Murder and Banality in the Contemporary Fait Divers
2000; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 17; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/3190169
ISSN1549-3377
Autores Tópico(s)Aging, Elder Care, and Social Issues
ResumoIn 1987, after over four years of seemingly endless searching, Parisian police finally caught granny killer, Thierry Paulin, murderer of over twenty elderly women. During the years that he resisted capture, the unknown murderer became the steady object of the media's attention, his crimes regularly appearing on the front page of all major French newspapers. Following Paulin's apprehension, however, the murderer ceased to occupy the front page and eventually faded from the media spotlight. Much was made of Paulin's so-called disappearance, most notably by sociologist and cultural critic Jean Baudrillard. In numerous television appearances and printed interviews, Baudrillard used Paulin as a signifier for the shifting nature of contemporary crime, exploiting the affair to advance his belief that the traditionally sensationalisticfait divers had become property of the past, only to be replaced by absolute banality.' The purpose of this article is to interrogate the increasingly common and likewise misguided view of the contemporary fait divers as banal, as containing no meaning in a culture increasingly saturated with portrayals of violence. By tracking media response to the Paulin affair, it is evident that, in contrast to Baudrillard's determination, the contemporary fait divers remains a crucial site of discursive struggle for political, social, and cultural practices. Allegations of public amnesia following Paulin's arrest, which themselves remain debatable, reflect not public indifference but rather public discomfort; Paulin's identity as a young, gay, HIVpositive, unemployed transvestite from Martinique is not sufficiently displaced from our present conception of society's criminal, making him not banal but rather too realistic. After briefly exploring the historical role of the fait divers, I will turn to the media's coverage of the Paulin affair to demonstrate how this fait divers was circulated and debated in the press. Are there, for instance, specific characteristics of the Paulin affair that might
Referência(s)