Transcript | True Crime, Horror & Women

[UNLADYLIKE THEME]

CRISTEN: This is Unladylike, I'm Cristen, and tis this season, unlady-ghouls and goblins, to willfully scare the shit out of ourselves. And for today's episode, I wanted to take a little trick-or-treat trip across the bridge between two disconnected but very unladylike subgenres: true crime and horror. Both for me personally are quite scary and both center women in particular ways.

And all I'm gonna say is that in addition to two fantastic guests, this episode has it all. I mean, we're talking final girls, white ladies loving true crime, Jamie Lee Curtis' boobs, cannibals - real and fictional - Scream, and quite possibly, the most terrifying t-shirt on all of Etsy.

BOBBI: I'm Bobbi Miller. I'm also known as your friend who knows just a little bit too much about pop culture everywhere on the internet, and I. I, I guess I, I like to call myself like a professional nerd. But I'm like a pop culture content creator, so I make TikToks. I have my own podcast. I am very vocal on Twitter, so I'm everywhere just talking about pop culture all the time.

CRISTEN: I wanna dig into the Afternoon Special episode on true crime media consumption. And I'm really curious, first, just what got you thinking about true crime and what you wanted to figure out going into the episode?

BOBBI: Um, I think it was a lot of the discussions around like the new Dahmer series on Netflix.

CLIP: “What do you do in there? The smells, power tools going all hours of the night. I hear screaming coming from your apartment.”

“Im just tryna say sorry, so you gonna open your gift”

BOBBI: I saw that they had, um, because it's like a recreation series. Like they do a lot of reenactments of like real events. I saw that they had done a reenactment of one of the victims' families, like very emotional, uh, like court testimony. And something about that gave me like a, I was like, uh, I don't know how I feel about this.

And so I wanted to dive into the question of like, could you ethically consume true crime media. And I came to the assumption, and I think I talk about it in the episode, that you can, but there are varying levels. Like, you know, not everything we do is, is ethical. We do, you know, unethical things every single day.

So I think having an awareness of it, um, can kind of, I guess it's a better way to consume true crime media versus just taking it in and you get people on TikTok who were just like, I thought that the Dahmer series was gonna be gorier. Like, they should have been more violent with it. I'm like, Uh, this is like, these were real people and their families are very much still alive and still here and have voiced that they don't want their trauma to be kind of brought back up for entertainment purposes again. 

CRISTEN: Yeah, and I think the, the trend that I've been seeing of like the, the dramatizations of true crime and how quickly now with streaming, it also seems like that cycle is happening. Like for instance, I think you mentioned on the episode that there's already a made for streaming film in the works about Gabby Petito. Um, so it's like you have the instances of like Jeffrey Dahmer where yes, that happened a while ago, so at least a tiny smidge of history in between, but we're also seeing this rapid dramatization of things that happened, like was that earlier this year? I also like time - I don't, it bdoesn't make sense anymore.

BOBBI: I think it was like maybe second half of last year. So not even like a full year away from, from when it happened, but it's, it's crazy. Like the cycle of which these things are getting produced. I'm like Oh my gosh. And someone brought up on Twitter that if we are getting a Gabby p Petito series right now, that means that it had to have been pitched like pretty early on. So kind of when the serial, or when the case came to the public is probably when someone pitched it, which is. Interesting to think about. 

CRISTEN: You talk about true crime as one of the most fervent fandoms on the internet, and you're very intentional about the use of the, the use of fandom. So how is, how would you describe this fandom and what makes it so, so fervent? 

I mean, cuz there are a lot of fervent fandoms on, on the internet that it's competing with

BOBBI: Yeah, it definitely, to me it rivals, you know, your Marvel, your Star Wars. Like the very kind of like, when we think of fandom, what we, you know, think of with like nerd culture, but I think the true crime fandom is so interesting because they behave in the same way as other fandoms, which other fandoms who are kind of like the most fervent of those groups are those who take the subject matter that is fictional and they make it real to them. It feels real to them. The characters are real. Um, the, the storylines feel real. They treat it like it's real and everyone's like, it's a movie or it's a book like relax.

But the true crime fandom is simply just the inverse of that, which is they take something that is real and treat it as fictional. They kind of put this fictional overlay onto these, these serial killers, their, the cases and like how they did it, and they find themselves, I think somewhat like some of people, like I mentioned with the, the TikTok videos that I saw popping up around.

