View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Oregon Scholars' Bank “LET’S GET COZY AND COMFY AND CUDDLE UP AND TALK ABOUT MURDER:” MY FAVORITE MURDER AND THE NEW TRUE CRIME by SARA SACKS A THESIS Presented to the School of Journalism and Communication and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts June 2017 THESIS APPROVAL PAGE Student: Sara Sacks Title: “Let’s Get Cozy and Comfy and Cuddle Up and Talk about Murder:” My Favorite Murder and the new true crime This thesis has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree in the School of Journalism and Communication by: Dr. Chris Chavez Chairperson Dr. Autumn Shafer Member Dr. Dean Mundy Member and Scott L. Pratt Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded June 2017 ii © 2017 Sara Sacks iii THESIS ABSTRACT Sara Sacks Master of Arts School of Journalism and Communication June 2017 Title: “Let’s Get Cozy and Comfy and Cuddle Up and Talk about Murder:” My Favorite Murder and the new true crime This study analyzes the contribution of the podcast My Favorite Murder to the discourse of the true crime genre. Through Critical Discourse Analysis, Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis, and Feminist Media Research the study uncovers how the hosts of the podcast use discourse about gender, class, race, and ability to both reinforce and challenge traditional true crime narratives. iv CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Sara Sacks GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene Millsaps College, Jackson DEGREES AWARDED: Master of Arts, Media Studies, 2017, University of Oregon Bachelor of the Arts, Communication Studies, 2014, Millsaps College v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to my committee Dr. Chris Chavez, Dr. Autumn Shafer, and Dr. Dean Mundy for their unrelenting help and support. I would also like to thank my incredible group of friends and family who were a constant source of encouragement. vi Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. -Margaret Atwood vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 II. LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................ 5 III. METHODS ............................................................................................................ 27 IV. CREATING A FEMININE AND FEMINIST SPACE......................................... 33 V. TRUE CRIME CHARACTERS ............................................................................. 58 VI. LAUGHING AT TRAUMA .................................................................................. 88 VII. CONCLUSION .................................................................................................... 97 REFERENCES CITED ................................................................................................ 100 viii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In 2016, My Favorite Murder, (MFM) a quaintly produced true crime comedy podcast skyrocketed to popularity. After only about two months of existence, MFM stole the number one spot on the iTunes comedy podcast charts. True crime has been around for a long time, and modern true crime hit its peak in popularity in the 1970s and 80s (Murley, 2008). Recently, however, popular culture has seen a rise in the popularity of the true crime genre once again with stories like Adnan Syed’s in Serial and Steven Avery’s in Making a Murderer focusing on the messy complexities of the American criminal justice system in its social context (Cruz, 2015; Koenig, 2014; Demos & Ricciardi, 2015). MFM, however, offers a truly unique true crime platform at the intersection of comedy and feminism. True crime boasts a long history of criticism and degradation (Browder, 2006; Murley, 2008). Critics claim that the genre is misogynistic, pornographic, sensational, and has no purpose other than to increase fear of violent crime in its historically female audience (Browder, 2006; Caputi, 1987; Dowler, Fleming & Muzzatti, 2006; Durham, Elrod & Kinkade, 1995). Literary criticism is, however, steeped in patriarchal tradition, which trivializes what has been deemed “women’s literature” (Vicary & Fraley, 2010). While war histories, a traditionally masculine genre, offer entirely acceptable forays into scenes of violence and destruction, literary critics paint true crime as simply a reckless exploitation of suffering and tragedy (Vicary & Fraley, 2010). Women’s alienation from violent media has worked to silence them on the matter. Patriarchal literary criticisms of the true crime genre work to further alienate women 1 from creating a discourse of violence, even the kind that exists in their own backyards. By producing MFM out of a living room, however, hosts Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff blur the lines between gendered “private” and “public” spaces. They create a feminine and feminist platform that publicizes and justifies women’s consumption of true crime, while critiquing a patriarchal society, which has made their consumption of it “taboo.” Through this discourse, they have formed a large and strong community of fans and content producers they lovingly refer to as “murderinos.” Despite the podcast’s superficially strong inculcation of feminism into the true crime genre, it falls short of being truly inclusive and revolutionary. MFM still relies heavily on true crime stereotypes and narrative tropes, which work to marginalize certain groups of people from the national discourse on crime and justice. In MFM, as in the true crime genre tradition, victims are almost always young, white, middle to upper-middle class, cisnormative women, offenders are often developmentally disabled, and stories of minorities and socioeconomically disadvantaged people are hardly ever told. However, when Karen and Georgia do speak about race, class, and the criminal justice system, the do so intently and with intellectual vigor. But the majority of these discussions focus on a very particular type of justice for a very particular type of victim. Ultimately, this podcast speaks to an exclusively second wave feminist audience of young, white, middle to upper-middle class, cisnormative women. Despite its exclusionary discourse, the comedic and at least somewhat feminist atmosphere of the podcast still offers a positive space for the imagined audience of the podcast. Previous audience studies work with the true crime genre has revealed that consuming true crime can act as a therapeutic exercise for women who want to learn how 2 to avoid violence or even to re-narrativize their own traumatic histories (Browder, 2006; Vicary & Fraley, 2010). A comedic framework offers further therapeutic potential through its ability to unite oppressed people beneath a rebellious discourse (Obrdlik, 1942; Thorson, 1993). Ultimately, MFM both perpetuates and reconfigures the true crime genre. It maintains the true crime status quo of appealing to an audience of white, middle to upper- middle class, cisnormative women while alienating minorities from a discourse of crime and justice. However, though their commentaries on race, class, and criminal justice are few and far between, Karen and Georgia capitalize on new media’s freedom from institutional media production traditions to take steps towards a more inclusive true crime discourse. Chapter 2 outlines the history of the true crime genre and juxtaposes scholarly responses to it, including negative critiques which decry the genre as lurid, misrepresentative and harmful and positive reviews which understand the genre as a pedagogical and therapeutic space. This chapter also delineates new media’s potential for intervention into the genre. In this chapter, I also address the use of humor as a feminist tool, a tool for critiquing oppressive societies, and a tool for the re-narrativization of trauma. The third chapter outlines my methodology. In this chapter I justify my sample for analysis, explicate my data coding process, and explain my use of Critical Discourse Analysis, Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis, and Feminist Media Research. Chapter 4 discusses the space of MFM as a domestic and feminine one which encourages the critique of patriarchal culture. Chapter 5 analyzes MFM’s discourse of gender, race, class, and ability and compares it to traditional true crime narratives. Chapter 6 details 3 MFM’s potential as a healing and pedagogical space for women which encourages the development of a discourse about trauma. 4 CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW In The Rise of True Crime: 20th Century Murder and American Popular Culture (2008), Jean Murley questions why she was drawn to the true crime genre. She explains the simultaneous satisfaction of criminal offenders being caught and punished and the genre’s unsettling focus on the middle class and its “gnawing undercurrent of unmitigated evil” (p. 1). In her book she questions the rigid yet flexible true crime narrative tradition and works towards an understanding of the misunderstood “cultural work” that the genre does (Murley, 2008). She defines true crime as a “murder narrative,” which is a presentation of factual events tinted with the writer’s own beliefs and values (Murley, 2008, p. 6). Because these stories are consistently