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OUR DARK DEFENDER: DEXTER IN THE CONTEXT OF POST-9/11 AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM By EMILY GLOSSER A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2013 1 © 2013 Emily Glosser 2 A special thank you to my grandmother— Rita Glosser— for her unconditional love, and for always encouraging me to follow my dreams. 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my parents, Nancy and Richard Glosser, for their love and guidance throughout both my childhood and adulthood. I would also like to thank the many friends I have made in graduate school who shaped me as an academic, and have become a wonderful support network. I would like to thank my reader, Dr. Eric Kligerman, who is such an inspiring, talented, and encouraging individual. Finally, a special thanks to my thesis chair, Dr. Anastasia Ulanowicz. Anja, as we call her, has been my mentor since I was an undergraduate and is one of the reasons why I am in graduate school today. She has helped me grow as a writer and thinker, and I am so appreciative to have her in my life, both as a teacher and as a friend. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4 ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... 6 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 7 2 THE HARD-BOILED DETECTIVE .......................................................................... 16 The Hard-Boiled Detective and Moral Interventionism ............................................ 20 The Criminal Figure as the “Rogue” State .............................................................. 25 The Forensic Investigator and the Murder Ritual .................................................... 28 Conclusion: Dexter as the Sovereign Figure ........................................................... 35 3 THE CHILD ............................................................................................................. 38 The Virgin Land and Virgin Children: The Threatened Child in the War on Terror .. 41 “I am not like you…nobody hurts my children”: The Protective Father and Vulnerable Child Figure in Dexter ........................................................................ 45 Conclusion: Child as Narrative ................................................................................ 52 4 THE SERIAL KILLER.............................................................................................. 54 5 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................ 67 LIST OF REFERENCES ............................................................................................... 70 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ............................................................................................ 73 5 Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts OUR DARK DEFENDER: DEXTER IN THE CONTEXT OF POST-9/11 AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM By EMILY GLOSSER May 2013 Chair: Anastasia Ulanowicz Major: English The Showtime series Dexter centers on a blood-spatter analyst named Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), who is also secretly a serial killer. Yet, unlike past fictional and real-life serial murderers, Dexter abides by a moral code, which restricts him to killing those that “deserve” to die, primarily other serial killers. As both an agent of the Law that will exempt the Law when deemed necessary, Dexter acts in accord with American exceptionalism, or the notion that the State can declare itself an exception to the order it regulates. Although exceptionalism was an organizing logic of The Cold War, it has gained new footing following 9/11, exemplified by the Bush administration’s Homeland Security Act and the Global War on Terror. Thus, I position Dexter in relation to its post-9/11 exceptionalist context, and argue that while the show is popular among young, liberal viewers, these viewers ultimately slip back into its neoconservative ideologies. My study of the series is split amongst three figures: the hard-boiled detective, the child, and the serial killer. While both the hard-boiled detective and the child figure affirm neoconservative exceptionalist beliefs and practices, the serial killer ultimately turns the viewers gaze inward, and exhibits the fissures within the exceptionalist framework. 6 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The Showtime series Dexter premiered on October 1, 2006, and quickly became one of the most popular shows on television. Based on Jeff Lindsey’s novel series Darkly Dreaming Dexter (2004), the show is about a blood spatter analyst named Dexter (Michael C. Hall), who works for the Miami Metro police department, and simultaneously leads a secret life as a serial killer. Dexter, however, is not the usual persona of evil that we see in both real and fictional accounts of serial killers. Unlike Buffalo Bill, Patrick Bateman, and John Kramer, or Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Charles Manson, Dexter will only kill those that “deserve” to be killed (primarily other serial killers) by following a moral Code of violence. In a flashback to Dexter’s childhood, viewers learn that Harry, Dexter’s adoptive father and a police officer, taught Dexter the Code after he discovered a ditch full of animal remains, and realized his son had been killing neighborhood pets. Rather than punishing Dexter or responding with disgust, Harry feels empathy for his son’s murderous desires: he understands them as the result of a childhood trauma, when, as a two-year-old, Dexter witnessed his mother’s gruesome murder and sat for two days in a pool of her blood. Harry helps channel Dexter’s homicidal proclivities in a “constructive” direction, by killing those that slip through the cracks of a faulty legal system. Dexter transforms from a wounded and disturbed child into Harry’s vigilante creation, who will step outside of the Law for his own personal definition of justice. The show portrays him as “The Dark Defender” of a vulnerable, Miami population that is constantly subject to the evil whims of the monsters living amongst them. 7 Dexter has received some of the highest ratings in Showtime history. The season three finale garnered 1.51 million viewers, the season four finale 2.6 million, and the season seven finale 2.75 million, making it the highest rated episode in Showtime history. The show has also inspired an exorbitant amount of merchandise: through the Showtime website, fans are able to buy Dexter’s kill costume, complete with a vinyl apron and the face shield, a woman’s thumb as a thumb drive, bobble heads of characters, and blood-spattered glass coasters and mugs. In the summer of 2008, a group of top designers transformed a New York apartment into a Dexter sanctuary: “The Dexter dining room designed by Amy Lau and Johnny Grey’s Dexter-inspired kitchen produced such limited edition items for purchase as dining chairs apparently spattered with blood, dinner plates with bloodstains, and ‘dismembered flatware,’ where each knife, fork, or spoon consists of pieces of several styles of flatware - a real steal at only $500 per place setting” (Schmid 132). Moreover, fans now are now able participate in Dexter’s murders through a video game that helps Dexter pick, stalk, and kill his victims, all while concealing his identity. In the same manner that hunters collect their hunting trophies, viewers can enter Dexter’s “Kill Room” on the Showtime website, which displays pictures Dexter’s murder victims in their most vulnerable state, wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, with the fearful recognition that they are about to die. It should be evident by now that Dexter’s murders are glorified among American viewers. Dexter primarily targets young viewers. The edginess and risky nature of the show appeals to “new-age, hip” fans, many of whom use social media to participate in forum, Twitter, and Facebook discussions related to the show. The most enthusiastic viewers fall within the 20-35 age bracket, with 55% of viewers being male and 45% 8 female (“Showtime’s Dexter Becomes Hot Trending Topic on Social Media”). Although I was unable to find demographics regarding the political affiliations of viewers, I surmise that the majority of viewers fall towards the Left, since that is the pattern among the 20- 35 age demographic. The show also invites a liberal audience through its progressive portrayals of race and gender roles; for example, Maria Laguerta, a Puerto Rican female character, is the lieutenant of Miami Metro, and therefore in a position superior to the White male officers working under her. The presence of characters like Laguerta, who defy traditional minority and gender roles, make a conservative surface reading of the show difficult. However, even though the show attracts liberal viewer and appears forward-thinking, the show often slips back into the neoconservative narratives that it likely attempts to avoid. This is best exemplified through Dexter’s character, a White Anglo-Saxon male, who demonstrates that “taking the Law into his own hands…is the prerogative of White masculinity,” a narrative that resonates both with the traditional Western, and Bush government’s exceptionalist policies (Byers, “Neoliberal Dexter? 146).