Some people treat it like it's a horror movie and they wanna, you know, see the most gruesome and gory kills. And it's like these are, these were real people, like not just like, you know, characters created for the sole intention of being killed like in a horror movie, but then you also have the other end of it where if people find like they began sympathizing with the killers.

I've seen a ton of people talking about, I actually feel really bad for, for Jeffrey Dahmer, or I actually feel really bad for Charles Manson. And it is, and like a lot of 'em romanticize them and they end up, you know, having romantic feelings and it's just, I'm like, guys, whoa. Like these are, these are not, like, this is not a I can fix him type of situation.

Like, like these are like people who have done really bad things. And I, I think it's just like, I, it's the, the kind of, the thrill of being scared. And I think it's, it's, it runs in tandem with how we feel about watching horror movies, which is, you know, like the thrill of an adrenaline rush of being scared.

But this is that taken up to an 11. And I think some people kind of lose sight of like, why is this a little bit scarier than a horror movie? It's because it, it really happened and could really happen. 

CRISTEN: Yeah and it's also, I think in those cases of people, developing these feelings and becoming these like serial killer apologists is maybe reflective also of how true crime is presented as almost like just, I don't know if this will make sense, but it's like it's presented as just the crime and the violence itself, when if you really dig into these people's like ideas and the ways that they targeted their victims and all of that. Like you quickly get into some really just nasty like white supremacy and like on down the line of beyond problematic issues on top of their you know compulsion to violence.

BOBBI: Absolutely. I think like, and I think the, once you get into, which so many of these killers did target black and brown people, so you can't ignore white supremacy is kind of, you know, like the ideation of it working its way into these cases.

And I think that's why it's so interesting that a large amount of, or a large percentage of the true crime fandom is comprised of white women and kind of seeing that, that those two ideologies going head to head where you have these killers who may have perpetuated white supremacist ideals and then you have a large white woman audience ignoring those implications.

And it's just kind of this terrible feedback loop of like none of these things happened within a silo. Like none of these things just happen, just cause like sometimes a killer may not have any causality as to who they kill, but a lot of the times they do, and we know this, like it's been studied, It's been analyzed.

They've either like mentioned their motive, many of them write manifestos, and a lot of that is filled with racist ideologies. So none of these things can truly be Ignored. Like, it's not like, Oh, well maybe he didn't like, No, he probably was very racist. And that played a part into who he, he killed. And I think that goes back into the whole, like a lot of the fandom, like the fervent parts of the fandom, not being able to see the victims as real people.

And not being able to understand like why they were targeted. It wasn't a coincidence that Jeffrey Dahmer targeted the 14 black and brown men. Like that wasn't a coincidence. It was very methodical and like done on purpose. Um, it's like, it's like I said, it's just a weird, uh, budding of, of ideologies.

Like when you go just like, even like a half step deeper beyond just the killer and the crime. 

CRISTEN: Yeah and I'm, I'm so glad that you, you brought up the white women of it all because that's where I was headed next, and I was curious if you have any, any thoughts on why that fandom is so distinctly white lady.

BOBBI: I, I've gone back and forth on it because I, and I, I don't think I went too deep into the episode with it because I didn't want anyone to feel like I was like, you know, saying like, ah, true crime is bad because of white women's. Not it, like, it's, it's, it's a rich tapestry. It's got a lot of moving parts. But I think that it is so comprised of white women because when you think about, you know, amongst women. Yes, violence happens amongst all groups of women, but in, in the case that something does happen to a white woman versus a black woman versus you know, an indigenous woman who has the higher chance of getting their case solved, who has the highest chance of, you know, maybe getting rescued?

Who has the highest chance of, you know, getting justice, it still is, is the white woman. And I think there's a bit of it that ends up being kind of sometimes playing into like the victim complex that goes into white womanhood, especially within America. It's all those different things kind of wrapped around it that make, make it to where most true crime fandom is comprised of white women. It's so many different layers onto it. And you know, I don't think any white woman who is a fan of true crime consciously, like goes into it thinking these things. But with the way, especially the American justice system is set up, I, I can understand why a, maybe a majority like white woman audience might convene around true crime.

And I think it's also kind of, the, I don't know how to explain it, but there's been kind of this weird offshoot from True crime where it is like the, this is what I would do in the event of a serial killer hunting me side of it. And I remember seeing on TikTok that there was like a company that was selling this, um, like packet where you put all your, like in case I go missing, um, papers.

