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Sex Under the Stars is Just So Righteous: A Meditation on the Representation of Aileen Wuornos and her Relationship to Discourse
by
ANDREW LAZAROW
Annemarie Bean, Advisor
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Performance Studies
WILLIAMS COLLEGE
Williamstown, Massachusetts
May 2 1,2007 Chapter 1 Representation as a Forced Action: Wow Representation Can Be Used to Understand Discourse
The properties of a thing are effects on other 'things': gone removes other 'thiggs, ' then a thing has no properties, i.e. there is no thing without other things, i.e. there is no thing in itself - Frederick Nietzsche Will to Power.
Imagology insists that the word is never simply a word but is always also an image. The audio-visual trace of the word involves and inescapable materiality that can be thought only fit is figured. The abiding question for conceptual reflection is: How to (dislfigure the wor(l)d. -Mark C. Taylor, Imagologies
To understand these multifnceted relationships, we must consider the politics of representation: that is, the negotiation ofpolitical and moral values, as well as t-he development of an often uneven and contestedpublic understanding of history and its significance. -Melani McAlister Epic Enco~mters
The act of representation is difficult to concisely define. To begin, let us look at the word itself. Its etymology suggests that it comes from Old French, or more likely Latin. The Latin root is the verb repraesentare: re (expressing intensive force)
+ praesentare (to present).' This is the essence of theatre: to present events and situations with intensive force. The connection between representation and theatre becomes more complex as we look at performances that strive to tell the truth about events in the real world. For, as the etymology suggests, representation is always a forced action. Understanding the complex nature of representation will help to shed light on my work while directing Carson Kreitzer's SelfDefense: or Death of Some
Salesmen, inspired by the story of Aileen Wuornos.
The Oxford American Dictionary suggests that this is the etymology of representation. What is more, understanding representation is actually crucial to understanding the events surrounding Aileen Wuornos's conviction and execution.
Things in themselves do not have any single, fixed or unchanging meaning. As Stuart
Hall suggests:
It is by our use of things, and what we say, think and feel about thern-how we represent them-that we give them a meaning. In part, we give objects, people and events meaning by the frameworks of interpretation which we bring to them.2
This suggests that representations of events are not mimetic copies of them; rather, they tell the viewer about the way that meaning is made around them. It uncover:; the discourse of a given culture in a specific time period. To interpret the meaning of'
Aileen Wuornos' case one must understand the roles of representation. The theoretical framework of representation begins with language. Language is the most basic representational system. To use language we utilize signs and symbols to represent our feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and ideas to others. Thus theories used to understand language can be extrapolated to understand other representational systems.
I will use this chapter to explore the constructivist approach to understanding representation, which stems from the notion that representation is a (forced) action.
To do so, I will trace the origins of the semiology from Ferdinand de Sassure to
Roland Barthes. I will then illustrate how the discursive approach of Michel Fouc4ault and Slavoj Zizek responds to semiology and then moves past it by displaying the inevitably of power in every representational system. This theoretical framework .will
2 Stewart Hall. Representation: Cultural Representations and SigniJjiing Practices, (London: Sage, 1997), p. 3. be essential in the following chapters where I examine the discourses of criminology, lesbianism, and hysteria to understand how meaning was created around Aileen
Wuornos. I will conclude this chapter with my understanding of Foucault's essay about Rene Magritte's, Ceci n 'espas une pipe to illustrate how an artistic mode of representation can challenge the discourse. This will be utilized in chapter four, where I look at my work with SeZfDefense.
There are many ways to discuss the ways in which representation furlctions.
Stewart Hall suggests that there are generally three ways of discussing how representation works through language: the reflective approach, the intentional approach, and the constructivist approach. The reflective approach relies upon the understanding that people, objects, and happenings in the world inherently hold meaning. Language here functions as a mirror, "to reflect the true meaning as it already exists in the worldn3 This way of understanding representation is essentially a contemporary counterpart to the Ancient Greek's perception of mimesis. Building upon Aristotle's belief that mimesis is a necessary aspect of theatre, most contemporary productions are rehearsed under guidelines set up by the reflective approach.
The intentional approach suggests that the author projects meaning onto the world by his or her use of language. However, this theory presupposes that the author has complete control over his or her language, and it's repetition. That is to say that the signs and symbols used by the creator are not influenced by the world outside (of the work. It denies the impact of cultural or historical context upon the language
Ibid, 24. itself. The constructivist approach, which my work will utilize, is more complex. As
Hall writes, "It acknowledges that neither things in themselves nor the individual users of language can fix meaning in language. Things don't mean: we conskuct meaning, using representational systems-concepts and signs."4
Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss linguist, was a major force in shaping the constructivist approach by creating the field of semiology. In 1916 Saussure postulated, "Language is a system of signs."5 TO illustrate how meaning is constructed, he broke the concept of the sign down into two elements: the combination of a concept and the sounds that make up words. He writes, "We propose to keep the term sign to designate the whole, but to replace concept and soundpattern respectively by signified and ~i~ni~ier."~ hat is to say that the signifier is the word which relates to the notion of a thing, the signified, to create meaning. For example the word "river" or an image of a river could each be a signifier. These correlate to the concept of a river-the signified. One cannot exi,st without the other. As Saussure writes, "Any linguistic entity exists only in virtue (of the association between signifier and signified. It disappears the moment we concentrate exclusively on just one or the ~ther."~The concept disappears without language, and language cannot exist without the concept.
Saussure took note to stress that linkage between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary. He states, "There is no internal connexion, [sic] for example:, between the idea 'sister' and the French sequence of sounds s-o-r which acts as its
4 Ibid, p. 25. 5 Jonathan Culler, Saziscssure. (London: Fontana, 1976), p, 19. 6 Ferdinand de, Saussure. Course in General Linguistics, (Trans. Roy Harris. Chicago: Open Court, 2007), p. 67. 7 Ibid, p. 101. signifier. The same idea might as well be represented by any other sequence of
sound^."^ Signs do not contain fixed or essential meanings. For example, what lillks the word "women" to the concept of women is not the essence of the word. The word
"women" comes from a binary opposition to the word "men." Saussure believed
"[sligns are members of a system and are defined in relation to the other members of that system."9
To understand the workings of these structures Saussure separated language into two parts, which he called langua andparole. As John Culler concisely states,
"la langun is the system of language, the language as a system of forms, whereas parole is actual speech [or writing], the speech acts which are made possible by the
Langua can be understood as the "underlying rule-governed structure of language, which enables us to produce well-formed sentences."" In other words, it is the rules and structure of language. For example, in English the common sentence construction consists of subject-verb-object. Parole on the other hand is the action of writing, speaking, drawing, or performing. It is the speakers or artists who use of langua.
Half a century later Roland Barthes aspired to advance the work of se:miology.
His project sought to take the field beyond linguistics. In the introduction to
Elements of Semiology Barthes outlines:
In 1916, Saussure postulated the existence of a general science of signs or Semiology, of which linguistics would form only one part. Semiology
Ibid, p. 67-68. Ibid, p. 1 18. This notion gave birth to structuralism, which suggests that things and objects are defined by binary oppositions. This field would later be critiqued by the work of Jacque Derrida. 10 Culler, p. 29. 11 Culler, p. 26. therefore aims to take in any system of signs, whatever their substance andl limits; images, gestures, musical sounds, objects, and the complex associations of all these, which form the content of ritual, convention, or public entertainment: these constitute, if not languages, at least systems of'
significaction.l2
Like the linguistic sign, the semiological sign is made up of signifiers and signifieds; however, it serves a practical purpose as well. Common examples to illustrate
Barthes points are clothing and food. Clothing fi~nctionsboth as protection and as; a sign of one's personality. Food provides nourishment. Yet certain foods are endowed with meaning, such as status symbols or romantic intentions.
Because semiological sign has dual functions, its symbolic system operates on two levels. The sign as understood by Saussure makes up the denoted system (literal meaning) for Barthes. This is the first functionality of Barthes' semiological sign.
The second function of the sign is slightly more complicated. Barthes explaiins:
This recurrent f~lnctionalization,which needs, in order to exist, a second order language, is by no means the same as the first (and indeed ptu-ely ideal) functionalization: for the function which is re-presented does in fact correspond to a second (disguised) semantic institutionalization, which is one of the order of connotation.13
Connatation, this second or disguised function of signs, is also comprised of signi-liers and signifieds. He names the signifiers of connotation, connotators, and points out that they are made up of signs (signifiers and signifieds) of the denoted system.
Barthes points out that Connotators are anthropological in nature. They are tied to1 culture, history, and current beliefs. He suggests, "We might say that ideologv is the
12 Roland Barthes. Elements of Semiology. (Trans. Annette Lavers and Colin Smith. New York: Hill and Wang), 1977. p. 9. l3 Ibid. p. 42. form of the signifieds of connotation, while rhetoric is the form of the c~nnotator:;."'~
Barthes offers readers the following graphic to depict how the semiological sign functions:
I. Signifier 2. Signified 3. Sign I. CONNOTATOR 11. SIGNIFIED
I11 SIGN Figure 1: Barthes' graphic depiction of the sign.15
It is important to remember that for Barthes everything has dual functions, denotative and connotative meaning. Therefore, everything fi~nctionsas a semiological sign. Like Saussure, Barthes believes that the meaning of signs are arbitrary. However, his postulations incorporate culture in a way that Sassure did not imagine. The link between the connotator and its signified is equally as groimdless as the link in the linguistic sign. However, the link in the semiological sign is defined by historical context and culture, not language. That is to say that time, place, arid culture creates meaning. This also carries the implication that meanings mqy shifit through time and space, from one culture to another.
What Barthes does not confront is the implications of power on the semiological sign, and the implications of the sign on individuals. Zizek suggests that the structure of the semiological sign, its Inngun, is oppressive. He writes th~at"the
l4 Ibid, p. 92. 15 The lowercase sign refers to Saussure's notion of the linguistic sign, the first order. The capitalizled sections refer to the second order, connotation. The relationship between the first order and the second order create the completed semiological sign. Roland Barthes, "Myth Today" in Mythologies. (Trans. Annette Lavers. New York: Hill and Wang, 1972), p. 115. symbolic order, the universe of the word,"16 traps the individual's inner-self. Zizek builds his understanding of the sign's power from Jacque Lacan's understanding of the symbolic order and Frederick Hegel's assertion in the Renlphilosphie, "[llanguage is the namegiving power. . . .Through the name the object as individual being is born out of the I."17 This suggests that language, or the sign, creates the I-the individilal.
Again, this understanding of language can be expanded to understand all signs.
After all, this makes sense fi-om our understanding of semiology. Barthes himself suggested that all things, including people and their actions, f~~nctionas semiologicai signs. Therefore they are subject to the symbolic order. However, fix
Zizek the symbolic order "dissects the body and subordinates it to the constraint of the signifying netw~rk."'~Individuals are then forced to construct their identities and tailor their behaviors to Inngun of their connotative systems.19 One must always live under the (arbitrary) meanings of signs within his or her culture. This integration of signs and their inherent relationships to power places Zizek's work in the discursive method of understanding representation.
This field of theory was formulated by the work of Michel Foucault. Foucault took semiology's model of understanding how meaning can be made through language and used it to analyze the ways in which knowledge is created thro~ugh discourse. In The Order of Things he writes that his body of work was dedicated to exploring "how human beings understand themselves in our culture" and how our
l6 Slavoj Zizek. Enjoy Your Symptom. (New York: Routlage, 2001), p. 50 17 Quoted from Donald Phillip Verene, Hegel's Recollection (Albany: SUNY Press, 1985), pp. 7-8. 18 Zizek, Enjoy. p. 51. 19 Slavoj Zizek. The Sublime Object of Ideology. (London: Verso, 1989), p. 57. knowledge about "the social, the embodied individual and shared meanings" comes to exist in different moments of space and time.20
Foucault's cliscot~rseis indebted to the langua of Barthes' connotative order.
It can simply be defined as the constructed set of rules and practices that produce meaning in a given time and place. It can also be understood as the production of meaning through culture. Things exist in the world as things-in-themselves; however, discourse is what endows them with meaning and thus produces knowledge. It creates the topics that a given culture chooses to investigate. Moreover, it determines how that topic will be discussed and thought about. One must remember that discourse never refers to one belief, statement, or text. It spans across texts, fields, and institutions within a specific historical context. As Hall explains, discourse is "a way of representing the knowledge about a particular topic at a particular historical moment. [.. .] But since all social practices entail meaning, and meaning shapes influence what we do-our conduct-all practices have a discursive elementm2'
Every social action and interaction both contributes to and operates under thle rule,s of discourse.
Yet, discourse differs from Barthes' langua and connotative system in one major way. Its focus is the relationship to power, not the relationship of meaning.
Foucault explicates this difference:
I believe one's point of reference should not be to the great model of language (langua) and signs, but to that of war and battle. The history which bears and
20 Michel Foucault. The Order of Things. (New York: Random House, 1994), p. xxii 21 Stewart Hall, "The West and the Rest," in Formations of Modern&. (Hall, S and Gieben, B. eds. Cambridge: Open University, 1992), p.291 determines us has the form of a war rather than that of a language: relations of power not relations of meaning.22
Like Zizek's ~~nderstandingof the symbolic system, Foucault believes that power and oppression are inseparable from disco~irse.To trace the trajectory of power and oppression one must deconstruct specific concepts by analyzing the contemporary discourse.
