She Just Snapped: Reality Television, Murder and the Myth Of
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SHE JUST SNAPPED: REALITY TELEVISION, MURDER AND THE MYTH OF FEMININE EVIL by Megan Tomei A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, Florida August 2010 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This manuscript is dedicated to my family, particularly to my mother and boyfriend, Mike, for being supportive and patient with all my research. I appreciate all the help and suggestions they both offered throughout the entire process. I would also like to thank my committee members for their valuable feedback and encouragement. iii ABSTRACT Author: Megan Tomei Title: She Just Snapped: Reality Television, Murder and the Myth of Feminine Evil Institution: Florida Atlantic University Thesis Advisor: Dr. David C. Williams Degree: Master of Arts Year: 2010 Snapped, a documentary style show profiling female killers, is one of Oxygen’s longest running hit franchises. This thesis analyzes, through both the frames of feminist theory and rhetoric, the way the show perpetuates and plays upon the myth of feminine evil as well as the stereotype of women as weak, hysterical agents in need of control. Snapped showcases women who start out as seemingly normal but then enact horrendous crimes. The use of women that the audience can identify with but then later fear creates a cathartic experience in which female audience members can be vicariously cleansed of any dangerous animosity they may possess. The show portrays the many extreme examples as the norm for lethal female violence, but this disregards the fact that a majority of women killers act in self defense. The show distorts the reality of violence against women and supports a stereotype of inherent female criminality. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 RATIONALE .................................................................................................................. 3 METHOD ........................................................................................................................ 9 EPISODES .................................................................................................................... 12 METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................ 15 KENNETH BURKE AND FEMINISM ....................................................................... 16 CHAPTER ONE: REVIEW OF RELEVANT LITERATURE ........................................ 18 RHETORIC AND POPULAR CULTURE................................................................... 19 KENNETH BURKE AND REALITY TELEVISON ................................................... 24 WOMEN AND VIOLENCE ......................................................................................... 37 THE MYTH OF FEMININE EVIL .............................................................................. 40 CHAPTER TWO: REALITY VERSUS FICTION: WOMEN AS VIOLENT MURDERERS .................................................................................................................. 44 NETWORK AND SHOW SUCCESS .......................................................................... 44 DEMOGRAPHICS AND ADVERTISMENTS ........................................................... 47 FAN ANALYSIS AND SHOW PROMOTION ........................................................... 51 BEGINNING OF EPISODES AND AUDIENCE IDENTIFICATION ....................... 56 CONSTRUCTION OF THE SHOW ............................................................................ 59 WOMEN AND VIOLENCE ......................................................................................... 63 CHAPTER THREE: “AND THEN SHE JUST SNAPPED”: SNAPPING, AGENCY AND HYSTERIA ............................................................................................................. 73 DEFINING SNAPPING ............................................................................................... 75 SNAPPING AND AGENCY ........................................................................................ 77 FEMALE HYSTERIA .................................................................................................. 80 VIOLENCE AND PENTADIC ANALYSIS ................................................................ 83 FEMALE MURDERERS AND SUBJECTIVITY ....................................................... 87 CHAPTER FOUR: FRAMING THE MYTH OF FEMININE EVIL .............................. 99 HISTORY BEHIND THE MYTH .............................................................................. 100 SNAPPED AND FEMININE EVIL ........................................................................... 105 CHAPTER FIVE: PATRIARCHAL CATHARSIS AND THE UNDOING OF VIOLENT WOMEN ......................................................................................................................... 115 HISTORY AND DEFINITION .................................................................................. 116 PITY AND FEAR ....................................................................................................... 118 SOCIAL FUNCTION OF CATHARSIS .................................................................... 125 SNAPPED AND CATHARSIS ................................................................................... 130 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 135 WORKS CITED ............................................................................................................. 147 vi INTRODUCTION Oxygen’s website states “[e]ach year, approximately 16,000 people are murdered in the United States. 7% of the killers are female.” And it is this seven percent that are investigated in the documentary style reality show Snapped. Murder has always been an act that has mostly been within the domains of masculinity. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 88.8% of murders are committed by men while females make up only 11.2% of murder perpetrators (“Homicide Trends in the U.S.”, 2010)1. Rarely do we think of women as having the ability – whether it is the aggression, hate or pure physical strength – to commit such a violent and heinous act. The act of murder is one that is seen as deviant within our society but the small number of female killers, as the statistic used by Oxygen attests to, only makes females that much more deviant, not only as societal deviants but as gender deviants as well. The double deviance of these women is part of the appeal of the show. These women are unthinkable existences in our world. Each half an hour episode portrays one woman’s life prior to her “snapping” and the ultimate consequences of that action. The show starts by narrating the woman’s upbringing, family and early history before she ends up meeting – and more commonly marrying – the man she will eventually kill. All 1 Oxygen’s website states that its information is based on “figures from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program” which is why there may be a slight discrepancy in the actual number of female murderers but regardless of the difference it is clear that women acting out in violence that leads to murder is extremely rare and this is what makes this show significant enough for examination. 1 the women chosen for the show are “subjects the average viewer can relate to” according to the show’s producer, at least to a certain extent (as cited in Kingston, 2008 p.121). The “snapped” woman’s middle class upbringings and common struggles create an intended connection between the audience and the “snapped” woman, but that connection is violently shattered when the woman enacts the most atrocious crime possible. This crime is particularly heinous because of the gender deviance it showcases since a woman is supposed to be docile and she is killing someone who - by patriarchal standards - is considered to be superior to her. The show then transitions into the trial phase of the episode in which every lurid and gender deviant detail of the woman’s life is laid out on the table for the “shock and awe” of the viewing audience. The show then runs into another problem when the trial makes apparent that the woman never “snapped” but planned the entire thing. There was no “breaking point” for any of these women; each just saw what she wanted and knew the man in her life was in the way. All the murders shown are calculated and well planned. For some of the crimes, it took years to find all the evidence to prove what happened since many of the women went to great lengths to prevent their crimes from having an obvious perpetrator. This thesis examines the cultural, rhetorical and political implications of a reality television show that presents authentic versions of lethal female violence as opposed to the versions of lethal female violence that could only exist in the sexual fantasies of male writers. The version of lethal female violence that Snapped showcases is extremely rare on television and offers a scarce glimpse into the lives and motives of female killers. Specifically, the focus is on the characterization of each episode as the story of a woman “snapping.” As stated earlier, this is found to be a misnomer that the show 2 readily promotes. The construction of such a paradoxical storyline functions rhetorically in admitting to women’s ability to be violent but reframing this violence