And a lot of people were like publicizing that they had bought it and like, Oh, this is what I would say if I go missing. And it's like, if someone was actively trying to look for you right now, they know where all your information is. So it's kind of this like weird victim cosplay that also happens too. They are able to kind of put on this like, you know, like have this like victim power fantasy in a very weird way. Um, and like I said, I don't think anyone consciously goes into watching a true crime documentary who is a white woman and thinks, okay, you know, I'm gonna play victim for like 15 minutes, or whatever it is.

But it's those implications that are very much there. Not to say that other, you know, racial groups of women don't experience the same thing too, but the precedence of it is a lot different for, for white women I think.

[AD BREAK]

TIKTOK CLIP: Welcome back to Makeup and Murder series where I discuss murders involving Caribbean nationals. Today we will be discussing Bohemian serial killer Cordell Forton. 

CRISTEN: Can you tell the people what makeup and murder TikTok is?

BOBBI: Yeah. So, um, I think it, it probably like got started on, on YouTube, but YouTube was, you know, a great place for beauty influencers and I think the market for beauty influencers got a little bit oversaturated, so people began finding, other ways to do beauty, but to differentiate themselves.

And then, uh, the makeup and murder genre was born where people who wear makeup will do their makeup and, uh, explain, uh, a true crime case, uh, whether that's detailing, how it came to be, detailing the trial around it. Um, and then it's like made its way to TikTok where we've seen kind of offshoots of makeup and murder genre where there are like people who will, you know, like make death row meals and explain a, a victim or like, mainly that's the only one that I've seen. But I've definitely seen some other, like offshoots of the doing something mundane, but explaining a murder case genre. Mm. Um, which is, it's interesting to say the least, like, I get the appeal, I really do. Um, it's very interesting. 

CRISTEN: Well, and I'd seen in the podcasting world, I've definitely seen obviously the explosion of true crime podcasts and every iteration of like, you know, murders and fill in the blank, true crime and usually wine. Um, and I didn't, but I wasn't aware of this other kind of feminized, hyper feminized subgenre of makeup and murder and from a pop cultural consumption, media consumption standpoint. Why do you think that combo of something mundane and something horrific, like, why do you think that is such a potent combination It sounds like, for true crime?

BOBBI: I think, you know, It's kind of like the water cooler talk effect of true crime. Like you find someone who also likes true crime and then you can kind of just like over coffee or over lunch or just talking about these really gruesome things, but you're just seeing it almost, it kind of is treated as like gossip. And this isn't to say that everyone who indulges or who creates like the, the makeup and murder genre of media doesn't use any type of you know, take in to account any care or anything like that, because I know of a couple who like, you know, work with the victim's families and everything like that. So there seems to be like strides in making it a little bit more ethical. But I think it's just the, the kind of like breaking down the fourth wall, like I'm talking to you. This is us talking. You know, like gossiping about this really juicy case and I, I, myself, I'm a gossip. I love it. You know, I love to, to talk about, you know, stuff and talk a little shit, like I get it, but I think it adding the, the layer of someone doing their makeup while they're doing it, it kind of, I guess turns down the volume of the horrifying details of it and just makes it like, Oh, they're just explaining it while they're doing something mundane.

it kind of, it takes the, the air out of the, the, the situation, which I think can be helpful to some people. So they're not having to solely focus on what words are being said or like what actual horrific things are being detailed, and they can just kind of focus on like the makeup that's being done, which has Its good and it's bad to it, I think.

CRISTEN: Yeah. Yeah. It, it makes me wonder like, well if you need to turn the volume down, why are you listening  in the first place?

BOBBI:Exactly. Exactly. Like, uh, I don't know if we need to maybe make this palatable for people. Like, I think it should be terrifying because it is, cuz it actually happened. Maybe, I don't know.

CRISTEN: Maybe if the end result of the like the makeup is like, just like pure joker, like horror face to match the tenor. I dunno. Um, uh, I also, to stay on this, just another beat, um, you inspired me to browse true crime Etsy, which, um Wow. It is so much, and I just have to share a couple of examples. Um, oh, actually one example, I had to narrow it down.

But a lot of different iterations of “Choke me like Bundy. Eat me like Dahmer.” We're talking t-shirts, mugs, different, you know, Etsy merchants, but and that one stopped me in my tracks cuz I was like, I get that you're trying to be like, cute. But, but really, are you wearing that? You're gonna wear that shirt? Like, this is your personality?

BOBBI: Yeah. I'm like, are you guys wearing this out? Like, am I gonna go to public? So I'm gonna see you wearing that and I'm gonna be, Oh. nice shirt. Like, what's the, What's the intent? What's, 

CRISTEN: Are you okay? 