If I wish to understand "lesbianism," "criminality," and "hysteria" I have to dissect statements about these subjects which give us the knowledge we think we have today. Then 1 must unpack the rules that prescribe ways of talking about them, and exclude other ways. It would suit me to locate a subject who personifies the discourse of these concepts, such as Aileen Wuornos. This study would also include the ways in which our historical moment takes its knowledge of these subjects as ithe
"truth" about them. The practices within institutions for dealing with the subjects are also important. Lastly, it is crucial to remember that a given discotirse is not fixecl or eternal; other discourses can arise in a later historical moment.23
According to Foucault knowledge and tnith are historicized. The truths created by discourse are only true in specific historical moments. For example, in the
19'h Century it was commonly believed that hysteria was an exclusively female malady.24 Foucault himself outlines how "in less than half a century, the medical understanding of disease transformed," as doctors discovered that disease lived within the body, not separately outside.25 This marks a major discursive shift: one which gave more importance to the doctor's "gaze," and ability to read what Foucault called
22 Michel Foucault. Power/Kno~vledge.(Trans. Colin Gordon New York: Harvester, 1980), p. 114. 23 This method of understanding discourse is laid out in Foucault's The Order of Things. 24 The history of hysteria within psychoanalysis will be explicated in the following chapter. 25 Michel, Foucault. The Birth of the Clinic. (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 2. "the visible body of the patient-following routes laid down in accordance with a now familiar geometuy.. .the anatomical atlas."26 oreo over, the new focus on the doctor's gaze inherently earned him respect as well as increased power in his relationships to patients.
This goes to illustrate Foucault's argument that truth is always related to power. Truth is always a constructed idea. And those with the power to speak can make their ideas true, both in terms of discourse and its real effects. "Truth isn't outside power," Foucault writes:
Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each society lias its regime of truth, its 'general politics' of truth; that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes ft~nctionsas true, the mechanisms and inqt ances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means lby which each is sanctioned . . . the status of those who are charged with saying what co~~ntsas true.27
Power is also implicated in the question of whether and in what ways, knowledge is to be applied or withheld. Power thus uses knowledge (or the rehsal to share it) as a method of maintaining the status quo. Or as Zizek would suggest, those who challenge the symbolic system must be severely punished to allow the system to continue its reign. Foucault explains that this punishment is exercised through many forms such as:
Discourses, institutions, architectural arrangements, regulations, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophic propositions, morality, philanthropy . . . . The apparatus is thus always inscribed in a play of
26 Ibid. pp. 3-4. 27 Foucault. Power/Knuwledge. p. 131. power, but it is also always linked to certain co-ordinates of knowledge. . . . This is what the apparatus consists in: strategies of relations of forces supporting and supported by types of knowledge.28
He also points out that power does not function as a unidirectional chain. Nor does it radiate from one center. It is "deployed and exercised through a net-like organi~ation."~~Power relations exist on all levels of social existence. To maintain the status quo, society: publishes books, treatises, regulations, debates in congress, legal briefs, appeals, creates court tv, televises confessions, etc. Efforts to control sexuality can be seen in: refusals to talk about sex, television, sermons and legislations, novels, magazine features, medical advice, essays, the pornography industry, etc. Foucault would call these multifaceted methods of control "meticul~ous rituals," or "microphysics of power."30
In 1968 Foucault wrote "This is not a pipe" as a tribute to his friend IRene
Magritte. The essay is a short meditation on Magritte's surrealist painting, Ceci n 'esetpas une pipe. His reading of Magritte's work will allow me to tie together .the notion of discourse, the function of the sign, and ways to challenge the symbolic order.
28 Michel Foucault, Discipline ce Punish. (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 195-196. '' Ibid. p. 98. 30 Ibid. p. 27. I The text translates to, "This is not a pipe." I
Foucault puts fonvard that there are three ways of understanding Magritte's painting. The first is to say that the painting illustrates the subjective nature of the sign-the groundless relationship between signifier and signified. He understands the relationship between the text and the image to say, "This" (the concept of a pipe) "is not7' (is not inherently bound to, and does not actually cover the same ground as) "a pipe" (the word in our language, which is made up by the letters on the canvas)."
9 is not [a pipe]
Foucault demonstrates that there is simultaneously a second meaning within the painting. It reminds viewers that the sign cannot point to a thing, but only to the concept of the thing. The painting can be read as, "This" (This lime of text comprised
31 Michel Foucault, "This is not a Pipe" in Aesthetics, Method and Epistemology. (Ed. James. D. Faubion. Trans. Robert Hurley, et al. New York: New Press, 1998), p. 192. 32 Ibid p. 192. of disconnected elements, of which this is the first word and the signifier), "is not"
(can not adequately represent, nor ever be equal to) "a pipe" (the actual object, unapproachable by any name we can give it.)33
Foucault suggests that these two readings negate one another, because the signifier and signified are reciprocally dependent upon one another. As Saussure suggests, one cannot exist without the other. "Hence," Foucault writes:
The third function of the statement: 'This' (this ensemble constituted by a written pipe and a drawn text) 'is not' (is incompatible with) 'a pipe' (this mixed element springing at once from discourse and the image, whose ambiguous being the verbal and visual play of the calligram wants to evoke).35
This + + isnot + a\ [this is not a pipe] Figure 5: A graphic offered by Foucault to understand this final meaning,. from "This is not a pipe." 36
We must note that Magritte's surrealist work is radically different from the classical artists who came before him. By classical artists I mean those who believe that their work operates under the reflective or intentional workings of representation.
33 Ibid, p. 193. 34 Ibid p. 193. 35 Ibid p. 193. 36 Ibid p. 193. Foucault believed that the realm of classical painting "reintroduced discourse" by reaffirming the linkage between image, word, and concept. 37 Classical artwork masks the workings of signification, giving complicit support to the relationship between sign and signifier. That is to say that traditional art confirms the power of the symbolic order under which it operates. This in turn reintroduces discourse.
Magritte's painting primarily differs because he is a constructionist. Ceci n 'es pas une pipe illustrates the workings of the sign, reminding viewers that representation is comprised of signifiers and signifieds. This inclildes an emphasis on how signifieds are only notions of a thing, not the thing itself. More interestingly.,if
Foucault's readings are correct, Magritte departs from Sa~~ssureand Barthes. His painting problematizes the sign in a way that points to discursive theory. It shows us that the link between signifiers and signifieds is gro~mdless,but not arbitrary. The relationship is caught, fixed, and trapped by discourse. Foucault writes, "Ceci n 'es pas une pipe exemplifies the penetration of discourse into the form of thingsn3' That is to say that the painting charts how discourse bleeds into, makes up, and traps the symbolic order. It illustrates how the symbolic order ensnares all things, and thus discourse encapsulates all reason. Magritte's seemingly paradoxical painting depicts the span of power through disco~lrse.This uncovering of the span and power of discourse can be read as an attack upon it. Thus, Ceci n 'espas unepipe exhibits how an artist's method of using representation can itself be a political act-an attack upon the power structures behind discourse.
37 Ibid p. 201-202. 38 Ibid p. 197. Chapter Two The Impossible and Inevitable Killer: Discourse and the Violent, Hysterical, Female Invert
Some portion of what we men call 'the enigma of women' may perhaps be derived from this expression of homosexuality in women S lives. -Sigmund Freud, "Femininity"
This sounds extreme, of course, perhaps even hysterical that feminists whom phallocrats fairly reasonably judge to be lesbians, have the power to bring down civilization, to dissolve the social order as we know it, to cause the demise of the species by their mere existence. -Marilyn Frye, Politics of Reality
The enigma is the structure of the veil suspended between contraries. -Jacques Derrida, Glas
Chapter one explains how meaning is created through the act of representation, and how discourse determines how meaning is made. In this chapter 1 intend to examine the discourse operating above, and around Aileen Wuornos. To do so I will look at the historical understanding of lesbian sexuality, criminality, and psychoanalysis. I will also show how these fields have progressed and the ways in which they are positioned in modern discourse.
By 1900 criminology, sexology, and psychoanalysis all rendered the lesbian as a violent threat. I will first illustrate how lesbianism and prostitution entered the legal discourse. I will then demonstrate how sexology created the concept olf the dangerous "female invert7'to explain lesbianism. Criminology used the notion of -the female invert to construct another group of violent women comprised of "born offenders." Freud, building off sexology's invert while constructing his own, connects the invert to hysteria which he laces with meanings of criminality. I will1 conclude this chapter with a brief investigation of hysteria and its progression towards borderline personality disorder. These approaches will be utilized in the followin,g chapter to uncover how this discourse functioned within the Wournos case. My
analysis is not clean; this chapter's explorations of these disciplines will blentd together. The interplay between these fields is endless. As Foucault suggests, an
accurate study cannot neatly line up the complex relationship history and power do
not neatly line up. These microphysics of power feed upon, influence, and repeat lone
another.
In Fatal Women Lynda Hart points readers to an interesting moment in history
that is often overlooked. Many know that modern legal sanctions against
homosexuality began in Victorian England with the enforcement of sodomy laws.
The position that the same legislatures took regarding lesbianism is rarely spoken
about. In 1921, while discussing sodomy laws, the British Parliament asked Lord
Desart, the British director of public Prosecutions, if the government should instill
legal sanctions against lesbianism He responded: "You are going to tell the whole
world that there is such an offense, to bring it to the notice of women who have never
heard of it, never thought of it, never dreamt of it. I think that is a very great
mischief."39
The parliament swiftly agreed with Desart's answer. The existence of
lesbians was imagined by men at the time to be utterly destructive. They believed
that the presence of female desire towards women would undo the very fabric of the
symbolic order. Thus, they refused to allow it to enter the symbolic. Members of
parliament believed that if they denied Desire among women a signifier, then the
signified could not exist. However, it is more complex than this. We recall ithat the
39 Lynda Hart, Fatal Women, (NJ: Princeton, 1994), p. 3. signified is not "the thing" but on "the notion" of the thing. This means that the thing can still exist without a signified-desire among women could continue.
Therefore, it was not enough for men in power to attempt erasing lesbianism from the symbolic order. Parliamentarians sought to keep it hidden while criminalizing it. Ruthann Robson's writings demonstrate how a British history of' legal sanctions against lesbianism. As she suggests, it is a history where "the danger of mentioning the act outweighs the danger of not criminalizing that act."40 While lesbianism and homosexuality was never labeled as the offense, many lower-class women were imprisoned for illegal acts related to lesbianism, such as "crimes against chastity" or "lewd and lascivious behavior." 41 Lillian Faderman's work shows th,at in many cases these women were also accused of assuming "male" privileges, "either by cross-dressing, using phallic prosthesis, et~."~~
Eventually legislative bodies sought to find one legal term that could be executed in these cases. This is the moment when the term prostitute first enters the legal discourse. Robson maps out how legislatures began using prostitution as the
"umbrella term for women's sexual tran~~ression."~~Prostitution's entry into the legal discourse endowed it with all of the meanings of lesbianism.
I will now shift briefly from the discourse of criminality to sexology in orcler to explore how the meaning of lesbianism has been constructed. In 1897 Hawelock
Ellis published Studies in the Psychology of Sex, the first medical text to addlress homosexuality in women. Ellis argues that homosexuality is more common among
- 40 Ruthann Robson, Lesbian (0ut)lmv. (Ithaca: Firebarnd, 1992), p. 41. '' Ibid, pp. 3 1-32. 42 Lillian Faderman, Surpassing the love of Men. (New York: William and Morrow, 1981), p. 37. 63 Ruthann Robson, Lesbian (0ut)knv. (Ithaca: Firebarnd, 1992), pp. 31-32. women of the "lower-races," the working class, the criminally violent, and prostitutes." As Lynda Hart points out, Ellis's work begins the trajectory in which
"[tlhe invert in sexological disco~xsewas not identified merely as a sexual subject, but was always also a race- and class-specific entity."45
Ellis divided lesbians into two subgrotlps. The first is the "occasional lesbian." These are women who fornicate with other women from time to time, but not often. Their same-sex sexual interactions are caused by circumstance. Such as constant exposure to same-sex environments, or the inability to find available men.
Ellis spends a majority of his text examining the "born lesbian" which he terms the
"female invert." He argues that the distinctive characteristic of the invert was "a distinct trace of masculinity."46 He takes care to explain that this does not mean that the invert appears physically mannish. Rather, the invert adopts masculine clothing, gestures, and manners. Ellis states in the attempt to achieve masculinity the femalle invert is cold towards men, "often showing them her repulsion."47
Near the end of his st~tdy,Ellis takes care to comment on the homosc:xual nature of prostit~~tes.His studies found that in western cultures lesbian tendencies; are present within 25% of prostitutes-a far higher percentage than among "normal" women." He sites two reasons for this. One being that the economic drive behind prostitutes' professional interactions diminishes the possibility of sexual satisfaction with men. More interestingly however, is Ellis's second explanation, upon which he
44 Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex,(Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2001). p. 118. 45 Hart, p. 4. 46 Ellis, p. 140. 47 Ibid, p. 134. 48 Ibid, p. 149. places his emphasis. "It must be borne in mind," he writes, "that in a very large number of cases, the prostitute shows [. . .] many of the signs of the neurotic heredity, of physical and mental 'degeneration,' so that it is almost possible to look upon prostitutes as a special human variety analogous to the instinctive criminals."49 Since prostitutes are "a special human variety" they become homosexual through circumstance, but are not "occasional lesbians." According to Ellis their perpetual neurosis converts the lesbian prostitutes into the female invert. Thus Ellis's understanding of the prostitute is inherently tied to both madness and criminality.
The ties between the female invert and crime only begin there for Ellis. His work suggests that the female invert is more violent than her male counterpart. Ellis writes, "A considerable proportion of the number of cases in which inversio~ihas led to crimes of violence . . . has been among women."50 Nearly all of the women in
Ellis's case studies who were not prostitutes, were lesbians who murdered, or lesbians who had attempted murder. His studies included the "Memphis Case" (in which a woman attempted to cross-dress, take a male name, then marry and kill her female lover), and the "Tiller Sisters" (in which a sister, coaxed by her "congenitally inverted" sister, broke into a male's apartment and murdered him). Ellis's findings assert that these actual and attempted murders are carried out by "Typical Female
~nverts."~~
Studies in the Psychology of Sex became the foundational text of sex~ology.
