Beware of spoilers beyond this point!
This past week’s episode of Criminal Minds had me a bit flummoxed and so I thought I’d check in with Hathor readers and see what you all think, whether you watch the show or not. I should say upfront that CM is one of my favorite shows on television, and I’ve lauded it elsewhere for its responsible handling of issues of gender and sexuality and its (dare I say?) feminism. That said…
Episode 4.16 had all the makings of a compelling episode, although perhaps the fact that they opened with the following Camille Paglia quote should have given me pause: “The prostitute is not, as feminists claim, the victim of men but rather their conqueror, an outlaw who controls the sexual channel between nature and culture.” In any case, in this episode the unsub (“unknown subject of an investigation”) is revealed in the first scene (and in last week’s previews for the episode) to be a twenty-something woman, clearly coded as a call girl in only a lacy bra and thigh highs; she poisons her wealthy john with champagne. Cue the foreboding music and the opening credits.
Things start off pretty predictably. The BAU team, discussing their current unsub, note that a very small quotient of serial killers are female, and that they are often very discrete and able to get away with killing far more people than their male counterparts before getting caught (ah, yet another example of women being underestimated and undervalued for their skills!). Mentioning the infamous, real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos–who killed men she thought might be the type to rape her (and who was notably portrayed in the film Monster)–as a point of comparison, the BAU agents assume their unsub’s murders are also sexually motivated. In particular, they hypothesize that she chooses to kill certain clients because of some specific sex act they all like that triggers her in some way. But soon, clues reveal that the trigger for this particular violent femme might not be sex at all.
Suffice it to say, without going on and on for paragraphs recounting the plot, it’s not about sex, but instead something equally cliched. Megan (that’s the call girl’s name) has a problem with men who are…wait for it…too much like her father. Specifically, she targets wealthy businessmen who have left their wives and refuse to pay alimony and childcare payments despite the fact that they can shell out $10,000 without breaking a sweat for her services. Yes. She has Daddy issues. But it gets weirder.
In an inexplicable turn, Megan establishes a fascination with Agent Hotchner–an undeniable father-figure for the team and a man whose wife left him with their son in tow a couple seasons ago. Hotchner tries to talk Megan down over the phone, empathizing with her, but the final moments of the episode cement their connection. As Megan dies from the poison she swallowed after a confrontation with her actual father (where it’s made clear that he cares more about his reputation than his daughter), Hotchner sits and holds her hand, promising not to leave her. What a tender moment.
What baffles me is how we’re supposed to read this episode, particularly the ending. Are we meant to feel sorry for Megan–and excuse her pleasure in exercising her homicidal impulses during the early murder scenes–because she had a negligent father and only kills “bad men”? Are female criminals supposed to be pitied not condemned? (I should add that there are some sympathetic male criminals on the show, but the dearth of female unsubs across CM’s four seasons makes the abundance of ones we’re supposed to pity all the more obvious.) Is it inappropriate that I’d like to see a female unsub on the show that just likes killing people for the heck of it (or for some reason that doesn’t have to do with men!)? And what’s with the “daddy” backstory and Hotchner’s place in it?
I could go on and on, but what do you all think?
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I was WTFing all over the place with last week’s episode, and at the end was left wondering if we were supposed to believe the victims all had been possessed by something that would enable the guy to know about Morgan’s past. That Prentiss, too, was somehow afflicted with this dark spirit (the bloody nose as she stood outside a church).
As I said, W.T.F.?
What’s supernatural should stay in Supernatural, kthanxbye.
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
“That Prentiss, too, was somehow afflicted with this dark spirit (the bloody nose as she stood outside a church).”
That annoyed and confused me too. Someone on another site suggested that it was meant to indicate that she had done drugs as well. Which would fit with what we know of her past – both from this episode and from others. But that’s still really weird. And annoying.
They “maybe supernatural stuff exists, maybe it doesn’t” bit was annoying enough when they did it in the psychic episode. But at least that was a coherent episode, so I could seperate my personal pet peeves from the execution. This episode, not so much.