BOBBI: I was like, Are you, do you need to talk to someone because this doesn't give me the sign that you are good.

Um, yeah, I, I think I, I myself like perused it a little bit and I was just like, When are you guys wearing this? Like, is there a murder convention that you're saving this for? Is this a gift? Like, When are we, when are we wearing this? Or like, I know that the, um, like the Starbucks mugs that are like very decorative and stuff are also pretty popular, and they're just like, they're all bloody and everything. And I'm like, Why? Like when you're drinking your morning cup of coffee, you need to be thinking about Charles Manson, Like, is that what we need to start the day? Like Folgers, you need your, your serial killers and your Folgers? I don't think so. I don't know. That's, that's not great

CRISTEN: What would you advise to listeners who enjoy true crime, but feel, feel conflicted about the ethical conflicts that we've raised who want to be conscious pop culture consumers?

BOBBI: Yeah. Um, I, I think it's, this is my time to say like, I love a good cult documentary. Like, if you give me a cult documentary, I'm probably gonna watch it. I've probably seen every documentary about Jonestown, so I myself, I'm not like ascending from on high to say like, Oh, if you like true crime, you're a bad person. No, but I think the way to consume it ethically is to just have the consciousness that this is not just a case that is killer crime trial. There are real people that are connected to this a lot of the times, people that are still alive.

Many of our, you know, major true crime cases like Bundy, Dahmer, Manson, you know, all of those cases are either right at 50 years old or a little bit under. So the victims of the families, of the victims are very much still around and very much always are confronted with the fact that they lost their family member in not only such a gruesome way, but in such a public way as well.

Um, so having that understanding that there are real people that are still very much connected to these cases. If you can reduce your consumption of true crime, like if you've seen 1,001 Jeffrey Dahmer documentaries, do you need to see the new Netflix show? Perhaps not. You know, like maybe we, kind of curtail, what are we watching?

Um, and really getting, digging deep into the, the reason why we're watching true crime. Like, is it, And I mentioned in the episode like there are, there are good pieces to it, you know, it does increase people being a lot more vigilant, uh, about their, their surroundings and just being aware, um, I think a lot of people do you watch it with the intent of, you know, like the whole like justice, power, fantasy and hoping that justice will be served and whoever, you know, perpetuated the crime will, you know, get there, get their due. Um, so I think a lot of those things are the reasons why people consume it. But the reality of it is like we still are taking in you know, horrific crimes as a form of entertainment. And so just having that awareness is I think a good way to ethically consume it. And also understanding that there probably is no real way to ethically consume it other than not consuming it, which is something that can very well be done. But if you still wanna take in your occasional true crime, you know, podcast or documentary or you know, show, even cuz I talked about only murders in the building.

Which is basically just a fictionalized true crime show. Like just having that awareness of what the genre is and how it maybe could affect you in your everyday life, I think will be moons better than just blindly consuming it.

CRISTEN: Okay, unladies, it is time for us to move our Unladylike trick-or-treat trip along. From true crime into horror, and I have just the perfect guide to take us down this dark and scary street.

AMY: My name is Amy Nicholson. I'm a film critic in LA. I write mostly for the, uh, New York Times and Variety, and I'm the host of the podcast Unspooled, where Paul Scheer and I have been on this years-long quest to decide on the hundred greatest ever made. We started with the AFI list, got rid of like two thirds of that goodbye, goodbye, heavily goodbye hard, goodbye, uh, to some of them. And yeah, now we're just rebuilding. 

And I talk about movies all the time because I think when you talk about movies all the time, you get to talk about everything that's interesting in the entire world. When I was like in my teens and twenties. No, I don't like horror. I don't like getting scared. I get nightmares when I see scary movies. They last a very, very long time. Um, I get traumatized easily by movies if. When I was a little kid, I went to walk through a living room and there, the adults in the room were watching some movie where a girl fell into a volcano, and I dreamed about that girl falling into a volcano for years of my life.

So I was very late to scary movies as well for, for, you know, a lot of those same reasons. They seemed too hard and I had this image in my head that horror movies were just where, you know, mean guys stabbed a lot of girls and why did I need to see a lot of girls die? Uh, which is also true. But as I've gotten older, I've realized, Oh wait, no.

Horror films are actually where all the cool action happens. Not only is it a genre that I think is always belonged to women, but as a film critic, horror is the genre that really belongs to. Rising filmmakers. Mm. Because like if you are a person, you imagine this, you're like, I wanna make my first film. I can't get that much money together.