His connections between the female invert, violence, and prostitution continue to inform the current discourse of the field. In 1987 Robert Leger, a sociologisl, wanted
49 Ibid, p. 150. Emphasis added. 50 Ibid, p. 119. 51 Ibid, p. 120. to study the nature of incarcerated lesbians. He cited Ellis's understanding olf sexology to support his claim that there are inherent differences between 'born' lesbians (understood as Ellis's female invert) and those who became lesbian:; due to
'importation.' His study was devoted to uncovering the differences between these two types of lesbians within the prison system. Leger's sample of "born lesbians" consisted of women convicted of murder, armed robbery, and aggravated assault.
His sample of imported lesbians included women who had been convicted of a range of crimes, from assault and battery, to armed robbery, to petty theft. Leger concludes his study with the assertion "born lesbians" are more violent, criminalistic, and sexually active.j2
The overlaps between sexology and criminology have become apparent.
While sexology pei-petuates the belief that the female invert is intrinsically violent and criminalistic, criminology operates with the belief that the female criminal is inherently lesbian. As Hart writes, "[Ilt is the wedding of these two discourses that produces the paradoxical object-the 'impossible' lesbian, who was always alreadiy a criminal."j3
Caesar Lombroso became the "father of criminal anthropology" in 1893 when he published his text The Female offender. Lombroso began his anthropological approach in response to the failure of doctors to find any notable differences between
52 Robert G. Leger, "Lesbiansim among Women Prisoners." (Criminal Justice andBehuvior 14, no. 4 1987), p. 462. 53 Hart, p. 11. j4 The Female Offender drew praise from Ellis. Ellis later supported Lombroso's work with his own study The Criminal. the skull of Charlotte Corday and the skulls of other assassin^.^^ His analysis was based upon the measurements of subjects' skulls, brains, anklebones, finger lengths, field of vision, slants within subjects' handwriting, pitch of voice, and the number of grey hairs, wrinkles, and tattoos.
Lombroso divided women into three categories: the normal, the occasional offender, and the born offender. He was interested external signs, hoping to1 find the marks of the "born offender" to render her visibly recognizable. In a chapter titled
"Photographs of Criminals and Prostitu~tes"Lombroso catalogues the physicial features that mark born offenders. For Lombroso these define the born offender, which suggesting prostitutes are just as threatening violent criminals. After ;analyzing the physical marks he concludes that female offenders "belong more to the niale than the female sex."56 f he born female offenders in The Female Offender approximate the male gender through dress, behavior and appearance. Even her eroticism is described as a perversion of male lust, with the assertion that "insatiable egotism" replaces her capacity for love.s7
Lombroso concludes by describing a subset within born female offenders,
"the hysterical offender," which he came to understand through a study with 83 subjects. All of the brandings of the born offender apply to these women; however, they have several additional characteristics. Lombroso found "hysteria leads to false
55 Corday became a heroine of France when she assassinated Jean-Paul Marat in 1793. Lombroso believed that because she must be different from other assassins because she was both female:, and her killing benefitted France. Caesar Lombroso, The Female Offender (New York: D. Fred B. Rothman, 1980), p. 2. 56 Ibid, p. 153. 57 Ibid, p. 159. witness, and they stir up law and authority against pretended culprits."58 In addition to perpetrating violent crimes, hysterical offenders often blame others as the cause of their own illegal activity, in many cases their own victim. He also asserts th.at hysterical offenders "are remarkably erotic. All the criminality of the hysterical subject has reference to the sexual f~mctions."~~The analysis points out that 12% of the subjects worked as prostitutes, despite financial stability, while "three committed monstrous excesses."60
What complicates The Female Offender is Lombroso's belief that all wom.en contain inside themselves a harmless-criminal. This motivated the need to s,tress motherhood, marriage, absence of sexual desire, "and the underdeveloped intelligence which keep the latent criminality of all women under check."61 For Lombroso, when these elements are lacking, as in the case of the lesbian "the innocuous semi.- criminal present in the normal woman must be transformed into a born criminal more terrible than any man."62 Therefore, when a normal woman strays from the norm:., of heterosexuality she may become the most dangerous of criminals, the femalie born offender.
It is important to notice here that Lombroso's understanding of the female born offender is strikingly similar to Ellis's definition of the female invert.
Criminology's roots rely upon the assertion that that the female invert-the lesbian-is inherently criminal. This link between gender, sexuality, and criminality has been perpetuated within the field of criminology up to our contemporary moment.
58 Ibid, p. 219. 59 Ibid p, 224. 60 Ibid, p. 224. 61 Ibid, p. 106. 62 Ibid, p. 15 1. Hart suggests, "This is a wedding that has continued well into the twentieth century.
Because empirical analyses unfailingly report that males far outnumber females in the perpetration of violent crimes, criminology is an area in which gender dimorphisrri seems to be rigidly ~onfirmed."~~
That is to say that criminology appears to have rejected the basic tenant of women and gender studies, that sex and gender are not the same thing. Ngajre
Naffine confirms this in her work Female Crime. She asserts that because criminologists believe "crime is symbolically masculine and masculinity supplies the motive for a good deal of crime," crime itself is gendered within the field.64
According to Naffine contemporary criminologists say that violent crimes are perpetrated by men, though sometimes "women become men" and perform violent acts.65
This gender division actually informed the contemporary understanding of' serial killing. The term was coined by Robert Ressler, co-founder of the FBlI's psychological profiling programme. Ressler believes serial killers (formerly labeled
"lust killers") always operate from sexual motives. 66 That is to say power artd sex become intertwined, as they become sexually aroused by power. "Serial killers,"
Ressler explains, "are obsessed with a fantasy, and they have what we must call nonfulfilled experiences that become part of a fantasy and push them on towards the next killing. That is the real meaning behind the term serial killer."67 For Ressler
63 Hart, p. 13. 64 Ngaire Naffine, Female Crime (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1988), p. 43 65 Ibid, p. 45. 66 Robert Ressler, et al. Sexual Homicide. (New York: Free Press, 1995), p. 137. 67 Robert Ressler and Tom Shachtman, Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the F.B.I. (New York: St. Martin, 1992), p. 33. serial killing is strictly a male act. "Women," he writes, "are not capable, either psychologically, sociologically, or physiologically, of moving into what for centuries has been largely unchallenged domain of men."68 Ressler's influence upon the construction of serial killers can best be seen in the writing of Steven Egger, a criminologist with the FBI, who offers the most commonly used interpretation of serial killers:
All known cases of serial killers are males. Serial killers commit subsequent murder(s) and they are relationship-less (victim and attacker are stramgers). [. . .] Killers are fi-equently committed in different or widespread geographic locations and not for any material gain, but a compwlsive act for gratification based on fantasies . . . victims share common characteristics of what ,are perceived to be prestigeless, powerless, or lower socio-economic stxh~.,such as vagrants, prostitutes, homosexuals, children, single and often elderly women. And most of these murders have a basis of underlying sexu,al conflicts of sadistic lust. Many of these aberrants vent their hostile impulses through cruelty to animals, but their real hatred is against their fellow man.69
Criminology's institutionalized focus on gender and sexuality of crime is built upon the framework of The Female Offender. All female criminals-especially serial)^ killers-must essentially be male, with a perversion of male lust. In other words a female criminal, according to this logic, must be the female invert.
The psychoanalytic approach to understanding women places lesbians witlhin the same discourse as sexology's map of the female invert, and criminology's female born offender. The French philosopher Sarah Kofman explains that as a young man
Sigmund Freud approached a prostitute in Genoa Italy. The prostitute threatened to
68 Ressler, Sexual Homicide, p. 195. 69 Steven A. Egger, "A Working Definition of Serial Murder and the Reduction of Linkage Blindness," (Journal of Police Science andddministration, 12, no. 3 1984): 350. attack the young Freud, and he fled from her on foot. Since that moment Freud had an underlying belief that femininity was linked to criminality, Kofman believes. She suggests Freud approached "the enigma of woman" with the belief "that women were
'great criminals' but [he] nevertheless strove [. ..] to pass them off as hysterics."70
This can be seen in Freud's works since Studies in Hysteria, wherein he callis the female patients "accomplices." Rather than directly calling his patients female inverts or born offenders, he uses the term "hysterics."
Since "Taboo of Virginity" Freud represents women as a threat because thjeir difference makes them "for ever incomprehensible and mysterious, strange and therefore apparently h~stile."~'This trajectory becomes parallel to the discourses of sexology and criminology in "On Narcissism," where Koffman argues that Freud
"opened up the possibility [. . .] of conceptualizing the enigma of woman along the lines of the great criminal."72Freud most concisely lays out his theories of sexuality in this piece. He proposes that all sexuality begins with narcissism, seeking oneself.
This logically progresses towards a period of homosexual attractions, seeking onesself in the other. The third step is a desire for that which is other-heterosexuality. Freud calls the desire for the other, object-directed desire. It would be an oversimplification to stop with this description. For Freud's analysis is strictly gendered. Men often finish the progression, moving towards loving women, as one loves an object. Whereas women, unable to pass through the first stage, are
70 Sarah Kofman, Freud and the Enigma of Woman, (trans. Catherine Porter, Ithaca: Cornell: 1985), p. 66. Sigmund Freud, "The Taboo of Virginity," The Standard Edition of the Complete Works qfsigmzmd Freud, (ed and trans. J. Strachey, London: Hogarth, 1957), 11 :I98 72 Koffrnan, p. 65 autoerotic. They seek to satisfy themselves while being indifferent to their l'ove object.
Women's inability to have object-directed desire, however, does not exclude them from experiencing object love. Freud believes that women can achieve this through childbirth, which serves as both the normal women's escape from narcissj.sm and the method for "anchoring the wandering womb of the hysteric."73There are exceptions in Freud's analysis, women who can reach object-directed desire without giving birth. He writes, "These are women who before puberty [. . .I feel masculine and develop some way along masculine lines, after this trend has been cut sh~orton their reaching female maturity, they still retain the capacity of longing for a masculine ideal-an ideal which is in fact a survival of the boyish nature that they themselves once possessed."74just like the male stages of sexuality, these inverted women desire what they once where and what they are not. Freud believes that they become caught up in the discourse of the phallocentrism. These women with masculine desires become hysterics because of their inability to fulfill that desire.
Like Lombroso, Freud suggests that all women contain the possibility of hysteria (or criminality), and the risk can only be averted by maintaining traditional gender roles. This suggests that hysteria is inevitable for the inverse "exceptions."'
What separates the hysteric from the true criminal for Freud is the possibility of collaborating with a doctor. He ties his field to the writings of his contempoirary criminologists by comparing the work of the therapist to that of the examining magistrate. "We have to uncover the hidden psychic material; and in order to do tlnis
73 Sigmund Freud, "On Narcissism, an Introduction." (eds. Peter Fonagy et al, New Haven: Yale, 1991), 14:90. 74 Ibid. 14:91. we have invented a number of detective devices, some of which it seems that you gentlemen of the law are now about to copy from us."75 While criminology has the same task of uncovering hidden truths, Freud states that the true criminal will never cooperate with justice.
The foundational theorist of treating hysteria was Jean-Martin Charcot, who worked in Paris at the Salpetrikre. Charcot differed from psychiatrists working with hysteria before him by suggesting that hysteria afflicts both men and women.
Salpgtrikre was the first clinic dedicated to hysteria with a male wing. However, elements of the previous discourse continued to influence Charcot. He always believed that the ailment was symbolically and medically feminine. Elaine Showallter points out that Charcot defined the future understanding of hysteria because :he "was able to prove that hysterical symptoms, while produced by emotions rather than by physical injury were genuine, and not under the conscious control of the patilent." '6
Freud, a student of Charcot's in 1885, would later credit Charcot for legitimizing hysteria as a disorder while his "work restored dignity to the subject.""
The representation of female hysteria was the central aspect of his project.
Charcot's work was well known for being highly theatrical. He is among the: first lecturers to include visual aids: pictures, graphs, and illustrations. He often clisplayed patients suffering from extreme episodes in his Tuesday lectures, which drew cro~rds made up of students, colleagues, journalists, novelists, and actors. Charcot lined the
75 Sigmund Freud, "Psycho-Analysis and the Establishment of the Facts in Legal Proceedings," in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychologicnl Works of Sigmund Freud (S.E.), ed. and trans. James Strachey et al. (London: Hogarth Press, 1953-1974),9:108. 76 Elaine Showalter, The Female Malady, (London: Virago, 1987), p. 147. 77 Sigmund Freud, "Charcot" in Jones E. (ed.) CollectedPapers, Vol. 1. (London: Hogarth, 19148), p. 18 walls of Salp2trikre with photographs of his patients. As Showalter observes, "His hysterical women patients were surrounded by images of female
However, his work seemed to stop there. Rather than try to explain the causes or cures of hysteria, Charcot only sought to legitimize it through representation and reproduction.
Freud was greatly influenced by Charcot, and would cite his lectures at
Salp6trikre throughout St~ldiesin Hysteria. It is in this watershed text that Freud and
Breuer depart from past understandings and introduce the term "traumatic hysteria."
They argue that the symptoms of hysteria are not caused by physical stimuli; rather they are a result of "the affect of fright, the psychical trauma."79 They believed these traumas often trace back to childhood, and that they established a symptom that would be latent for years before eventually rising to the surface. It is also within this text that Freud and Breuer first offers the notion of the talking cure:
For we found at first to our great surprise [. . .] that the individual hysterical symptoms disappeared immediately and did not recur if we succeeded in wakening the memory of the precipitating event with complete clarity [.. .] and put words to the affect." In his later work Freud addressed hysterical patients' compulsion to repeat their traumatic events. In Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety he suggests that this compulsion is actually a result of repression itself:
We found that the perceptual content of the exciting experiences and the representational content of pathogenic structures of thought were forgotten and debarred from being reproduced in memory, and we therefore colncluded
78 Showalter, p. 149. 79 Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer, Studies in Hysteria. (Trans. Nicola Luckhurst, New York.: Penguin, 2004), p. 9. Ibid, p. 10. that the keeping away from consciousness was the main characteristic of hysterical repression"81
He suggested that if a person does not remember, he is likely to act out. "He reproduces it not as an action; he repeats it, without knowing, of course, that he is repeating, and in the end, we understand that this is his way of remembering."82
Freud claimed the crucial factor in repetition of trauma is the presence of mute experiences.