And at the same time, it was a Prentiss episode! With great Prentiss scenes in it! Which means I won’t be able to keep myself from watching it, and getting annoyed all over again, when it comes out on dvd.
Mickle(Quote) (Reply)
I love CM, but I do definitely find it ridiculously feminist at times (and the channel I watch it on is female-orientated).
Basically my main complaint (other than the culprits seemingly never being anything other than a ‘white male, most likely a loner’) is that every episode where a female character is either the main culprit or just involved in the crime, it always goes back to men; the woman was pushed into it against her will and/or was ‘tipped over the edge’ by a man, or men in general, giving her the right to go on a killing spree.
For instance, the episode that took place in Mexico (if you’ve seen it you’ll know what I’m talking about) even had my dog throwing her eyes to heaven.
KMDS(Quote) (Reply)
What does “ridiculously feminist” mean? Feminism is the idea that women and men deserve equal opportunities and responsibilities. I’m not sure how that can be taken to a “ridiculous” extreme…?
I think several of us are in agreement that we’d like to see an ep in which a woman just plain enjoys killing people, same as most of the male unsubs, and it’s nothing to do with sex or men.
As for most of the unsubs being white men, according to the FBI the vast majority of serial killers ARE white men, and since the show is trying to be accurate in its portrayal of FBI criminal profiling, this seems appropriate.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
What Jennifer said.
Also, while I think I understand what you mean, KMDS, about the show seeming to cater a bit too much towards political correctness at all times (although I, too, wouldn’t term that “ridiculously feminist,” since, as far as I’m concerned, one can’t be too feminist), I would really rather that than the alternatives.
And, in response to the previous few comments: I don’t know what the heck was going on with “Demonology.” Weird and disjointed and not at all of a caliber befitting one of my favorite characters on the show. I think they were trying to do too much in too little time…
fourthwave(Quote) (Reply)
And in almost every episode where a male character is the main culprit, he was pushed into it against his will by someone with a dominant personality (usually male), or was ‘tipped over the edge’ as you put it by a man or a woman or by people in general. The number of cases where there isn’t a reason someone’s begun committing crimes like these without an external instigator of some kind, e.g. from mental illness, is very small.
In the majority of cases the unsub is responding to a situation that left them powerless, and since men are more likely to have power over other men and women than women are to have an excessive amount of power over anybody, if it can be traced to abuse from a single person it makes sense that the person is frequently male. Which is why it also makes sense that a significant number of the cases where that person is female, it’s the unsub’s mother/mother figure and stems from repeated childhood trauma, because that’s one of the few places where women do consistently have more power over another human being. (I wonder it they’ve ever ventured that that’s why there are more male serial killers than female — even healthy well adjusted women are trained from childhood to accept feeling powerless fairly regularly.)
I also don’t think they’ve ever implied that anyone had the right to go on a killing spree. There’s a difference between understanding and condoning their actions, and understanding has never been limited to the show’s female killers. I can have sympathy for someone for what happened to them when they were innocent but once they’ve crossed the line and become the one hurting others, that sympathy shifts to others, and I think that’s what the show is going for.
(I’d still like to see a female unsub on the show who’s not motivated by men though, even if I understand why statistically it’s not as prevelant.)
MaggieCat(Quote) (Reply)
MaggieCat, if this as a message board I would green you. ^^
That’s it exactly.
DragonLadyK(Quote) (Reply)
The one thing that keeps driving me nuts about Criminal Minds’ portrayal of female serial killers is that every time one comes up, a sexual motivation (as in a motivation based in a wish for sexual gratification, as opposed to a reaction to some sort of sexual trauma) is discounted, because, as has been said several times on the show, women don’t kill for sex. Um, actually, many female serial killers have killed for sexual gratification. Elizabeth Bathory (Who bathed in the blood of her virgin victims, you can’t tell me she wasn’t getting off), and Jane Toppin (who sexually molested her victims as they died) among them. Another common motive for female Angel of Death doctors and nurses is the thrill of playing god, a power trip, in several cases, explicitly linked to sexual gratification.
