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Abstract
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Despite its relative rarity, the public is fascinated by serial murder. This fascination can be evidenced by the popularity of various entertainment media, particularly films, focusing on serial murder.
The present research analyzes the content of 38 films featuring acts of female-perpetrated serial murder in order to
understand what information the public may glean about female serial murder from film.
Male serial killers have been the subject of much academic study and media attention, however, their female counterparts have been largely ignored or treated less seriously despite committing acts of equal severity. The characteristics of female serial killers (n=38) and their victims (n=209) across the films are compared to real world female serial murder data from the Radford University/Florida Gulf Coast University Serial Killer Database to determine how accurately female serial murder is represented in film.
RESULTS of this analysis indicate that films misrepresent female serial murder in multiple ways including their motivations and methods of killing, however, the films do portray certain aspects of female serial murder correctly including certain victim characteristics.
Language: en |