These views offered by Freud regarding hysterical trauma still define much of contemporary psychiatry, though the field has essentially abandoned the tern1 hysteria. Recent work shows that memory is flexible. New ideas can only be, understood in the schema defined by old ideas and memories. When a traumatic event occurs it causes stress, and often cannot fit into old network. Severe and prolonged stress can suppress hippocampal functioning, creating context free, fearful
association^.^^ This results in amnesia for the specifics of a traumatic event, but not the feelings. The experience cannot be understood on a linguistic model. Thus, a:;
Bessel van der Kolk suggests, "A sudden and passively endured trauma is relived repeatedly, until a person learns to remember simultaneously the affect and cognition associated with the trauma through access to languagems4
Psychiatrists believe that a prolonging of these symptoms can cause borderline personality disorder, hysteria's closest cousin. The disorder is primarily diagnosed
Sigmund Freud, Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety. (Trans. Alix Strachey. New York: W.W. Norton, 1989), p. 87. 82 Ibid. p. 78. 83 L. Nadel and Morgan S. Zola. "Infantile Amnesia: A Neurobiological Perspective." In Infant Memory, (ed. M. Moskovitz. New York: Plenum, 1984). 84 Bessel A. van der Kolk, et al. "The Psychological Processing of Traumatic Experience: Rorschachl Patterns in PTSD." (Journal of Traumatic Stress 2:259-79, 1989), p. 271 among women.85 The symptoms related to trauma remain present; however, they are not utilized to identify a borderline personality. Five out of following eight criteria are needed for diagnosis:
1. Impulsivity or unpredictability in at least two areas that are self- damaging-spending, sex, gambling, substance use. 2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships. 3. Inappropriate, intense anger or lack of control of anger 4. Identity disturbance manifested by uncertainty about self-image, gender identity, and values. 5. Affective instability-marked shifts from normal mood to depression, irritability or anxiety. 6. Intolerance of being alone. 7. Physically self-damaging acts-suicidal gestures, self-mutilation 8. Chronic feelings of emptiness or boredom.86
Not all of these criteria necessarily imply insanity. Many of them can be understootl. as indications that a person operates outside of the mainstream.
When the disorder itself is gendered, it can easily be found among woimen who challenge the norms of traditional gender roles. This infuses borderline personality disorder the implications of hysteria. Therefore, women diagnosed as borderline are instantly connected to sexology's female invert and criminology's born female offender. If a woman is defined as any one of these threats, she is instantly labeled as all three. It easy to see how these discourses solve the enigma of women:
If they stray from the prescribed rules, render them criminal.
85 M. Swartz , D. Blazer, L George , I Winfield. "Estimating the prevalence of borderline personality disorder in the community." (Journal of Personality Disorders, 1990; 4(3):257-72), p. 260. 86 Zanarini MC, Frankenburg. "Pathways to the development of borderline personality disorder." (Journal of Personality Disorders, 1997; 1 l(1):93-104.), p. 98. Chapter Three Sex Under the Stars is Just So Righteous: Mow Discourse Solved the Enigma of Aileen Wuornos.
The first point is that those which are ineffective without each other must be united in a pair. For example the union of male andfemale. Or the combination of ruler and ruled. [...I Women are the slaves of the poor." -Aristotle, The Politics
This thought which impregnates all discourses, including common-sense olnes, is [...I the thought of domination. Its body of discourses is constantly reinforced on all levels of social reality and conceals the political fact of the subjugation of (onesex by the other, the compulsory character of the category itselJ:[...I [Flor sex is a category which women cannot be outside oJ: Wherever they are, whazever they do (including working in the public sector), they are seen (and made) :iexuar'ly available to men, and they, breasts, buttocks, costume, must be visiblle. -Monique Wittig, "The Category of Sex"
Me and Ty were sitting around one night watching HBO, and Roseanne Barr was on ...you know her? Well, she was talking about how nobody fieaked out any moire about male serial killers because they kind of expect it, but fa woman is GI sericrl killer, man, people freak out and call her a man-hater. I thought all that stuffwas so funny 'cause I'm sitting there thinking, 'She's talking about me. ' -Aileen Wuornos
Aileen Carol Wuornos was put to death by the state of Florida on October 9th
2002 via lethal injection. In the last decade of her life Aileen Wuornos become labeled in the media as "the first female serial killer," and "the damsel of death." She received six death sentences for the murders of Richard Mallory (killed November
3oth,1989), David Spears (June 1, 1990), Charles Carskaddon (June 6, 1990), Toqr
Burress (August 4, 1990), Dick Humphreys (September 12, 1990), and Walter Jenlo
(Gino) Antonio, (November 19, 1990.) Aileen was also suspected of killing Peter
Siems on July 4th,1990. This case never went to court because Siems's body is still missing. Aileen did confess to the seven killings, but not to murder. She claimed that these were seven different acts of self-defense. Wuornos was a lesbian, and until her arrest worked as a prostitute along I-'75.
In many ways she was the impossible. She was a female prostitute accused of serial killing, who claimed that she acted in self-defense. Prostitution has a very specific place within our symbolic order. As Lynda Hart writes, "prostitutes in a patriarcky are both necessary and utterly dispensable. Usually they are the prey, not the predators."87 Prostitutes have been the most common victims of serial killings since
Jack the hpper killed prostit~~tesin 1888. As Dateline's Jane Pauley reported, "This is a story of unnatural violence. The roles are reversed. Most serial killers kill prostitutes."88 Moreover, serial killing is by definition a male act. We must recall
Robert Ressler's statement, "Women are not capable, either psychologically, sociologically, or physiologically, of moving into what for centuries has been largely unchallenged domain of men."89 Wuornos is biologically female. And yet she meets the FBI's criteria of a serial killer, having killed three or more times, in more than three different locations, on more than three separate occasions with a cooling off period. Her impossibility threatened to show the flaws within the dominant discourse.
To believe that Aileen acted in self4efense would challenge the prostitute's place in the symbolic order. It would place her on an equal plane with her middle- class white male customers, if not above those who might have attempted rape andl abuse. To label her a serial killer appears to undo all previous understandings of tlle term. And yet, because of her sexuality it became easy to fit Aileen Wuornos into the dominant discourses of criminality, sexology, and psychology . Through this chapter
87 Lynda Hart, Fatal Women, (NJ: Princeton, 1994), p. 142. "Dateline NBC," August 25, 1992, p. 9. 89 Robert Ressler, et al. Sexual Homicide. (New York: Free Press, 1995), p. 195. I will look at the investigation leading up to Aileen's arrest, the Richard Mallory trialg0,the sentencing of her first death penalty, and the voice of the media. 1 intend to show how the representations and understandings of Wuornos were const~uctedto uphold the symbolic order.
Aileen Wuornos killed Richard Mallory on November 30~,1989. He had already decomposed past recognition when the police found his body. Malloly was identified through f'ingerprint identification. Both of his hands were removed and taken to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) crime lab. The FDI,E matched the fingerprints to Mallory's "single DUI arrest," which enabled them to identify the body.9' After Mallory was identified police located his ex-wife, Linda
Nusbaum. Detectives interviewed Ms. Nusbaum about Mallory's past, and his past.
She told police that Mallory "was obsessed with pornography, drank heavily and smoked a ton of weed."92 When asked if Mallory might pick up hitchhikers she replied, "Sure, he would do that. If they were female. You Upon searching Mallory's apartment the police found a plethora of papers with names and phone numbers of exotic dancers. This led police directly towards the belief that if
Mallory was killed by a woman, likely a prostitutes or a topless dancer .
First they contacted Kimberly Guy, a topless dancer at the 2001 Odyssey, whom worked under with the stage name Danielle. Guy told police that Mallory paid her and a girl named Chastity to dance for him at his shop. He offered to pay then1
The Richard Mallory case was the only one that went to trial; it ended with her first death sentenoe. Wuornos offered a plea of "no contest" in the other five proceedings. For these reasons I feel safe limiting my analysis to the Mallory trial. 91 Sue Russell, Lethal Intent. (New York: Kensington, 2002), p. 170. 92 Michael Reynolds, Dead Ends, (New York: St. Martins, 2002), pp. 23. 93 Qtd. in Reynolds, p. 23. with TVs and VCRs from his repair shop. Guy recounted how Mallory asked her for sex, and how she refused by saying that she is gay. The police then repeated the question several times, trying find out if Guy had slept with Mallory. After telling the interrogators "no" several times, Guy finally confessed that sometimes she does have sex with customers of the club. But she explained "I didn't want to that night. I don't do that anymore . . . T mean, I'm gay. I live with somebody."94 Guy told the police that Chastity slept with Mallory that evening, and that Chastity was still with him when they dropped Guy off.
In light of these interviews, one of the detectives sat down to work on the police report. After explaining Mallory's pattern of visiting gentlemen clubs three or four times a week he wrote, "Mallory was a Part One waiting to happen. It's blind luck he wasn't done years ago."95(On a police report, "Part One" designates a victim of violence.) Several days later the detectives found and interviewed Chastity, whose real name is Robin Carrier. Though she lived under her stage alias in Florida, Chastity
Lee Marcus. Carrier's story matched Kimberly Guys's, except for two key details.
She told police that Guy was the one who slept with Mallory. Moreover, she insisted that she was dropped off at home first, meaning that Guy and Mallory were alone that the end of the evening.
Perplexed by these conflicting accounts, the detectives spoke with Carrier's boyfriend, Dougie Lambert. He told police that during an argument she said, "Well,
I'm just gonna call those cops and tell them I did do those murders. And that was her
94 Qtd. in Reynolds, page 26. 95 Qtd. in Reynolds, p. 28. exact words. She said that a couple of times."96 He admitted that he does not know what to believe; at first he thought Marcus was lying but upon reflection thoiught she might actually be guilty. "Chastity is Schizy," he explained. "She is full of hate for men. She is violent. Terrible mood swings. Born liar."97 Lambert, as a malie was assumed to be a truth teller, while the two women were seen as creating fiction. Paat is more, Danielle's lesbianism and Chastity's alleged insanity and hatred fit them within criminology's understanding of the born female offender. They remained on the suspect list until Aileen Wuornos was apprehended.
Two more male bodies were found weeks later, David Spears and Charles
Carskaddon. Investigators did not have any leads on these killings, other than the assumption that both men had picked up a hitchhiker. Nobody knew at this momelit that the killings were tied together. Then Peter Siems was killed on July 4th, 1990.,
Wuornos had taken Siems's car, a Sunbird, and brought it home for her girlfiriend
Tyria (Ty) Moore to drive. On the evening of July 6"' the two were on the road when
Moore got into an accident. Wuornos screamed at Moore for her mistake, and the two fled the car. Marvin Wood watched the two women abandon the car.
Wood quickly came forward to the authorities. He described the two people whom he saw leaving the car, "A tall blonde of about forty, accompanied by an overweight white male of 280 to 300 pounds."98 Brenda and Hubert Hewett also saw
Wuornos and Moore after the accident. They offered to give the women a lilk into town, but Aileen and Ty yelled at each other and ran away. The Hewetts contacted the police when they realized that the Sunbird was tied Siems's death. They said that
96 Qtd. in Reynolds, p. 34. 97 Qtd. in Reynolds, p. 35. 98 Qtd. in Russell, p. 21 1. they saw two women, "One was 5 feet 10 inches, maybe 5 feet 11, and 130 pounds, the other between 5 feet 4 inches and 5 feet 6, mannish in appearance, the more silent of the two, and weighing up to 200 pounds. Through the wet T-shirt of the short heavy one we saw a bra. It was definitely a woman."99
Detectives took the transcripts of their interviews, despite their contradictions, to Beth Gree, a forensic artist in Marion County Florida. She put together the following composites:
Figure 6: Early police composite of Moore and Wuornos.
That same day the following description was sent out over a nationwide teletype:
Two W/F's who appeared to be lesbians were seen exiting the vehicle and leaving southbound on foot.. . subject #l: W/F 25-30 OA 5'8"/130 BLNIUNK wearing blue jeans with some type of chain hanging from front belt loop, WHI t-shirt with sleeves rolled up to shoulder. Subject #2: WIF 20's 5'4"-5"6"/ very overweight and masculine looking wl dk red hair, wearing gray shirt and red shorts.lW
Aileen was represented as a lesbian from the beginning of the search, although none of the eyewitnesses commented upon her sexuality. At this point she and Moore were
99 Qtd. in Russell, p, 212. lW Qtd. in Reynolds, p. 58. only suspects for the death of Peter Siems. Guy or Carrier were still the only suspects for Mallory's death. There were no leads on the killings of Spears and Carskaddlon.
Police found the body of Tory Burress in August of 1990. They discovered
Dick Humphreys's corpse roughly one month later. After finding Humphreys's body, the police began to believe that they were looking for a serial killer. The bodies were all found in similar locations, the method of shootings mirrored one another, and the bullet calibers all matched. It still seemed impossible, despite these connections.
Serial killers are men; however, witnesses placed two females in Siems's car at the time of the accident. Detective John Tilley voiced the contradiction. "Serial killer?" he asked the other men at the table. "But Bruce is talking about a w~man!'""~Bruce
Munster immediately corrected Tilley, saying that witnesses saw two women with
Siern's car, which does not necessarily link them to the killings.
At this point Captain Steve Binegar suggested, "Could be a team. Th~ere'slots of those. Could be some guy working with these two. Or maybe just two wolmen got a hold of the car."lo2 Because of the dominant logic the detectives decided that it was likely that a man was behind the killings. Yet the two women in Siems's car were the only leads police had beyond Guy and Carrier.
