by BJW Nashe
SerialKillersInk.net recently came out with their new Serial Killer Trivia Game. You can purchase it online at their web site. You can also purchase arts and crafts and mementos from an entire menagerie of convicted murderers. Same thing with web sites such as Supernaught.com and MurderAuction.com. Manson is a big attraction, of course. Plenty of his handicrafts are for sale. You can also find items pertaining to criminals such as Richard Ramirez, Ted Bundy, Kenneth Bianchi, Angelo Buono, Jeffrey Dahmer, etc. This is now a growing industry catering to folks who, for various reasons, enjoy collecting anything remotely associated with notorious criminals. No matter how much the self-proclaimed “defenders of public decency” try to shut it down, this market for “true crime collectibles,” or “murderabilia,” keeps on thriving.
Perhaps the infamous “killer clown” John Wayne Gacy, and his “artwork,” is where it all started. Gacy’s amateur paintings now fetch hefty prices of several thousand dollars apiece on the murderabilia market. While Gacy was living out his final days in jail prior to his execution, a Baton Rouge mortician named Rick Staton became his exclusive art dealer. Staton went on to become one of the top collectors of murderabilia in America. Some well known buyers of murderabilia include painter Joe Coleman, musicians Lux Interior and Poison Ivy from The Cramps, and shock-rock performer Marilyn Manson. The Son Of Sam Law does not allow killers to profit from their crimes (i.e. from movies or books), but murderabilia has flourished on the Internet (despite being forbidden on eBay), and new laws have been difficult to pass, due to obvious first amendment concerns. Sales and purchases of these alternately morbid and ridiculous items is likely to continue.
Some of the loudest critics of murderabilia inadvertently have only served to draw more attention to this whole weird brand of commerce. John Walsh from the TV show “America’s Most Wanted,” and Andy Kahan, a former parole officer in Texas who now runs the mayor’s crime victims’ office in Houston, have both condemned murderabilia as a “sick and disgusting business.” What better marketing could you hope for, if you are an entrepreneur operating way out on the cultural fringe?
One can easily understand how murder victims’ families might be upset about their loved ones’ killers being glorified by the murderabilia market. Sometimes, however, it seems that they just want a sizeable piece of the action. They are less likely to be upset if the majority of the proceeds ends up in their pockets. When the U.S. government auctioned off a small fortune worth of junk that belonged to Unabomber Ted Kaczinski, there were no cries of outrage, because all of the money went to the victims’ families. Likewise, when Jeffrey Dahmer was murdered in prison before a deal could be finalized regarding book and movie rights — once again with all money going to the families of the victims — those families were apparently dismayed that they would be missing out on some good hard cash. And who can blame them, really? But doesn’t that implicate these families in the whole murderabilia racket? In an excellent article for the Media/Culture Journal in November 2004, David Schmid analyzes this quandary at some length:
“…When Jeffrey Dahmer was murdered in prison in 1994, the families of his victims were delighted but his death also presented them with something of a problem. Throughout the short time Dahmer was in prison, there had been persistent rumors that he was in negotiations with both publishers and movie studios about selling his story. If such a deal had ever been struck, legal restrictions would have prevented Dahmer from receiving any of the money; instead, it would have been distributed among his victims’ families. Dahmer’s murder obviously ended this possibility, so the families explored another option: going into the murderabilia business by auctioning off Dahmer’s property, including such banal items as his toothbrush, but also many items he had used in commission of the murders, such as a saw, a hammer, the 55-gallon vat he used to decompose the bodies, and the refrigerator where he stored the hearts of his victims. Although the families’ motives for suggesting this auction may have been noble, they could not avoid participating in what Mark Pizzato has described as “the prior fetishization of such props and the consumption of [Dahmer’s] cannibal drama by a mass audience.” When the logic of consumerism dominates, is anyone truly innocent, or are there just varying degrees of guilt, of implication?”
None of the artwork or handicrafts or tools or vats or refrigerators associated with the criminally insane has any special value in and of itself. They are only “collectible” because of the horrible crimes with which they are tainted. They have some spooky aura about them, I suppose, like primitive idols or sacrificial altars. But they are basically nothing more than trash, when you get right down to it. The flotsam and jetsam of society, randomly assembled. At the online stores, you can view terrible paintings and drawings, cheap jewelry, crummy knicknacks, illegibly signed documents and postcards, used candy wrappers, even nail clippings and skin scrapings. It’s all on sale. Items that cost more than $50 or so can be accompanied by a “certificate of authenticity.” It’s rather surprising just how banal so many of the items are. Imagine the frenzy that would ensue if a pair of Jodi Arias’s panties appeared on this market.
In the end, these “collectibles” strike me as being no more interesting than the criminally insane individuals they are linked to. Which is not all that terribly interesting. Others may have a different opinion. But I think just about everyone would agree that, regardless of ethics and values, and no matter how “sick and disgusting” it may appear, the murderabilia market’s continued success is a fascinating phenomenon. The way in which these items are obsessively sought after and advertised and collected is intriguing on many different levels. The culture of murderabilia seems to serve as a kind of bizarre parody of American capitalism and commodity fetishism in general. It raises all sorts of questions regarding the value we assign to things, and the type of things we use as identification markers for ourselves and our communities. No doubt, the murderabilia market forces us to confront the horribly important role played by murder in the history of our society.
Anyone want to buy a Christmas card from the Son of Sam?