Ted Bundy was handsome. But he wasn’t hot.
This may sound like an unnecessary thing to say about a serial killer, but considering the way pop culture has reacted to the recent slew of Bundy content, it’s worth emphasizing. The murderer of 30 women and girls is having a moment, but that doesn’t mean he was anything more than extremely wicked, shockingly evil, and vile.
The moment began with a four-episode docuseries, “Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes,” which debuted on Netflix last month. By the following week, this tweet became necessary:
Then “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile,” a film starring erstwhile Disney heartthrob Zac Efron as Bundy, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. And now, ABC has announced another documentary on the serial killer.
Insofar as we enjoy the guilty pleasure of insight into the twisted mind of a murderer, there is nothing wrong with stories about Bundy. We’re fascinated by the true crime genre because it makes us feel both safe and unsafe. There once was a killer out there. But we’re just watching a flick about him while eating popcorn on our couch.
I’ve seen a lot of talk about Ted Bundy’s alleged hotness and would like to gently remind everyone that there are literally THOUSANDS of hot men on the service — almost all of whom are not convicted serial murderers
— Netflix US (@netflix) January 28, 2019
But the appeal of the genre is also why it’s easy to romanticize serial killers. The more we focus on the blandly handsome face of Bundy and not the dismembered and violated bodies of his victims, the more we can say: He was just a charming guy with a killing problem.
When Efron’s Bundy smiles across the room at his future girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer, portrayed by Lily Collins, the scene should remind us of the danger of charisma. If the documentaries and the film do their jobs, we, like Bundy’s victims, are charmed by him. But we also come to a point where the charm wears off, and we realize who he is.
“Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile” takes a step in the right direction by focusing on the perspective of Kloepfer. By seeing Bundy as she sees him, we understand how so many women were lured in. But there’s something about the movie’s portrayal — maybe the outlandish title, maybe the way the frame lingers as he winks at the camera — that suggests it’s not too concerned about showing us just how “extremely wicked” Bundy really was.
In telling stories about true events, filmmakers do them justice by depicting them as they are, Bundy didn’t look like an ogre, after all, but they miss telling the whole truth by emphasizing only one side of the story. The problem with these films is not that Bundy is too charming but that the stories of his victims are buried. If we heard more from their perspective, maybe Netflix wouldn’t need to tell people to stop glamorizing a serial killer.