When Walter Jeno Antonio was found in November, 1990, police had enough evidence to suggest that each of the men picked up female hitchhikers.
Evidence also suggested that sex was a factor in several of the deaths. Therefore, it seemed likely that the killer worked as a roadside prostitute. Suddenly the notion of a female serial killer made sense. The killings already fit the FE1I's
101 Qtd. in Reynolds, p. 81 102 Qtd. in Reynolds, p. 8 1. definition of a serial killer. The acts seemed to oppose Egger's and Ressler's definitions. But at the same time it fit rather well within them. "As a known prostitute, some of whose victims were nude," Sue Russell notes, "Aileen's crime:; immediately took on a sexual c~nnotation."'~~This provided evidence for th~e fantasy-based, lust driven aspect of serial killing. What is more, the suspects were: already marked lesbian. They were not women; they were the female invert-already impossible and naturally criminalistic.
The police decided to focus their efforts on the women seen in Siems's car.
They re-released the descriptions and composites that were constructed after the accident. The story first appeared on November 24'" 1990 for Reuters, with the composite sketches and minimal facts about the killings. Binegar held a news conference that day, saying that he believed this was the work of two women, the possibly the first female serial killers. '04 Within 24 hours the composites and the story from Binegar's conference appeared in USA Today, several national news programs, and all Florida local news affiliates. From this moment forward Wuornos was be labeled "the first female serial killer," though she was in fact thirty-fifth documented by the F.B.I."'
Responses to the story came quickly. On November 3otha man named Billy
Copeland identified the figures in sketch as Tyria Moore and a woman named Lee.
On December 13th ~ath~ Beasman called from Tampa. She identified Tyria Moore, saying she had family in Ohio. On December 14~"an anonymous female caller
101 Russell, p. 382. lo4 From this moment forward Wuornos would be labeled "the first female serial killer." She was in fact the 35" documented female serial killer. '05 Reynolds, p. 233. offered information. She identified Lee and Tyria "Ty" Moore. The caller said that
Lee was the more dominant of the two, and "prostituted herself at 1-75 truckstops."
She also told police "the two are lesbians. They are violent and have a strong hatred for men."'06 Henceforth, Wuornos was understood as a lesbian prostitute who allegedly hated men.
By January 7"' the detectives had traced Wuornos and Moore to the Helgratde
Restaurant, where the two had rented a room from Mrs. Vera Ivkolvich. The police sat down with Ivkolvich who said that she recognized Wuornos and Moore in the composite sketches on TV. When asked to describe the two women Vera recounted a fight that Aileen had with her husband Vil. He had offered to drive Wuornos to
Winn-Dixie and then went without her. After her story Vera repeated to the detectives, "Lee is against men, because she's a lesbian."lo7 She only gave a physical description of Ty, saying that she never wore makeup, while always wearing a baseball and sneakers.
Aileen Wuornos was arrested on January 8". as part of an undercover operation at The Last Resort, a biker bar. She was not charged with murder; police only had circumstantial evidence. The reason given for her arrest was a standing warrant for Lori Grodi (a former alias used by Wuornos) on a concealed we#apons charge in 1986. The police then apprehended Moore, who confessed to knowing about the murders. The police quickly rented her a motel room in Tampa Florida
Munster instructed Moore, "Tell Aileen that you got some money from your mom,
106 Qtd. in Reynolds, p. 109. '07 Qtd. in Reynolds, p. 13 1. came down to get the rest of your things, and found out she was in jail. Then, we"l1 have the conversations taped. We just want you to get her talking, okay.7n1011
The police taped and monitored several days of conversations between
Wuornos and Moore. In the first conversation Wuornos told Ty that she knew police were listening in on their talks. The police listened live to every recording, and did not find anything that could link Wuornos to the killings. Investigators decided tl-tat they were running out of time; they could only hold Wuornose so long for a concealed weapons charge. On January 15'~the police decided that they must exploit
Wuornos's love for Moore. On January 16~"Sergeant Joyner sat Ty down and threatened:
You better get with the program here, Ty. This is no bullshit. You don't have immunity, ya know? If Lee doesn't come through with saving your ;ass, if' she doesn't talk . . . you understand what I'm saying? You understand first degree- murder? Okay. I want you to get with the tears. For real. I mean, it is real. When she calls tomorrow, I want you to get right to it . From the get-go. If she loves you, then she's got to do the right thing. Tell her you've just heard from your family, your sister. Say the cops are all over them. Tell her you're fucking freaking out. Say 'If you love me then you've got to tell the truth:,' right?'09
Moore called Wuornos, and did exactly what she was told to. Wuornos agreed to confess.
At 10: 15 the following morining Wuornos gave a videotaped confession. She told police that all of the killings were acts of self-defense:
- -- - 108 Qtd. in Reynolds, p. 162. 109 Qtd. in Reynolds, p. 180. And 1 do have to say one thing, though, their families must realize that no matter how much they loved the people that died, no matter how much the:y love 'em , they were bad. They were gonna hurt me. So, they have to realize the fact, that this person, no matter how much they loved 'em or how good they felt they were, this person was either gonna physically beat me up, rape me, or kill me. And I don't know which one. I just turned around and did my fair play before I could get hurt, see?"'
Wuornos mentioned the phrase "self-defense" forty-three times in the recording, and
"not once did she offer details that departed from her self-defense story.""'
Aileen's confession drew the fascination of the press and sparked and onslaught of labels. Hard Copy called Aileen the "Lesbian Killer." Inside Edition called her the "Highway Hooker." And Geraldo called her the "Damsel of Death."
Segments of Aileen's confession had been aired on Geraldo Rivera's Not it Can be
Told, Hard Copy, and A Current Affair. Her defense was unable to find a single juror in the Mallory trial whom had not seen Wuornos's story on one of these three programs.
The Richard Mallory trial began on January 16, 1992. At the last moment the originally slated judge, Judge Graziano, was removed from the case for making
"several decisions that were too favorable for the defense." Judge Uriel Bount Jr., who was brought out of retirement for the proceedings replaced Graziano. John
Tanner, the leading prosecutor of the case, is known in Florida for combating pornography. He is also a self-identified ardent Christian and a member of the
Assembly of God. In his opening statement Tanner told the jury:
110 Aileen Wuornos: The Selling ofa Serial Killer. Nick Broomfield, Dir. DVD. DEJ, 2004. 11' Reynolds, p. 223. Of course Mallory didn't know that he was about to pick up a predatory prostitute who had sex with over 250,000 men by her own admission. He didn't know he was about to admit into his car Aileen Carol Wuorno:s. Her appetite for lust and control had taken a lethal turn. She was no longer satisfied with just taking men's bodies and money, now she wanted t he ultimate control. She wanted all that Mr. Mallory had-the car, property, Inis life.Ii2
Tanner concluded his opening statement:
Ultimately, the bottom line is the evidence in its totality will show tha Aileen Carol Wuornos liked control. She had been exercising control for years over men. Tremendous power that she had through prostitution. She had devised a plan now, and carried it out to have the ultimate control. All that Richard Mallory had, she took, including his life. Under the law, zinder the lc~v,she must pay with her life.ll3
The prosecution called a host of expert witnesses. They were all used to place
Wuornos at the scene of the crime. None of the testimonies addressed what happened in Mallory's car. Tanner closed the prosecution's case by screening an edited version of Wuonos's confession, which did not include any mention of rape or self-defense.
Tanner presented as what dominant discourse already chose to imagine.
Aileen was the first and only witness called by the defense. Her testimony began with an explanation of why shy worked as a prostitute. Distancing herself fi-om Tanner's accusations she offered a reason that is not based on control, hatred, or crime. "Prostitution was the only way, churches couldn't help me," she told the jury.
"I tried to be a police officer by they wanted like three thousand dollars, and I didn't have my GED. I tried to be a corrections officer by didn't have a car, couldn't get
Qtd. in Russell, pp. 407-408. "'Qtd. in Russell, p. 409. into the military because I couldn't pass the tests . . . the only thing I could do was be
Her lawyer, Billy Nolas, then asked Aileen what had happened in the: woods with Richard Mallory. She took her time, and said:
We both started to get undressed . . . I said Richard, I don't do this without rubbers .. . he went back to the trunk of the car to get some .. . I started to take off my clothes first, I always do this to let them know I was all right, I'm honest .. . 1 started to take off my jeans . . . he came back . . . helped me arrange the sleeping bag . . . I said its not fair, you still have your clothes on . . . the dome light was on . . . he said 'Hey, not too bad' . . . I was embarrassed, I g,ot this beer belly and stretch marks . . . I said Richard why don't you take off your clothes? . . . . He opened the window and it's blowing and cold . . . and he's unzipping his pants . . . then he says he doesn't have the money . . . I had somebody at home to have sex with . . . He said I only got a little for breakfast and gas . . . T said Richard, no way, we've got to call this off and started to get my clothes out of the back . . . and I saw him coming toward me . . . ht: put a cord around my neck . . . said yes you are, bitch, you're going to do everything I tell you to or I'll kill you . . . done it before . . . your body will still be warm for my huge cock . . . you want to die, slut? Are you gone do what I tell you to do and I just nodded yes . .. He tied my hands and tied them to the steering wheel, . . . he got out of the car and told me to slide up . . . he said he tvas going to see how much meat he was going to pound in my ass . . . he got undressed and threw his clothes on the floor, he lifted my legs all the way up to where my feet were near the window . . . then he started having anal sex . . . lie's doing this in a very violent manner and I don't know whether he came or climaxed and he violently took himself out and violently put himself in my vagina . . . I was crying my brains out .. . he said he loved to hear my pain . . . that my crying turned him on .. . he pretty much bruised my cervix znd all,
114 Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer. Nick Broomfield, Dir. DVD. DEH, 2004. bruised my ribs. He got out and took his clothes off out the driver's side . .. put his clothes on the ground and went and got something out of the trunk . . . he got a red cooler and a blue tote back . . . there were two liter bottles of water, a maroon towel, a bar of soap, tooth brush, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and a bottle of Visine . . . I said to myself, this guy is going to kill me or dissect me . . . I don't know . . . he's totally weird. He said the Visine bottle was one of my surprises. He emptied it into my rectum. It really hurt bad because he tore me up a lot. He got dressed, got a radio, sat on the hood for what seemed like an hour . . . eventually he untied me, put a stereo wirer around my neck and tried to rape me again. . . . Then I thought, well !.his dirty bastard deserves to die because of what he was trying to do to me. We struggled, I reached for my gun. I shot him. I scrambled t cover the shooting because I didn't think the police would believe I killed him in self-defense."'
So much of this case was determined by how others told Wuornos's story. T think it is important to let her version sit. However, this did not happen in court. Tanner aggressively cross-examined Wuornos. He tried to find out why she had not mentioned anal sex, being tied to the steering wheel, or the Visine in her confession.
Wuornos tried to explain that it seemed irrelevant at the time, but that she did mention rape and self-defense in the confession. Tanner was aggressive in his questioning, and did not let Wuornos finish her responses. Eventually she became too flustered to answer at all.
When court adjourned that afternoon, word spread that the defense had nevv evidence. Several sources continue to claim they had a photograph of scratcli marlits on Mallory's steering wheel. The scratches likely could have been made by human fingernai~s."~This physical evidence would help validate Wuornos's testimony. The
The Selling of a Serial Killer 116 Russell, p. 457. following day Judge Bu&y warned the defense, "I only remind you, counsel, that the mind can assimilate only what the posterior can endure."ll7 The defense promptly rested. The photograph never officially appeared in court. Both sides gave their closing arguments, and the jury promptly came back with a verdict. Aileen was found guilty. As the jurors filed out, Wuornos screamed, "I'm innocent! I was raped! I hope you get raped!" She kicked her chair back and yelled "Sc~imbagsof
~merica.""~
Billy Nolas knew that he could no longer argue self-defense for Wuornos's sentencing. He switched tactics and argued that Wuornos was guilty due to insanity.
Unaware of the implications, Nolas placed the impossible Aileen Wuornos perfecl.1~ within the discourses of sexuality, criminality, and psychology. He spoke about he:r traumatic background: her father who hanged himself in prison, her mother who abandoned Aileen, the alcoholic and abusive grandfather who raised her, the fire t'hat burned Aileen, and her rape and pregnancy at fourteen. Essentially he argued the repression of her traumatic past caused Wuornos's to relive her history of abuse while she was with Mallory. This implies that she interpreted harmless gestures as threatening, and believed that she was acting in self-defense.
At 255 Nolas called Elizabeth McMahon an expert in neuropsychology, clinical psychology and the study of deviant human behavior. McMahon spent a total of 22 hours with Wuornos, and conduced 6 hours of neuropsychology testing. She claimed Wuornos might have cortical brain damage. That is to say the prolonged effects of repressing traumatic memories led to the result of a borderline personality.
117 Qtd. in Russell, p. 458. 118 Qtd. in Reynolds, p. 277 "A borderline is impulsive. They may behave self-destructively. Borderlines commonly have identity disturbances: and by that, one may mean a gender identity disturbance, or disturbance in terms of long range goals, values, what they want from life," McMahon told the co~1rt.'"
Borderline Personality Disorder is the contemporary cousin to Freud"s hysteria. Five out of the eight criteria explained in the last chapter are needed for diagnosis. Aileen met all eight. When asked if Wuornos is mature, McMahon responded, "No. I\/ls. Wuornos is probably one of the most primitive people I've seen outside an institution. By that I mean that she functions at a level of very basic-l>y basic, I mean, small child-needs." Nolas then asked if Aileen knew killing Mallory was wrong. "At the moment, feeling threatened, the question of whether it was right or wrong becomes irrelevant," McMahon replied.l2' She stated her belief that Aileen felt she was in a life-threatening situation. As result of her disorder, legality did niot enter into her thought process:
It matters to the extent that if he did none of them and she is so firmly entrenched in her belief that he did, then I think my diagnosis would change and I'd say we're dealing with a psychotic. But what generally occurs with folks like this is that there is some truth; it may not be all, but what truth there is gets distorted.12'
Drs. Harry Krop and Jethro Toomer were called to confirm McMahon's diagnosis; which they did. These testimonies, while designed to help Wuornos receive a lighter sentence, strengthened the bond between her, hysteria, and the notion of the 'born offender. After their second deliberation the jury returned with a unanimous decision
'I9 Qtd. in Russell, p. 467. Qtd. in Russell, p. 470. 121 Qtd. in Russell, p. 471. to send Aileen Wuornos to the electric chair. Judge Blount commented it was the first unanimous death verdict he had ever seen.