Maybe I can get $500,000 together. Maybe I can get a million. You know, Which sounds like giant numbers, but they don't get you that far necessarily in, in movie making. But if you can somehow get that together and you can make a horror film, people are like, Okay, yeah, we believe that people will watch 80 random horror film. You know that kids, some like scrolling through the internet will be like, I'll see that. No idea what it is, but it's scary and they don't believe that about like, Comedies, uh, indie dramas, you know, people talking about their problems with their parents. But so because of that, like horror really is where interesting directors get their start a lot of the time.

Like if you keep your eye on horror, then you see who's gonna be amazing, who's gonna be like, interesting, who's actually got like, ideas that can pop. Cause horror is also the genre where you can do anything where you could just invent totally wild new rules and totally wild visuals and nothing has to seem like it's reality and you can make a mark. There's just creativity and innovation there. So I have grudgingly become a horror film and I still don't look at the gory parts.

CRISTEN: Well, I wanna go back to what you said about, um, I think you said horror is a genre that has always belonged to women. 

AMY: Yeah, I mean, I think when you think of like the landmark horror films, you picture the villains and you picture the, the heroine in the same moment.

Or you picture the woman who's like both of them, like something like Carrie, you know, these horror films. There's this cliche, right, called like the fina girl. Do you know that one? Where it's like the girl who lives at the end is like, you know, the toughest and the most resilient survivor of this horrible attack.

That this is the girl who can deal with all of the trauma, discovering her friend's bodies in closets, all of these things. And she is the one who is able to rise to the occasion when, like the football jock will get stabbed quite quickly by Michael Meyers and a lot of that, um, kind of became a coincidence in a really interest, in a really interesting way, these rules of like, who gets to survive a horror film.

Like, because one of the things that happened is, um, the movie Halloween came out, right? Mm-hmm. So like Halloween was, you know, put together by John Carpenter and also John Carpenter's girlfriend at the time. 

CLIP: “Halloween” trailer 

AMY: Deborah Hill, who was, who was like a lot of the heart behind Halloween, and she really made it a film that was about like these three girls who are friends and then get picked off by this killer while they're babysitting.

She wrote like this character of Jamie Lee Curtis to be, you know, just sort of like an ordinary girl who, you know, is busy babysitting and therefore isn't like the first kid who's gonna take off her top and like run around with her boyfriend, but just, you know, live this life of babysitting her kids trying to be best, being a little bit more observant than everybody else.

And when Halloween became this movie that was the most profitable, independent movie of all time. Huge, huge, huge financial bestseller. Everybody was like, I wanna make the next Halloween. And the thing they latched onto was, okay, that movie had a girl in it. That girl didn't have sex with anybody and she lived. So I guess the rule of of horror movies is you should have a girl who doesn't have sex in it and she lives.

And so then it became this really strange thing about like all these rules of girls who can and cannot have sex. And if you have sex, you die. And if you don't have sex, you. And, and all of this stuff that Jamie Lee Curtis herself was sort of bewildered about. She was like, Nobody was really asking me to take my shirt off, so I didn't. And now it's like you think that I was doing something right and I was making a moral stance. 

CRISTEN: I am so fascinated and somewhat mind blown to hear that because in my. In my feminist education, of course, of course the final girl has come up and like, uh, this time of year there, there are always, a fresh round of think pieces I feel like on, you know, final girl feminism and the sexual politics in especially like more classic horror movies and the, the punishing of sluts. Um, and you're telling me AMY, That it was just kind of happenstance or, or, or money ultimately, like box office returns. 

AMY: Yeah. Yeah. It is exactly those two things because right before Halloween becomes a hit, there's this really fascinating movie that I love called Black Christmas. Which is shot by Bob Clark. Yeah. Who wound up doing, um, a Christmas story, you know, like the great Christmas Classic of the eighties. And that the star of that movie is Olivia Hussie. She plays Juliet in that Franco Zefireli romance from the sixties. Do you remember? She's like the most beautiful woman alive. And in, in black Christmas, she plays a woman who is pregnant and you know, debating whether or not to have an abortion. And she is the, she gets to be the hero of that story, you know? And I think if that movie had done more money at the time, people have been like, Oh yeah, so a Final Girl can be like that.

But it was Halloween that made all the money. And then because of Halloween was such a success, immediately, all these other horror directors cast Jamie Lee Curtis. And so she did like three or four horror movies right in a row, you know, Terror Train and Prom Night. She doesn't have sex in any of them.

