Based on true events?

Towards a Pop Culture of Crime

Abstract

This article seeks to reflect on a pop culture of crime, understood as a complex set of dynamics, phenomena, narratives and identities that legitimize violence through dynamics of uncertainty between facts and fiction. In order to do this, the two main conditions that have led to this phenomenon will be addressed: first, the spectacularization of violence in popular fiction, which ranges from post-Gothic romantic narrative to current gore films, with special emphasis on exploitation films and the consequent mystification (and subsequent demystification) of the snuff. Second, a growing fascination for the serial killer, which elevates his status to a celebrity one and allows identity affiliations on the part of viewers and consumers, which leads to a certain fictionalization of the criminal. These aspects will highlight the functioning of the pop culture of crime, which relies on this cultural mobility between reality and fiction to generate a cultural sensitivity to murder that has been renewed in contemporary societies. Not only the development of channels for the production and diffusion of images, but other modern factors such as the consequent normalization of violence in neoliberal and heteropatriarchal systems will have a decisive impact on popular culture and consumer habits. A final review of some subcultural trends such as murderabilia or necroporn will serve to stage the permeability of some cultural artifacts that reflect and contribute to this systemic violence.