McMahon's testimony marked the moment of synthesis between the domi~~ant discourse, and the representation of Wuornos's case. From this moment forward, she was understood as a violent, insane, lesbian killer. The woman who first challenged the discourse is now trapped within in. Even the source material for my research plays a complicit role in supporting the mainstream representation. The mosit- comprehensive, and highest grossing texts about Aileen Wuornos are Sue Russell's
Lethal Intent, and Michael Reynolds's Dead Ends. Both sources construct representations of what occurred during the killings.
Lethal Intent begins with an account of Dick Humphreys's death in
September, 1990. Russell does not include how Humphries picked up Wuornos, clr why they pulled into the woods. It does not mention prostitution, consensual intercourse, or rape. Russell's story begins with Aileen pointing her gun at
Humphreys while forcing him out of the car. She writes that Humphrey was shot seven times, and was in immeasurable pain before Aileen killed him with an eighth gunshot. After representing this killing, Russell speculates: "Each time it was easier. The fear, the body coursing with adrenalin, and oh god, it felt good. She had her prey. She had the power. She had the control. [. ..] You bet she took their stuK
That was out of pure hatred"'"
Later in the text Russell includes a version of Mallory's killing as well. "She was lingering when Richard Mallory stopped to pick her up,"'23 Russell begins. In
122 Russell, p. 10. '23 Ibid, p. 161. this story Mallory offered to pull off the road to talk. Wuornos took him up on his request, and offered her services. According to Russell it was approximately 5:00
AM when Mallory initiated sex. Aileen readily removed all of her clothes. She asked Mallory if he would, but he chose to remain dressed. Russell writes, "He was still sitting in a non-threatening position behind his steering wheel when she made her move. [.. .] 'You sonofabitch! I knew you were going to rape me!' 'No, I wasn't! No
I wasn't!' he protested. Without more ado, she leaned into the car and fired quickly."'24 uss sell purports to know why Wuornos killed Mallory. Her answer does not incorporate self-defense, rape, or fear. She asserts, "By making a man suffer,
Aileen transformed herself from victim to victimizer, grabbing that power for herself with both hands, regardless of the consequences. Violence only feeds her 1el.b' ian desire for rna~culinity."'~~
These passages are important to note for two reasons. One, these writings instantly discount Aileen's claims, and creates a fiction which uses the killings to affirm the notion of the lesbian born offender. What is more, they are offered as 63ct.
Russell takes no effort to the differentiate between these excerpts, and encounters that make up the rest of Lethal Intent. Much of the text seems to be a minute by minute recounting of the police's investigation and Aileen's trials. Yet, these passages call the validity of the book into question. At the very least it shows that Russell's perspective of the events are based in the understanding that Wuornos is a lesbian whose desire for masculine power leads to violence. Reynolds's Dead Ends includes his own vision several killings as we:ll.
Unlike Russell's work, Dead Ends does mark its speculation. In the introduction
Reynold's tells readers that two of the killings are described in two separate chapters:
These chapters are based on statements by Wuornos, Moore, and witinesse:;, and conversations with homicide investigators, medical examiners, and crime- scene technicians. Aileen Wuornos left no witnesses to the homicides she has confessed to. Only eight people had direct knowledge of what happened on those separate occasions. [.. .] By incorporating her versions with investigative and forensic evidence, it was possible to reconstruct those scenes
to a reasonable degree. '26
The first of these two chapters features Reynolds's version of Dick
Humphrey's death. He writes that Wuornos offered Humphrey sex, thirty dollars for oral sex, and seventy-five for intercourse. She suggested that they pull off into the woods. In this construction he responds, "No, no. I'm on my way home. I can give you a ride, but best not go on anymore about that."127 At this point Wuornos pulled out her gun, aimed it at Humphreys, and screamed, "Just get off at 48, and thien make a right. Just do what the fuck I tell you. Fat motherfucking cop."128 The construction suggests that she shot Hurnphreys in the throat. Reynolds writes, "as he was choking he felt her close. She was close. She was all bright white and red. 'Die motherfucker. ,,,I29 Allegedly, Wuornos said this immediately before shooting
Hurnphreys in the back of his head.
The second chapter of this kind describes Antonio's death. In this construction, Antonio did offer to pay Aileen for sex. When asked where to go shle
Reynolds, pp. xi-xii '27 Ibid, p. 69. lZ8Ibid, p. 70. 129 Ibid, p. 71. apparently told him to go to woods, "It's real nice out tonight. Sex under the stars is just so righte~us.""~Antonio pulled off the road. When he parked the car he asked
Aileen what happens next. Reynolds writes that she screamed at him, "Just go ahead
and strip down, fucking cop. You're a cop right? Or just another cocksucker tryin' to
fuck me out of a free piece of ass.""' Antonio stripped, and then was ordered to
kneel on his knees. Aileen then shot him four times: one in the chest, two in the head,
one in the spine. Reynolds describes that after killing Antonio "[slhe reachedl down
and picked up a row of teeth, holding them gingerly between her finger and thumb.
She had to laugh."'32
Reynold's representations have the same relationship with the symbolic order
as Russel's. He does admit that these descriptions are reconstructions. However, his
method of doing so is more dangerous than Lethal Intent's lack of differentialtion.
Reynolds tells readers that these two chapters are based upon discussions with
witnesses and forensic specialists, as well as Aileen's testimonies. This gives his
speculations a level of authority. Though they are reconstructions Reynolds suggests
that the chapters contain a level of reality confirmed by experts. Take, for example,
the description of her laugh after picking up Antonio's teeth. No forensic expert
could deduce that this occurred. And yet, Reynold's provides a provocative image
that creates meaning around Wuornos.
There is also the work of filmmaker Nick Broornfield. His two
documentaries, Selling of a Serial Killer and Life and Death of a Seriul Killelr are
often noted for their slant in favor or Wuornos. It is true that he created his films to
130 Ibid, p. 95. I3l ibid, p. 96. 13* Ibid, p. 97. show that Wuornos should not be executed. However, I cannot overlook what he told reporters after conducting his final interview with her. "We are executing someone who is mad. Here is someone who has totally lost her mind. My overall iml~ressilon doing the interview with her is that she was completely insane."133 Arguably this was an effort depict Wotwnos's execution as unjust. However, in this moment Brooml-leld reinforced the link between borderline personality disorder, hysteria, and criminality.
By the end of her life Aileen herself sought to be understood through accepted understanding of a lesbian criminal. In her final interview Wurnos told Broomfield:
I killed those men, robbed them as cold as ice. And I'd do it again, too. There's no chance in keeping me alive or anything, because I'd kill again. I have hate crawling through my system .... I am so sick of hearing tlhis 'she's crazy' stuff. I've been evaluated so many times. I'm competent, sane, and I'm trying to tell the truth. I'm one who seriously hates human life and would kill again.*34
She instructed him to share that confession before her execution. Then, after ten minutes of casual conversation, Broomfield turned the camera away from Aileen. He told her that it was switched off, but was secretly recording an audio track. After discussing her treatment in jail, Broomfield asked Wuornos one last time if the killings were in self-defense. It was it was only then, with the belief that thie camera was off, that she admitted, "Yes, but I can't tell anybody. Never. I have to go down to the execution. [. . .] There's nothing 1 can do. All they would (dois
133 Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer. Nick Broomfield, dir. DVD, DEJ, 2004. 134 Life and death of a Serial Killer. give me an overturned sentence. They would never do me righteous. Do you see what I'm saying? It's torture in here."135
It would be an oversimplification for me to suggest that everything created
about Aileen Wournso worked to trap her within the discourse. For example, Lynda
Hart includes a chapter on Wuornos in her text, Fatal Women. Hart's text is a
psychoanalytic approach to understanding the constructed links between lesblianisrn
and criminality, including how the constructions were disseminated through popular
artistic modes. The chapter on Wuornos maps the construction of Jacque Lacan's
"symbolic order," and explores why that order is threatened by Aileen's stoyf.
More influential upon Wuornose's case, however, is an episode of "Ilateline
NBC" that aired on November 1992, ten months after the Mallory trial. By then
Wwornos had received death sentences in the remaining five trials. Michelle Gillen
put together a story that shows Mallory actually had a record for violently attacking
women. On November 2l", 1957 Mallory entered the house of Edith Little as she
was showering, and attacked her. Gillen reports, "Mallory was charged and
convicted of assault with intent to rape. In court documents he said he was insane at
the time."'36 She explains that he was sentenced to four years at Patuxent Prilson, a
Maryland rehabilitation facility for the most violent offenders. After one year at
Patuxent Mallory was given a job, which he lost in 1960 for making "a molesting
gesture towards the charge nurse, with sexual intent."137 In 1961 he escaped from
Patuxent, and was quickly caught and returned. The director of Patuxent Prison
135 Life and death of a Serial Killer. 136 "Dateline NBC," November 10, 1992, p. 3. Ibid, p. 5. concluded, "Because of his emotional disturbance and his poor control of his sexual impulses, he could present a potential danger to his environment in the future."'38 Mallory remained in the prison for several years after serving his original sentence.
Gillen then interviewed Tanner, asking if the prosecution knew of
Mallory's criminal past. He said that they did not, and explained that Florida's computer network for record checks does not include Maryland. Gillen noted this was "a big mistake, considering that months before the trial, Tanner's office was given a statement saying Mallory told a woman friend he'd been in jail in
The defense refused to speak with Gillen about the discovery of
Mallory's criminal past. Regardless, Gillen claims;
"Had the defense checked up on the names and phone numbers in Mallory's wallet, they would have quickly located people who knew of Mallory's criminal past. Other phone numbers at his apartment, along with a home video pornography collection, would have led the defense Ihere, to prostitutes and strippers who knew Mallory was violent and obsessed wiith sex."la
The story concludes with Gillen report that the Florida Supreme Court woluld hlear an appeal in 1993. She speculates that in light of this evidence and the errors they uncover, "it's very likely that the Supreme Court [will] order a new trial."'41 The
138 Ibid, p. 1 1. '39 Ibid, p. 12. 140 Ibid, p. 12. 141 Ibid, p. 17. Supreme Court denied the appeal for a new trial in 1993, and Wuornos was executed in 2002.
In an earlier interview with Dateline McMahon explained, "There's a whole set of rules out there that everybody else knows, and Lee doesn't."142 This is true.
Aileen Wuornos refused to live within the hegemonic discourse. She challenged the mainstream, pushed the boundaries, and lived under her own rules. Wournos was a prostitute who never attempted to appear hyper-feminine. She was a lesbian, who worked to take care of her lover. She openly displayed her anger and resentment in court. But Wuornos broke the fundamental rule when she killed seven men who allegedly attempted to rape her. She refused to be their slave; she refused to be oppressed because of her sex. These were not driven by a desire for masculinity. They were attempts to depart from her constant victimization.
Wuornos lived under her own discourse.
But her case was already pre-cast and pre-scripted. Society was not ready to accept the challenges that Aileen Wuornos presents. The symbolic order could not withstand what it had already rendered impossible. For this reason lesbianism, hysteria, and criminality had to remain linked. Therefore fictions were crleated to represent how and why Wuornos killed seven johns. These stories corrected
Wuornos's narrative to make it possible within, and even supportive of, the symbolic order. The dominant discourse had already written the script, arid cast the parts. By the end, even Aileen accepted her role.
14' "Dateline NBC," August 25, 1992, p. 11. Chapter 4 This is Not Aileen: Exploring the Representation of Aileen Wuornos and Discourse in Self,Defen!se: or death of some salesmen.
lfwe premise that the body is not outside textuality, that the body itself is a-field of sign$cations, a site for the production of cultural meanings and ideological mmzjications, then we can admit that we play the game this way or that, we cm.2 choose to pass or not within the scene and the next, but we can't chose to stop playing with signs, with our own material culturalprodz~ctionas a cultural (i.e., visibly signzfiing) body. -Cathy Griggers, "Lesbian Bodies in the Age of (Post) Mechanical Reproduction."
Aileen W~lornosbroke the ultimate rule when she refused to be a good little girl crnd die like so many thousands ofprostit~itesbefore her, at the hands of a m~irderocils john. The state of Florida has executed her; it's my job to make sure her voice doesn't disappear. -Carson Kreitzer, peresonal communications.
Carson's writing unveils more than the structure behind our justice system--it shows the framework that defines how many of zis understand gender, sexualily, and race,[...]. I was first attracted to Aileen Wournos S story by how the simple act of telling it challenges to undo that framework. It shows exactly what the structure is tinable to accommodate. Self-Defense brings up difJicult questions; ones that are easy to avoid. We are still asking ourselves these during each performarwe. 1' encourage you to explore them with us. -Andrew Lazarow, program for the Williamstheatre production of Self Defense: or death of some salesmen
Cathy Griggers, along with Diana Taylor and many other theorists, have argued that the performers body functions as a semiological sign, which serves as ;a signifier to a signified while also serving a practical purposes. However, we cannot forget that the performer's body, like all signs, is trapped within the structure: of dominant discourse. This realization brings us back to the theoretical exploration of representation and constructivism in chapter one. Representation is the act of making meaning from the relationships between signifiers and signifieds. Additionally there are always two orders to the semiological sign, the denotative order and the connotative order. The relationship of any given sign is constructed, and is inforrr~ed by, as well as a part of, discourse. The operative example I used in chapter olne was by Foucault, who believed that the genre of realistic painting "reintrod~~ced discourse" by reaffirming the linkage between image, word, and concept. '43 For this reason he praised the work of Rene Magritte, whose work called for Foucault into question the functions of the sign and discourse by revealing their constructiveness.