And she really was like, producers just didn't think I was hot. Like that's really what it boiled down to. They were really excited that I was Janet Lee from Psycho's daughter, but they didn't think I was hot. So other girls took off their shirts. They didn't exploit me in that way. And then it became this like sexual politics thing that really caught her off guard.

CRISTEN: Can you tell me a little bit about Men, Women and Chainsaws by Carol j Clover, and how that impacted your, your perception of horror and enjoyment of horror

AMY: Oh yeah, absolutely. That's a book that I read when I was in film school, you know, that was talking about this idea of the final girl and laying it out as the pattern that it was, you know, like, here is what we see happen in these movies.

Because probably the key point in where horror really went wrong is. When a young filmmaker saw Halloween and thought, Oh, I can totally, totally rip this off. And he made a movie that thought it was copping all the beats, but got it totally wrong. And that was, um, the Friday the 13th movies, you know, where like Jason runs around killing a bunch of babysitters.

The director of that was kind of coming from softcore porn, um, or at least titillation background. And so, He took the wrong message of that. But then when that movie became a huge hit too, then, then we started going into the 80s and all of these movies that are just like girls taking their tops off, getting stabbed and girls who are, you know, chaste living.

And so Carol Clover is this, you know, film writer who looks at the landscape of this, and she says, here's what's going on. Like this, this accidental rule has now been codified to mean like women are, you know, her argument, her kind of visualization of it is like, women in horror films exist almost like walking vaginas. They're there to be penetrated by whatever weapon the bad guy has, but the bad guy's weapon is usually phallic. And so horror movies appeal to this you know, gross boy audience I think was sort of her point of view because it's like, it's like watching sex on screen, you know, there's like stabbing and penetration and fluids and women screaming and it's for all of these like, you know, proto in cells I suppose in the eighties, who, who can't have healthy relationships.

And I think there was a time when she was completely right about that. You know where, where horror wasn't even considered a, a genre for women up until, gosh. I mean, even we, we recently just did an episode on Jennifer's body, and I'm always fascinated when you do a movie that seems like semi recent history, it's 2009.

But when they were marketing Jennifer's Body, a horror film, you know, by Karin Kusama and Diablo Cody, about two female friends in high school, and one of them becomes a succubus in their relationship when that happens. It was marketed by cutting out one of the girls completely, Amanda Siegfried, and all of the marketers were just like boobs.

And Karin Kusama to write a letter to the marketing team. Like, no, I really think we should highlight this as a story about women and friendship. And they're like, Teen boys want boobs. And that was it. And that was how it was marketed because they thought that was the only people who would go see it.

It was wildly wrong, but that's the sort of lessons that we always learned by screwing up. Um, but yeah, when. But yeah, when Carol Clover's book came out, it really caused like a huge sensation in the way people viewed horror films. Oh. Like a sensation on a dare. Some people took it and ran with it. Like I remember, um, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is really famous to me because they were just making fun of this kind of theorizing the whole time.

Where Dennis Hopper plays the bad guy who's holding a chainsaw and he's just holding it right at his crotch and walking around with this chainsaw dick. You know, to, to anything's credit in, in movie history, it really can't live forever without people just finally making a joke of it. And hopefully we can reboot making a joke of it. 

And like always, it's like it always will circle back to sex at some point like

AMY: it's true. And I think you could also take the framework of Carol Clover's argument. Maybe even the idea that people thought horror was only a male genre in the eighties when it was, you know, girls and boobs and stabbing. And you could also say it is at least the only genre then that has consistently asked men to identify with a female lead. Cuz we don't have a lot of those either. And it horror is the one where it's like, here's your girl, she's gonna survive, we men, you're gonna be rooting for her this whole time. And you know, there is at least that in horror films, there's at least always been that.

CRISTEN: Oh, that's interesting. I'd never, I'd really never thought about it in that way. And I'm also curious, I mean, you know, men, women and Chainsaws came out in the early nineties. Um, I would imagine that the horror landscape has evolved since then. 

What? How have you, or have you noticed gender within horror films kind of evolving since then? Like what is, is the Final girl still as entrenched as it is now? Or are maybe we going, is horror kind of diving maybe perhaps even beyond just white girls surviving in the end.

AMY: Yeah, you're right. Like the early nineties was probably the lowest point of horror in our lives. One of two cuz it's where you're finally on, you know, Friday the 13th, part 12 and everything is just a repeat of a repeat of a repeat. Like endless photocopies of terrible things. At the second lowest is probably like the two thousands when we were. So misogynistic on screen, so misogynistic to young women. And so our movies were just torturing them on screen. Horrible, did not like horror in that period. But now, I think we're in a really interesting period where we are getting this whole generation of young female directors who are holding the camera behind the scenes.

