The landscape of true crime is littered with content that has aged beyond poorly, from properties where it turns out the tale was incorrectly told — or stories that, by our June of 2021 eyes, are told in an especially cringeworthy way. A lot of the time, we’ve dealt with this by saying “well, we know better now,” and move on.
Is true crime in for a similar reckoning, especially in the light of social justice and the increased suspicion of copaganda? Honestly, folks, I don’t know: Dan Abrams seems set on bringing Live PD back, and Ashley Flowers’s ultimate cop-fan pod Crime Junkie remains atop the charts.
But let’s pretend we live in a world where Oxygen starts thinking like Atlas Obscura, and where the narratives presented by police are scrutinized as closely as the narrative of an 18-year-old wooed by a 53-year-old famous author. In that world, what classic true-crime properties and narratives would you like a new, fresh take on, with an informed, 2021 perspective?
I would really like to see some sort of media (sadly a podcast would probably be best) that went through all the episodes of Forensic Files to really dig into how terrible some of those "forensics" really were and to give updates on just how many of those convictions have been overturned (and how many more should be overturned).
I feel like we are having that reckoning,.just slowly and unevenly. But if we are still doing all those retro serial killer series, instead of Ryan Murphy's vision I'd like a telling of the Dahmer and Bundy stories focused on the police incompetence. And I would love a post-MeToo revisit of the Old Hollywood scandals, like the Virginia Rappe/Fatty Arbuckle case.
I'm waiting for a 2021 take on "The Satanic Panic" cases. Much of the writing on them to date go between explanations of social strain and anxiety caused by the rise of two-income households, and "the 80s? Amirite?" But as we now know, the people responsible for the panic didn't go away, nor did the social pressures that apparently led to it, and it's now metastasized into what seems to be a much larger cultural movement. So how does the rise of Q-Anon and related belief structures inform what was going on in the earlier panic? What led to the (apparent) marginalization of the panic before, and what does that tell us about the end state of Q-Anon now?
Also, I was talking with Curtis Sliwa last night (there's a name I haven't thought about in 20+ years), and I would love to see a re-evaluation of that whole vigilante movement, in light of racialized anxiety and shifts in economic inequality in NYC and elsewhere. It's always portrayed as a response to rising crime rates, but in 2021, I feel like there's another story, about the end of the middle class in NYC, that's waiting to be told.
My take would be the more physical, on site Atlas Obscura approach, especially as they have entered the guided tour business. I live in Los Angeles adjacent and the summer after Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were murdered, relatives of a friend came for a visit and, on the fourth of July, they borrowed the family's minivan and conducted a self-guided tour of sites relevant to the case, ending with, of course, the house itself. Unsatisfied that the crime scene was off limits to tourist, they nominated the tallest among them to hold a camera over the wall and snap away. For current tour ideas, I submit following the route of the Confession Killer, Henry Lee Lucas, who confessed to over 200 crimes across the country, but only if conducted in a manner that followed the alleged path Lucas took whilst committing these alleged crimes if only to prove, again, that there was no physical way he could have conducted them all. All inclusive save for gas. Everyone has to pitch in on that one, depending upon the state they are in, as prices and availability of gas may vary.
My first thought is that there are probably way more books written to cast doubt on a conviction when it turns out the dude totally did it but both of us are just relying on gut. A proper inventory would be very interesting!
I would really like to see some sort of media (sadly a podcast would probably be best) that went through all the episodes of Forensic Files to really dig into how terrible some of those "forensics" really were and to give updates on just how many of those convictions have been overturned (and how many more should be overturned).
I feel like we are having that reckoning,.just slowly and unevenly. But if we are still doing all those retro serial killer series, instead of Ryan Murphy's vision I'd like a telling of the Dahmer and Bundy stories focused on the police incompetence. And I would love a post-MeToo revisit of the Old Hollywood scandals, like the Virginia Rappe/Fatty Arbuckle case.
I'm waiting for a 2021 take on "The Satanic Panic" cases. Much of the writing on them to date go between explanations of social strain and anxiety caused by the rise of two-income households, and "the 80s? Amirite?" But as we now know, the people responsible for the panic didn't go away, nor did the social pressures that apparently led to it, and it's now metastasized into what seems to be a much larger cultural movement. So how does the rise of Q-Anon and related belief structures inform what was going on in the earlier panic? What led to the (apparent) marginalization of the panic before, and what does that tell us about the end state of Q-Anon now?
Also, I was talking with Curtis Sliwa last night (there's a name I haven't thought about in 20+ years), and I would love to see a re-evaluation of that whole vigilante movement, in light of racialized anxiety and shifts in economic inequality in NYC and elsewhere. It's always portrayed as a response to rising crime rates, but in 2021, I feel like there's another story, about the end of the middle class in NYC, that's waiting to be told.
My take would be the more physical, on site Atlas Obscura approach, especially as they have entered the guided tour business. I live in Los Angeles adjacent and the summer after Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were murdered, relatives of a friend came for a visit and, on the fourth of July, they borrowed the family's minivan and conducted a self-guided tour of sites relevant to the case, ending with, of course, the house itself. Unsatisfied that the crime scene was off limits to tourist, they nominated the tallest among them to hold a camera over the wall and snap away. For current tour ideas, I submit following the route of the Confession Killer, Henry Lee Lucas, who confessed to over 200 crimes across the country, but only if conducted in a manner that followed the alleged path Lucas took whilst committing these alleged crimes if only to prove, again, that there was no physical way he could have conducted them all. All inclusive save for gas. Everyone has to pitch in on that one, depending upon the state they are in, as prices and availability of gas may vary.
My first thought is that there are probably way more books written to cast doubt on a conviction when it turns out the dude totally did it but both of us are just relying on gut. A proper inventory would be very interesting!