In this final chapter I will utilize the constructivist model of represenlation to look at my work as the director of Carson Kreitzer's play SelJIDefense: or death gf some salesmen for Williamstheatre in the fall of 2006. I will show how my tlesigni concepts for Self-Defense distanced the production from the realm from naturalistic theatre. In my casting and directing of the actors, I used the performers' bodies as signs in order to problematize the act of representation. I p~~rposelycast actresses who looked nothing like Aileen Wuornos and Tyria Moore to play their counterparts.
During the performance I placed the actresses next to stock footage of Wuor~rosand
Moore in an effort to repudiate discourse by challenging the associations between the performance and reality, as well as the links between image, word, and concept.
Moreover, I will show how my direction displayed the hegemonic, mediated coverage that worked as a backdrop for Wuornos's case. Finally, I will consider how my staging of Self-Defense displayed the symbiotic relationship between accepted modes of logic and loci of power, while also challenging that logic by offering a counter- narrative. In short, this chapter explains how my work on the play Self-Defense was
'43 Foucault, "Pipe" p. 201-202. For further explanation on what Foucault meant, please see the encl of chapter one. an exploration of the ways in which Aileen Wuornos has been represented in life-the ways in which meaning was constructed around her.
A recognition and manipulation of representation is clear in the playwrighf
Kreitzer's writing of Wuornos's story. She changed the names of nearly all of the characters, marking the characters of Self-Defense as signifiers for their real-life counterparts. The character based upon Wuornos was named Jolene (Jo) Palmer.
Tyria Moore, Wuornos7sgirlfriend, was renamed Lu. The first exotic dancers to be inteil-ogated in the ease were renamed as well: Kimberly (Danielle) Guy bec,ame
"Chastity", and Robin (Chastity) Carrier became Daytona. 144 Richard Mallory, the man with whose death Wuornos was tried, was renamed Tom Waldren. The only characters that kept semblances of their "real" names are the play's two detectives,
Drums and Bucket. These were the undercover names of the two detectives who arrested Wuornos, which in and of themselves creates signs where the signifieds do not look like the signifiers. Furthermore, the characters function as signifiers because they are based upon composites of many detectives across Florida.
As a director I seized the opportunity to problematize the act of representa1;ion from the beginning of the performance. Ren McDermott, the actress playing Jo, was onstage in an orange jumpsuit as the audience entered the theatre. She was s,eated in front of a broadcast quality video camera. Behind her was a TV monitor playing interview footage of the real Aileen Wuornos, also clad in an orange jumpsuit. Tlhe shot of the video implies that the camera filming her was set-up at the same imgle as the camera onstage.
144 Kreizter told me that she kept the name "Chastity" because it worked dramatically. However, sh~e changed which stripper was named Chastity to remain consistent with her choice of changing names. Figure 1: Comparative photographs of Ren McDermott and Aileen Wuornos
Physically, McDermott does not pass as Wuornos. She is brunette, has a different body type, and is half-Chinese American, half-Irish. McDermott's physical upkeep marks her body as upper class. Wuomos was blonde, and was commonly classed and racialized as white trash in the media. I chose not to use a wig and make-up design to liken McDermott's appearance to Wuomos's in an effort break the sign apart into signifier and signified.
Therefore, this opening moment functioned similarly to Magritte's Ceci n'es pas unepipe. As the performance began the stage picture implied, "This is not
Aileen Wuomos." As Foucault argued while discussing Magritte, this method of representation directly challenges the dominant discourse. The dominant media promotion of highway prostitutes in Florida during the arrest and trial was the visual picture of Wuomos: lower class, unkempt Caucasians. This mediatized perception was directly challenged by my choice to present McDermott's body instead. The stage picture also served as a visual method of demonstrating that there is no fixed connection between the signifier and the signified. The link is always constructed, just like I had to decide during casting to make McDermott the signifier for Wuomos.
These relationships are never inherent within the sign. Similar directorial gestures were continued through the production. For example, at the top of Act V a stage direction in Kreitzer's text reads, "On TV's: footage of JO being taken from the courthouse and stuffed into a squad car, handcuffed, orange jumpsuit."145 Rather than using footage of McDennott, I played footage of Aileen Wuomos being escorted into a squad car while waving to television cameras. As the video played, an exact reenactment of the video was silently staged in front of the TV. This interplay of sameness and difference between Jo and
Wuornos was designed to remind the audience, in the middle of the performance, of the politics of representation. Additionally, it showed shows that Wuomos and Jo are both constructed representations. Both events are staged, and choreographed by a person in power telling Jo/Wuomos how and where to move.
Perhaps the most critical use of this juxtaposition involved the police composites used in the pursuit of Jo. Act One concluded with Lu watching the news in their apartment, alone, after a car-crash set-up to reference when Wuornos and
Moore crashed Siem's car.'" Onstage, Lu stood in front of the TV as I aired pre- recorded footage of the Reporter broadcasting:
Two white females were seen exiting the vehicle and leaving southbound on foot. Here are the police sketches, drawn from eyewitness accounts of the two. The first is blonde, 25-30,5'8 to 5'10, last seen wearing jeans and a camouflage T-shirt. Her companion is heavyset, 25-30,5'3 to 5'5, wearing a plaid shirt and baseball cap. [...I Repeat: these two women are suspects in the
14' Carson Kreitzer, SeFDeefense: or death of some salesmen. (New York: Playscripts, 2003), p. 47. We must also note that like the visual relationship between McDermott and Wuornos, Greta Wilson, the actress playing Lu, does not naturally pass as Moore. recent string of highway murders. They may be the nations first female serial
killers. '47
I then cut to the real police composite of Wuomos and Moore as the Reporter described the police sketches.
Figure 2: Comparative photographs of Greta Wilson and Tyria Moore.
Figure 3: Police composite of Moore, and Wuornos.
Already familiar with images of Moore and Wuornos from the stock footage I had screened, the audience was empowered to see the flaws in the police sketches.
My choice to use the real composites was made to uncover the false constructions that
'" Ibid, p. 28. defined the media's initial representation of Wuornos. The police sketches are as
different from the real Wuornos and Moore as they are from the actors McDt:rmotit
and Wilson. I continued to disrupt naturalism's link between theatre and reality by
blocking Wilson to stand next to the Moore's composite. This revealed for tlhe
audience, yet again, the free-play between signifiers and signifieds. However, unlike
the earlier moments, the composites also displayed that signs are constructed and
perpetuated by loci of power. The composites were created by police, constructed
fiom conflicting testimonies of eyewitnesses who had "seen" Wuornos and I\doore
running away fiom the wrecked vehicle. The media broadcast the composites and
descriptions as truthful, never questioning their constnlctiveness or the objectivity of
the police.
My desire to build upon these choices, upon the deconstruction of the: sign and
the symbolic order, defined the arc of the entire performance. Having worked
elements of this into the design, I wanted to reinforce my critique into the struct~lreof
the play. To do so I began by framing the performance within established portrayal
of Wuornos's world before critiquing it. . I directed the production so that th~e
prologue operated strictly within the hegemonic discourses of the media. The play
began as Jo delivered a monologue directly into the camera, appearing on the: TV as
Wuornos did before. "I try to remember a time when I was not ashamed. I gotta go
pretty far back. I don't even know.. .if I just can't remember back that far or if there
never was one."14' This initially framed Jo within the mainstream belief that
lesbianism and prostitution are inherently shameful.
148 Ibid, p. 13. Bucket then entered from upstage. He told the audience that bodies in the swamp off of 1-95 were common, so it had taken some time for police to realize that a serial killer might be involved. Simultaneously, one at a time, three female coroners appeared on the balcony above Jo and Bucket. Each was studying a different corpse; all three analyzing men killed by Jo. They spoke their findings, such as "The skin and soft tissue is absent from around the mouth and eyes," out-loud. '" Their words layered on top of Jo's monologue. The coroners were directed by me to make the audience sympathize with the corpses by treating them as victims. I made all of these choices to have the prologue set-up the mainstream understanding of Wuornos's case.
The last line of the prologue was spoken by Bucltet. He told the audience that
Tom Waldren was last seen at a gentlemen's club. Bucket left the stage. The lighting
changed to floorlights on the balcony, as INXS's "Suicide Blondes" played over the
sound system. On this beat the actresses playing the coroners stripped off their lab
coats and become exotic dancers. They performed seductive pole dances with the
three columns at the front of the balcony. This shift had two purposes for me. Firsi:, it
set-up that all of the performers except Wilson and McDermott would play niultiple
characters. I used this as another method of showing that the link between sjgnifier
and signified is not fixed. Secondly, it created a moment of objectification. The
dance put the female body on display, showing strippers as they were seen by the
public in JoIAileen's world lived.
Having set-up the framing, I then exposed the power structures behind it.
Bucket reentered with Drums and the Captain, each carrying a chair. They
149 Ibid, p. 14. punctuated the beginning of Act I by slamming their chairs on the ground, both changing the lighting cue and abruptly ending the music. This action displayed the authority of the police in the world of the play. The power of the police was further demonstrated through their interrogations of Daytona and Chastity. I directed the actors playing the police to demean the women while interrogating them.
This was supported by the text as well. During the interrogation of Chastity by the Captain, Bucket and Drums were silent. The Captain stood behind his two detectives. He then stepped forward the moment Chastity finished explaining her interaction with Waldren. He brushed the hair out of her eyes and began the following dialogue:
Captain: How about you suck me off or I turn you in on the prostitution. Chastity: I'm sorry. Drums: That's right. You're a sorry sack of shit, that's what you are. Chastity: Well, alright. Will you be needing me for further questioniing? Captain: That depends.150
This exercise in authority demonstrated a method that the ways that the police use in order to tell Chastity (and the audience) that they alone have the ability to define the rules. Interrogations are not dialogues. They are pedormed with the intent of having a suspects incriminate themselves or others.
During the investigation the police must rely on the media. Together the police and the media define and perpetuate how Jo is to be represented. In the middle of Act One the Captain gathered information from a pre-recorded monologue on the
TV, delivered by the Reporter. She gave details about the fourth corpse, including
150 Ibid, p. 17. where it was found, when, the man's name, where he was traveling from, ancl why.
The Captain then recounted the same information, verbatim, to Drums as the
Reporter's monologue was ending. The first act concluded as the Reporter displayed the police sketches. These short scenes illustrate the symbiotic relationship between the police and media as they worked to define a killer.
At the top of Act I11 the police have arrested Jo, but they had no evidence linking her to the killings. Bucket tells the Captain, "Sir, we've got nothing. No prints. No Witnesses. No gun. No nothing."'51 The Captain then gestured at Lu and responded, "We've got her."15' Then the police forced Lu coerce Jo into offering ai confession. Lu was supposed to call Jo and persuade her to confession while the police listened to and recorded the conversations. The back wall of the balcolny in the performance space is a large window. To show that Lu and Jo were still separated at this moment, I placed one on each side of the window. To convey that they did not have control over these conversations, the actresses did not move. They posed in tableaus for each conversation and remained silent. The dialogue was pre-recorded
and played over the sound system. I made this choice to emphasize the role of the
police-who I were choreographed to silently react while listening with headphones.
After the third conversation between Lu and Jo, Drums threw off his
headphones and exclaimed, "What the f~~ckis this? Nineteen hours of tape and we
got nothin' but her fuckin' theories on the fuckin' universe."'" Bucket then went
upstairs and pulled Lu away from the window. He intimidated her:
lS1Ibid, p. 38. 15' 15' Ibid, p. 38. '53 Ibid, p. 40. Lu, listen to me. You know all this shit you're sayin'? Whinin' to her about
how the cops are gonna be up YOLK ass? All that shit you're sayin'? It's for real. YOU DON'T HAVE IMMUNITY HERE. You didn't make no immunity deal. If we don't get her, we got you. Accessory to murder, shii:, if she gets outta this, maybe just plain 01' murder. I mean, all we got is your word she did it, not you. We got your fingerprints at the scene, you takin' joyrides, wreking a dead man's car. Doesn't look too good. Does it? DOES IT? So I want TEARS. You got one last shot, here. If she loves you[, she's gotta confess. Or I'm not shittin' you here, we'll take you in her place. Don't think we won't do that.15"
Shaking, Lu went back to the window and took her tableau. Bucket came downstairs and told the other officers, "Yeah, this is gonna be the day. Yeah. I just gave her a lil' acting lesson."L55
Again, Lu and Jo remained passive, still and silent, as their conversation played on the sound system. The police officers then took the foreground, while tlhey reacted to the recording. They jumped up with joy when Jo finally agreed to confess.
Wuornos's confession was a major aspect of the prosecutions case, and was often cited by the media. Little attention was drawn to ways that police achieved that confession, though the methods of manipulation were the same as in this scene. I crafted this staging to move the focus from Jo's actual confession to powers that were operating behind it. Moments like this lifted an obscuring veil of intention to display the modes of power behind the discourse.
Jo's confession also allowed a moment to point out the flaws of the hegemonic logic through counter-narrative. After agreeing to confess, Jo was
'54 Ibid, pp. 40-41 155 Ibid, p. 40. brought downstairs to join the police. I directed the actress playing Daytona, one of the exotic dancers, to enter the balcony and lean over the rail as Jo told the police how she had been raped. I had the actors in the confession hold just long enough for
Daytona to tell the audience, "Although Self Defense was mentioned a total of 43 times in the videotaped confession, those words were never heard in the sections of the tape shown to the jury."'" When Daytona finished this sentence, Jo resumed talking to the police as if nothing had happened. However, the audience did hear
Daytona. They had to watch the remaining portion of the scene through her fra,me, which suggested that Jo's confession was an orchestrated and edited event.