You know, people like, Oh my gosh, you threw a Rocket Sundance this year, and you discovered like a really cool, interesting horror filmmaker like Mimi Cave who did Fresh or Mariama Diallo, who did a movie called Master or. Oh, Nick Gatujusai she has a movie called Nanny Coming out. All three of those movies were like three of the highlights of Sundance to me.

And they're all just young female filmmakers saying something about, you know, about roles in life, about race, about fear, about, about misogyny, but they're doing it in a way that doesn't feel lectury either. Oh, if people haven't seen Mimi Cave’s Fresh, you are in for such a delight. Have you seen that movie?

CRISTEN: It's the cannibal one, right? 

AMY: Yeah, it's the cannibal one

CRISTEN:  I did. I did. And what did you think of it? 

AMY: I loved it. Oh no, you didn't like it. 

CRISTEN: What did you like about it? I'm bouncing it to you first.

AMY: Oh, totally. I mean, one of the things I really liked about it was it, It starts with this opening, you know, where, um, where our young girl heroin, uh, played by Daisy, I think is her name, uh, goes on this date with Sebastian Stan, and you really get suckered into rooting for this relationship to work out for so long.

And then what? It takes a turn half an hour through, then the movie puts its interest in, its opening credits on and. Oh, I felt so gutted cuz I had forgotten that it was a horror film. I thought it was just about how horrible dating is. Right. and then, yes, Sebastian Stan does not turn out to be a good guy.

But cannibals are so fun cuz it's like such a literalization of this idea of how you know you really can't live in the modern world without being a predator to somebody, you know, uh, even the, I'm sure my shirt that I'm wearing right now came from somebody else's pain. And so there's something about walking through the world knowing that you're, you are feasting on other people's life energy, that is terrifying.

And I think horror films at least give us a way to try to confront that even if they should make a really good fast fashion horror film. Has that happened? Ooh. Oh yeah. 

CRISTEN: I, Well, speaking, speaking of eating people, um, I do wanna bring it back around to the true crime link, because it immediately makes me think of the recent, you know, controversy over the Jeffrey Dahmer series that's coming out, and also the, the dramatization of true crime all over streaming right now. Um, and as a film critic, I'm curious how, or if you, if you see any distinction between the consumption as an audience of fictional horror, you know, Sebastian, Stan chomp, chomp, chomping on on that tasty leg and watching true crime about real people who did true horrific things.

AMY: Yeah, no, that's a fascinating topic, and I think you are right that there is kind of a major key distinction. I feel like the real challenge for any true crime reenactment and the thing that I think they need to think about 80 times before they decide whether or not they're going to do it, and then 90 more times when they figure out how exactly they're going to do it is you are allowed in totally fictional horror films to have that little twitchy moment of like, Oh man, is she gonna get stabbed? Oh, that's kind of cool. And I think that's fine with a fictional. But I think if I'm watching a horror reenactment, like I watched the first episode of the new Dahmer show, and when you feel that the movie is giving or the, the reenactment is giving you that kind of restless feeling where part of you is like, kill that guy.

That to me feels so, so wrong because you actually are talking about a real person. And if you put the audience in the, in, in the position of feeling like you're craving for a real death, I find that to be really morally icky. Um, and so it's, and yet I think it's been really rare for people to do a true crime, uh, story where you actually feel the weight of being this person's victim because it is the killer who in real life gets all of the, all of the attention.

The final girls do not really get known. They usually aren't final girls because, you know, they're, they're discovered in other ways. Although at least, at least the first episode of Dahmer, and this is not a spoiler, like opens up with the person who survives and helps rat him out. But um, but yeah, it's tricky because I do think we are absolutely engrossed in this question of what makes a real person do real horrors? What makes a real person do real crime? You know, like, where does that come from? Because it's a, it's almost like we have to understand that in order to feel safer walking through the world  And so I understand that all of us are kind of prone to be like, What made that guy do this? How can I avoid that? How do I recognize it? But when you are only watching the villain and not thinking about the victim, I can't even imagine how that would be like for the families, for the people who actually knew that person.

CRISTEN: What scary movies would you recommend listeners watch? And my also, I'm gonna lump myself in. I haven't had my annual Halloween, uh, mini movie fest yet. Um, although I attempted to start watching Hocus Pocus 2, but that's another story. What are your faves? 