And you’re right. It took all the way to season five for Criminal Minds to give us an unsympathetic female unsub, the woman in “Mosley Lane”. She had a male partner, but he was plainly submissive, and by remarkable coincidence, she was one of the the only not traditionally pretty female unsubs.
Attackfish(Quote) (Reply)
I remember reading a theory that some of the unsolved serial murder cases (and some other murder cases, I forget which) went unsolved precisely because the investigators assumed because of the violence/aggression involved, the crimes must have been committed by a man. Thus they overlooked the evidence that would have led them to the woman who committed the crimes and the cases remain unsolved.
I’ve heard a few good arguments for Jack the Ripper being a woman all along, but in any case, I found it an interesting theory. A similar theory went to the Zodiac killer being a female.
GardenGoblin(Quote) (Reply)
There were survivor accounts of the Zodiac killer that say he was a man, and some pretty specific descriptions and police sketches, while it’s possible Jack the Ripper was a woman (there’s no good evidence either way) I’d say the Zodiac killer probably wasn’t.
Attackfish(Quote) (Reply)
That theory about the FBI overlooking the possibility a serial killer was a woman was discussed on a Law & Order SVU ep, but damned if I can find a reference to it online, and I’d like to read more. There are, however, references to the databases of serial killer interviews lacking both female killers and killers of color. This may be partly from bad data gathering, but it’s also because there’s a limited number of known serial killers to interview. I could swear somewhere I’ve read about the FBI being aware of this shortfall and trying to work around it while they slowly collate some better data.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
As a Criminology minor, the lack of data about non-instrumental female offenders is, I got to say, amazingly glaring, and so many of the theories focus on inherent gender differences, that I just keep wondering if any of these criminology types ever stepped right across the hall to gender studies. I’ve been looking into working in law enforcement, and all I got to say is, here’s hoping they get more interviews done as soon as possible.
Of course, a lot of criminology ignores non-instrumental compulsion crimes entirely.
Attackfish(Quote) (Reply)
Ah, that’s far more troubling than any lack of good data. That’s what Hollywood does. Once you accept some (bias) theory about How Things Are, anything that might disprove it is dismissed as impossible, and you miss possibilities.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
I’ve known a couple women that at first glance, I would take to be male, and vice versa, and eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. Or I could simply be misremembering the article.
I was trying to find the source for the theory again to refresh my memory as to which killers may have been female and why, but I can’t even remember if it was a website or a magazine at this point.
GardenGoblin(Quote) (Reply)
I’ve used the term ‘ridiculously feminist’ in the past to describe the phenomenon that occurs when a misogynist views himself (or herself) as a feminist. Like spelling it ‘wombyn’ instead of ‘woman’. Or the ones who write ‘strong’ female characters who act completely irrationally and fall for guys who are jerks or losers, or who learn valuable lessons after being saddled with a deceased relative’s kids, so on so forth.
Or people who write comedies about just how incompetent men are when saddled with the task of parenting their own children for a day and self-righteously proclaim it a feminist work because it teaches men to respect what women do.
Works that when the creator claims to be feminist you assume MUST be satire in some form and are then horrified to realize that no, he’s actually sincere and thinks he’s being complimentary.
GardenGoblin(Quote) (Reply)
I just thought of the perfect actress to play a female unsub who kills simply for the heck of it!
Are there any fans of “24″ on this page? If so, does anyone remember Mandi (played by Mia Kirshner), who appeared in seasons 1, 2 and 4 of that show?
If you know who I’m talking about, then I’m sure you would agree that CM should cast Kirshner as that type of female unsub!
Dorvell(Quote) (Reply)
Dorvell,
I mostly know her from the Vampire Diaries, but good call.
SunlessNick(Quote) (Reply)
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