The character of Daytona further challenged the prostitute's place within the symbolic order. While being escorted back to her cell, Jo saw Bucket in the stairwell of the jail in the middle of Act V. She bitterly asks if he knows anything about files labeled NHI. She continued, "I bet you don't have no string a unsolved prostitute murders this year, huh? In Citrus. In Pasco. In Dixie. Since I started doin' your job for you. How many unsolved prostitute murders you got in the last, say, ten ye:ars."
'57 Daytona stepped to the front of the balcony again, to address the audience as Jo and Bucket exited. She straightforwardly stated, "NHI. Is a police term. Prostitutes;.
Biker girls. If no family comes forward to put the heat on. Or if the family is powerless. Poor. No11 English-speaking. Goes in a file marked NHI. No Hurrlans
~nvolved."'~~
Daytona gives her final direct-address after Jo has been sentenced to execution. She bitterly adds, "An' I'll tell you why they're not buying that Self-
156 . Ibid, p. 44. 157 Ibid, p. 55. 158 Ibid, p. 56. Defense. What Self? Plain an' simple. Ask any one of 'em. They don't see a self there to defend. They even say-she sold herself for money. Sold her Self. No right to fuckin' defend it now."159~aytona's words point out the prejudice within the cultural hierarchy. The choice to have her speak from the balcony elevates h~er,and gives her a voice a power tacit violates the hierarchy's tacit rules.
While Chastity was used to make the audience question the hierarchy of the hegemonic discourse, the female coroner was utilized to problematize the mainstream representation of Jo. Her first direct-address comes immediately after the Captain relayed the information to Drums that he received from the TV. With a deep voice she calmly asserts, "It is in fact a misnomer to label Jolene Palmer the first female serial killer. There have been others. Some place the number at thirty-five olr so."'60
Her statement directly challenges the Reporter's assertion that Jo and LU could be the nation's first female serial killers More importantly, she corrects the established belief within criminology that serial killing is an inherently a male act.
During the course of the play, the Coroner continued to unpack the ways in which Jo's gender, sexuality, and profession colored the way she was understood and prosecuted by the legal system with the final monologue of performance. The
Coroner stood alone on the balcony and angrily juxtaposed Jo's six death-sentences next to the sentencing of Ted Bundy:
She's going to the same chair as Bundy. I personally find that ironic. Though I realize some don't. You know, I'd heard about it, but I didn't really believe.. . thought it was something of a local legend. But then I saw the cliip on TV. When the judge sentenced Bundy, who had, by the way, all kinds of
lS9 Ibid, p. 71. 160 Ibid, p. 25. fancy lawyers representing him Pro Bono, not to mention the loving support of his mother and new girlfriend, when the judge sentenced him to two death sentences for the murder of over thirty women, he acted like-He-EIe said, "You're a bright young man. I would have liked to see you practice law in my courtroom. But you went the other way, son." Called him Son. Like it wa,s some awkward misunderstanding that led them both to that position.161
The Coroner's monologue shows that the system was more accommodating to Bundy, a male rapist and serial killer whose crimes span five years. The actresses playing the
Coroner was directed to suggest that this was because Bundy happened to be more accommodating to the hegemonic discourse than Jo. Kreitzer's writing for the
Coroner's monologues are based primarily on facts, and connections to the real world. 1 used the Coroner to tie together the facts, and the representation of the facts.
The performance's greatest disruption of the "regime of is the weight given to Jo's words. Her voice operated primarily through monologues delivered to the audience, which make up approximately 9.6% of the written text. Kreitzer drew this text almost directly from interviews and court transcripts with Wuornos in her effort to keep W~lornos'svoice alive. I directed McDermott to make sure Jo knew the power of her own words and actions. Jo was aware that the act of a lesbian prostitute, killing men in self-defense does not fit the rules of the world she lives in.
From her jail cell she boldy told the audience, '"Cuz, you just hit the one piece a
Roadkill wouldn'tfucking lie down, didn'tcha. Didn'tcha. [. . .] I lay down and I lay
''' Tbid, p. 86. 16' This phrase is taken from Foucault's description of the ways in which a culture's discourse constructs truth through constraint. Michel Foucault. Power/Kno~vledge.(Trans. Colin Gordon New York: Harvester, 1980), p. 131. down and I lay down but now more. I stood zlp. And your world comes crashing to the ground."'63
Several minutes later Jo situated herself within cultural hierarchy. She understood her place, and refused to accept it. She told the audience:
There are, y'know, there are certain.. .activities that are just known to carry a Death Sentence. I'm not talking about Law here, I'm not talking abolut being Illegal. I'm talking about the list a activities that, if you pursue them, these could very easily lead to death. Prostitution, for example. Everybody knows, you sink that low, you got a real good chance a endin' up dead. That's a line a work with a real high mortality rate. Everybody knows that. Except maybe for kids, think they're invincible. Think that doesn't apply to them. That's why I was always so careful, kept to my regulars. 'cos I knew. All's I'm saying is that I want killing women to be added to that list. And I'm not talking about a court of law, getting Caught. I'm talking about right there, at the time. Knowing, this is an activity that, if you engage in this activity, you
could easily wind LIP dead. 'Cos killing women is not on that list right no~v.'~~
During this monologue, Jo called for a complete inversion of the hierarchy. As I note in the previous chapter, our patriarchy renders prostit~ltesas expendable. Cases involving them are classified as NHI. Jo is calling for a reversal, for culture to consider abusive men and rapists as dispensible.
Jo continued this plea later in the play. I blocked her to enter the theatre from the back of the house, just moments after Daytona's explanation of NHI. She stoc~d among the audience, attempting to situate herself as one of them. She rationally explained, "I'm an American Citizen. I go out. Make money. Support my wife. I pay her rent. Buy her things. Make sure she's got clothes to wear and a nice :place to live and plenty of beer in the fridge. And cable. Right?" '65 JOtook a beat, as if waiting for the audience to agree. After a moment of silence she became violently upset and continued, "And there's people tryin' to kill me. Now I got a right to
defend myself."'" Jo accepted being a pariah because of her lesbian sexualil~yand
her occupation. But she was also an American citizen, and knew that she should have
been afforded rights, protection, and adequate representation. Standing among the
audience in her orange jumpsuit, yelling, Jo realized that she would not be allowecl to
fit in. She has been positioned at the bottom of the symbolic hierarchy, and at some
point she refused to accept her positioning.
Two different psychiatrists testified in court that Jo has the mind of a child.,
with no understanding of right and wrong. Not only did she reject her place in the
symbolic order, Jo dismissed the established fields that link her lesbianism arid
criminality to insanity. After learning that her lawyer wished to use borderline-
personality disorder as a defense, she fired the expert witness. Jo immediatelly
stepped downstage of her cell and lamented:
If I say I'm crazy, that means they didn't do it. Them bastards with tlie 'suck my dick, I'm a cop' routine. Neither one of 'em was a cop. Well, that one was a retired cop. Other one was a fuckin' security guard or somethi~ng.If I say I'm crazy, then none a them bastards tried to kill me. I'm just a h~ooker got her head knocked around one too many times, went nutso. Up and started shooting men. Then how come it's only seven, motherfuckers? How come I'm not standing on a pile a 200 corpses? Huh? Maybe 'coz most of the men
'65 Ibid, p. 56. Ibid, p. 56. I interact with in my daily business no not try and kill me. Only some of 'em do. Maybe seven of 'em. ~0.l~~
For me, this monologue was the first sign of Jo's vulnerability in the production.
McDermott made the vocal choice to have Jo's voice quiver through the last four sentences. This choice revealed the cracks in Jo's armor. It showed the difficulty that Jo undertook while struggling to always appear strong. I crafted this to be Jo',s most sympathetic moment at this point in the performance. I needed the audience to feel for her, to believe that she is mentally stable. More importantly I needecl the
audience to understand what she was saying: the admission of insanity woulci both
nullify her story, and erase all of the threats to the symbolic order.
Like the third chapter of this work, the storyline of SeZJ-Defense dealt with the
investigation of Jo and the first trial. Since she was sentenced to execution, the
verdicts of the other trials seemed to not matter. Therefore Jo, like Aileen, pllead no
contest in the remaining five proceedings. It was during these pleas that Jo gave her
most poignant challenge to the symbolic order. The text states that as she delivers the
following monologue the judge layers his dialogue over her, periodically asking,
remaining trial by remaining trial, how she pleads. These questions force heir to break
from her monologue to answer, "no contest."
I cast a different actor to deliver the question for each trial to show how the
dominant discourse exists within the mainstream, and how these trials spanned across
Florida. I utilized the strict, rigid movement vocabulary set up by Tadeshi S~uzukito
create the judges' movement. I made this choice to endow their choreographky with
references to established power within the mainstream, as Suzuki's training is known
167 Ibid, p. 58. for its use of discipline and traditional rituals. The judges marched out and jloined one another to display how the justice system attempted to silence Jo. During this section
Jo fought to tell the audience:
People think a prostitute can't be raped. That that just means somebody didn't pay. It's not about the fucking money. If that was it, you know, I'd say I got robbed. It ain't about money. It's about using me to take out all your hate at somebody else in the world, No Contest at whoever made you feel powerless an' week an' limp-dick an' stupid, takin' whatever shit you got inside you out on me. It's about not knowing if this is the time you're gonna die. No Contest. It's about havin' whispered close in your ear You're gonna die, you worthless piece a shit, an' knowing it's true. Knowing you're gonna (die. Knowing you're a worthless piece a shit. NO CONTEST It's about havin a. knife shoved up inside you, having a person deliberately cut down, slicing your cwnt open through to your asshole and going to the hospital bleeding through a hotel towel, NO CONTEST bleeding on the floor, having them call you a whore while they're lookin' at what that man did to you. An' you can't go to the cops cos he was a fuckin' cop. An they don't treat you like you're anything. NO CONTEST. But I am something. An' if it takes six shots from a .22 to show you that, I'm gonna do what it takes.16'
The judges (as signifiers for the justice system and the mainstream) attempt to silence
Jo as she describes the abuse rendered on her body-on the prostitute's body. The:y forced Jo to fit within their structure, making her enter her plea of "no contest' whenever asked. They sought to erase her description of abuse, to eradicate it because they do not want to know what happens to women like Aileen.
Paradoxically, what made Self-Defense an exciting exploration of representation was what it withheld. For example, the play never showed what
'68 Ibid, p. 72-73. happened in the cars between Jo and the seven Johns. With this absence in the script,
I was able as the director to focus on each of the characters' perspective of what happened, and how they were shaped by the rules of the symbolic order.
All but one of the characters in the legal system, including Jo's lawyer, believed that the killings were murder. The Prosecutor argued in court, "The evidence is clear. This man-hating lesbian became a prostitute for the control over men. And when that thrill was no longer enough, she moved on to the ultimate control-m~rder."'"~ My direction and the text showed that the Captain and 13rum:s find it impossible for a prostitute to kill in self-defense. Their attitude towards prostitutes was evident during Chastity's interrogation, and was explained in
Daytona's final direct-address. However, the Captain's opinion is most apparent when Bucket asks to discuss the NHI files. The Captain harshly responded:
Are you worried about Prostitute Quality of Life, here? Are you concerned that not enough fucking Hookers will choose the Sunshine State to ply their trade? [. . .] Now, if white middle-aged businessmen pick someplace else to live and work and spend their hard earned vacation dollars, THEN we're in
TROUBLE. 170
Jo's lawyer, the feminist Cassie, and several psychiatrists believe that Jo killed the seven johns because of insanity. Cassie and Jo's lawyer supported the testimony of two psychiatrists who told the court that Jo suffered from a mild cortical dysfunction, which left her with the maturity of a small child.
Yet, by the end of the play Bucket functioned outside of the discourse, even
though he began the play sitting with Drums and the Captain as they harasseld
Chastity during her interrogation. Bucket was one of the undercover officers
'69 Ibid, p. 63. I7O Ibid, p. 65-66. responsible for Jo's arrest. By performing these actions, Bucket conveyed a level of certainty that Jo is guilty. What is more, he was complicit in supporting the choices and beliefs of Drums and the Captain. However, it seems that everything changed for
Bucket when Jo asked if he had checked the NHI files in the precinct. This shook him, and he studied the files. Bucked found that the number of unsolved prostitute murders dropped dramatically after Jo's arrest. He chose not to testify in the Walclren trial. Instead he listened to JO'Stestimony. After the conviction and subsequent sentencing Bucket visited her in jail. These events left Bucket without schemata to organize the signs. As the play ends, Bucket is lost, unable to deduce what happened. He becomes obsessed, and goes over the case file while watching interviews with the victim's families.
In a sense, Bucket represents the ideal audience member. He began the performance with firm beliefs, all defined by the discourse. Through the performance he truly heard all of the voices around him. Bucket was also in a position of privilege, and had access to information that many never will. He used his privilege to find the NHI files and read about the underrepresented. In doing so, every thing he knew was called into question. He could no longer accept anything as a given.
The form, function, and content of my production of the play Self-Defense were all designed to challenge key aspects of the hegemonic discourses. This thesis has been written for the same purpose. I began this work by mapping out the ways in which representation is the action of making meaning, and demonstrating how meaning is constructed within and informed by the rules of a society's dominant symbolic order. I showed how that discourse is created and propelled by people in power, focusing on the ways that sexology, criminology, and psychology institutionalized the notion of the female invertlnatural offenderlhysteric. 1 ihen
illustrated the ways in which this established logic constricted how Wournos's casle
could be understood. It defined how she was represented and prosecuted by trapping
her within the previously established structure. I walked readers through my
directorial choices for Kreitzer's Self-Defense to explicate how my use of the
performers' bodies subverted the common perception that the symbolic order is a
given by displaying that it is constructed and maintained by people in positions of
power. Finally, I demonstrated how my choices challenged the infallibility of the
dominant discourse by uncovering the prejudices within it. It is up to the audience
members of SelJLDejense and the readers of this work to decide if they can allow their
world to be called into question-if they can listen as intently and use their privilege
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