AMY: You know, the one that I might recommend is maybe a rewatch for some people. Uh, but it is a film that gets better every single time I watch it. And it is a film that I think has gotten dismissed and made fun of. But I am really on my higher horse right now about insisting that the Blair Witch Project is one of the greatest horror films that's ever been created. Um, I think that movie is so scary.

Like, so it feels so realistic. And one of the lenses that I think wasn't put on it when that movie came out in the nineties is, you know the core story about the Blair Witch, right? Three filmmakers go into the woods searching for the Blair Witch, and none of them make it out, but what the dynamics are, that became much more interesting to me now that I'm older is that it's about a female director, you know, like Heather with the, with the up, with the looking up her nose and the glasses or, and the stocking hat. Heather is the director and the other two guys there are working for her. She's technically the boss and you, it really becomes, when you watch it, a story about a female director who feels like the men underneath her are not, you know, respecting her authority and the weight of feeling like you're in charge for other people's lives.

And the interpersonal dynamic just gets smarter and smarter when you, when you watch it again, and, and I love that movie and I feel so bad that that movie has been kind of reduced to making like a meme of her apology scene and also getting mad at it because it inspired so many other bad imitators that were all terrible.

You know, most found footage movies are not great. I think they're going through a tiny bit of a resurgence right now, because now we are aware that we're always just videotaping people. The question of why are you still holding the camera? Doesn't come up as much. We're just like, Yeah, have you been on Instagram?

But, um, but Blair Witch just holds up and I don't think they're, I think Scream and Blair Witch are still so, so, so, so scary. No matter how well known they are, that they absolutely work.

CRISTEN: Unladies, I think I'm gonna watch the Blair Witch Project. I have to. Right? Should I not? Should I watch something else instead? Is there any Scary movie or true crime documentary or a, anything about this spooktacular that I didn't talk about but is on your mind. I would love to know. hello@unladylike.co is the email address.

You can also DM Unladylike on Instagram and Twitter @unladylikemedia, and thank you, thank you to our fabulous guests, Bobbi Miller. You can follow Bobbi on Instagram @theafternoonspecial on TikTok @theafternoonspecial on Twitter @hiimbobbi, and whatever you do, go listen to her fantastic podcast, The Afternoon Special!

BOBBI: I'm not always a, a browbeating Debbie Downer, talking about true crime. Um, I talk about some really fun, cool stuff on there. This season has been a blast to, to do I, My first episode was a deep dive into the year 1999 and all the, the cultural impacts that come from it. So it's a fun time. I promise I'm not like, you know, this, you know, mean academic that is trying to make you feel bad for watching a true grim documentary.

It's every once in a while that I have. Put on my is this ethical hat.

CRISTEN: And of course, thank you to Amy Nicholson. You can follow Amy on Twitter @theamynicholson and listen to her and Paul Scheer’s podcast, Unspooled.

AMY: I, I know you just did an episode on Wiki feet and I was laughing because I have been uploaded to Wiki feet, but it's all pictures of me making fun of how bad my pedicures are.

So my entire Wiki feet is like, it looks like I've been murdered there. It looks like there's just red blood everywhere cuz I can't paint my toenails. I just don't care. I paint them like crazy and then I slowly take the paint off like over the next couple days. Uh, so it's, yeah, I look like a murder victim on my wiki feet.

CRISTEN: How's your, how's your score? 

AMY: It's quite high. Despite that, I feel like proud that my p it's like terrible pedicures and also a picture where I like kicked up the day and bruised myself. Put it on Instagram stories and so that's up there too. Congrats to whoever observes my Instagram stories for the very few pictures I, I have taken of my feet up there, but my score is high at a very slender group of people because nobody knows to look up my feet, which I also, I'm also glad for.

CRISTEN: And if you want even more on ladylike Halloween content, head over to the Patreon. We've got recaps of hocus-pocus, the craft, Jennifer's Body and probably more that I'm forgetting about. There's a lot over there. There are over 120 bonus episodes, and for just $5 a month, you will get a brand new bonus episode every week and instant access to all those bonus episodes.

Just go to patreon.com/unladylikemedia. 

Unladylike is a Starburns audio production. It's hosted, written and executive produced by me, Cristen Conger. Rebecca Steinberg is Unladylike senior producer, and sound engineering is by Ali Nikou. Our music is by Flamingo Shadow, Amit May Cohen and Sarah Tudzen. 

And til next time

CRISTEN: Choke me like Bundy. Eat me like Dahmer.