Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Duplicity and the Depraved Uncanny in Mediations of Ted Bundy

2021; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 44; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/07491409.2020.1834038

2152-999X

Bryan McCann,

Cinema and Media Studies

This article attends to the role of duplicity in managing serial killer Ted Bundy’s uncanniness. Texts such as Joe Berlinger’s Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (2019) and Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile (2019) discuss acts of gendered violence that, though they differ in degree, are homologous to more quotidian performances of White masculinity. In so doing, they produce encounters with the depraved uncanny, or the affective intensities emanating from encounters with morally bankrupt or wicked acts that are formally homologous to quotidian performatives. Such texts also characterize Bundy as a duplicitous figure who masqueraded as a gentleman to conceal his true sadistic character. I argue that in fashioning “two Teds,” such texts absolve other performances of White masculinity and therefore mitigate the necessity of confronting the repressed yearnings for gendered possession to which Bundy gives expression.