Modesty was a factor. . . . It was not uncommon for my younger siblings to come out of their baths naked or with a towel.” Here blame is leveled on the victims themselves, small children. Offred too is trapped. She cannot speak to other women except about the barest trivialities, for fear of being spied on and executed. The slightest interactions between men and women are sexualized: “these two men . . . aren’t yet permitted to touch women. They touch with their eyes instead and I move my hips a little, feeling the full red skirt sway around me” (Atwood 4).

Margaret Atwood’s searing and thought-provoking novel demonstrates the ultimate conclusion of systemic female oppression. While I do not believe that modern society as a whole holds such stringent worldviews (there is a reason that Quiverfull is only a small sect), the book can help shed light on the Duggar scandal by imagining a world in which women suffer extreme lack of agency, and the heightened sexualization which occurs when gender roles are enforced.

by Emma Nash

With graduation fast approaching, college seniors everywhere are faced with the terrifying prospect of their impending adulthood. We have reached the point in our lives at which we must start contributing to the nation’s workforce in one way or the other (excluding of course those of us who have deferred in favor of a few years in grad school). Since I understand the horror of not knowing what the future holds, I want to proffer one potential career option to my fellow soon-to-be graduates: why not try your hand at writing Young Adult fiction? It’s an excellent alternative for those of us who are too creative and free-spirited to sit in an office all day. As a YA author, you’ll never have to worry about things like break room etiquette or finding the perfect pair of black slacks for the office.

Toward this goal, here is my (un)patented how-to guide, “How to Write a YA Novel”:

What you’ll need:

1. Spare time
2. MacBook
3. English degree (recommended, not required)

What your story will need:

1. Setting: should be one of the following—
   1. Dystopian America
   2. Future/Space Dystopia
   3. Mythical/Medieval Dystopia
   4. Washington state
2. A corrupt/ totalitarian government, so rigidly evil as to resolve any ethical grey area concerning the protagonist’s choice to oppose it.
3. Strong Female Protagonist who (choose at least 3 of the following):
   1. Recently turned 16, 17, or 18 years old.
   2. Is beautiful, but doesn’t know it. Be sure that this is one of her defining character traits.
   3. Is very slim, usually despite the fact that she never exercises.
   4. Has special previously undiscovered mystical powers.
   5. Is secretly good at archery.
   6. Is missing one or more parent.
   7. Has at least one dependent (perhaps an archetypically innocent little sister?).
   8. Is a lovable loner.
   9. Has an inconvenient/unnecessarily extravagant name (ex. Selene Stonehenge or Alana Fairmeadow).
   10. Bad attitude masquerading as independence.
   11. Has a distinct hairstyle.
   12. Has secret musical ability.
   13. Looks like the author, but isn’t a vehicle for the author to live out her fantasies.
   14. TRUST ISSUES
   15. Is poor.
   16. Secret princess!?!?
   17. Has undergone a traumatizing childhood experience
   18. Is unfailingly, impractically selfless (enough so to make Ayn Rand roll over in her grave).
   19. Makes attempts at witty banter.
   20. Is terminally ill.
   21. Experiences repressed sexual desire.
   22. Isn’t like other girls (exactly how she is so different, we may never know).
   23. Has disturbingly low self-esteem.
4. Gratuitous angst.
5. A plucky best friend (not necessarily human) (not as attractive as protagonist).
6. A love triangle; be sure to note that:
   1. The love interests should be constantly described as vastly different from one another (be sure to never provide any evidence of substantial dissimilarity of character—differences should be purely cosmetic).
   2. One love interest must be familiar, safe, and overly protective. The other must be new, dangerous, and overly protective.
7. Adults who just don’t understand
8. Place names derived from ancient languages.
9. A larger-than-life moral quandary (the answer to which should be obvious to the reader, but utterly indecipherable to the protagonist).

 

And that’s it! If you can fit these elements into your story, you’re guaranteed success as the next big YA author. Look forward to a life of ease and prestige! Well, at least a life of ease.