ABSTRACT
His name, his actions, and his sentencings are synonymous with popular true crime. His story has been told and retold, imbuing him with almost superhuman qualities. In asking “what can I add?” Bailey Sarian succinctly sums up at the start of her retelling of the much-requested Ted Bundy case that there is seemingly nothing more to contribute in the recounting of this tale. This chapter will explore what is added when this horrific story is retold from the female perspective, when unlike most depictions of Bundy, the narrative is inverted to explore the female victims and their lives, and the cultural shifts during the 1970s gender wars. It will explore what is added when female voices unpack this tale without presenting this killer as a genius.
Taking three case studies from across American media which all focus on the same case, this chapter explores the differing modes of contemporary true crime via the female perspective: comedy and mocking in a recording of a live podcast in 2017 from My Favorite Murder (Hardstark and Killgraf 2017); the video on demand documentary, Ted Bundy: Falling for A Killer (Prime Video, 2020) directed by Trish Wood; and YouTube content creator Baily Sarian's video from her Murder, Mystery & MakeUp series, “1 Of America's Most Notorious, Ted Bundy,” from March 2020, marrying the traditionally gendered forms of true crime and makeup application. This chapter makes the case that there is much to be added to this well-worn tale, when those that were either directly affected speak out or usually unheard voices create their own spaces to speak. I argue that Bundy's monstrous power is taken away, and autonomy, agency, and identity are given back to the women whose lives he destroyed.
