Are you a serial killer movie or TV fan? Read on.
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| Credit: Crazy Walls |
Recently, I started a fun creative project to document and comment on the "insanity dens" of fictional serial killers. This will take place in short form on Instagram and will be backed up and potentially expanded here.
Insanity Den?
My sig other and I were watching an episode of Criminal Minds, the one where Kevin from The Office is alone in his private, dark, dungeon-y space. Maybe the basement of his home or the workshop at his job. The walls are coated in collages of Ancient Greek myth imagery, sunlight tip toes through gaps in shrouded windows, clutter fills every surface and crack. Kevin-not-Keven is triggered by a poster of a Greek seashore, a long held fantasy of escape, a life plan he failed miserably at achieving before being diagnosed with a fatal illness. He has an explosion of rage and operatically tears down the carefully curated collage. That's when my husband said, "Insanity den!"
While TV Tropes calls it a Room Full of Crazy, as a copywriter I find "insanity den" more appealing.
It's punchy and there's something about the connotations and intonations of the word "den" that evoke the silliness of many "room full of crazy" depictions. Especially for outrageous shows like Criminal Minds, which depends on pop culture's serial killer trope: the tortured and broken person who is compelled to bring hideous yet specific violence on others that are a manifestation of intricate, nuanced, and often implausible logic that they may not even be fully aware of. In other words, so many things about Criminal Minds are silly, and there's something silly about the words "insanity" and "den" together. (I have to say, there are a lot of things I love about CM and it's helped me through 2020. Because I'm one of those weirdos who chills out to true crime and crime fiction.)
What am I defining the insanity den as? It's where serial killers can be themselves, can dream, can make plans. Where they can shout it out either to the ether, a broken mirror, or to an unfortunate victim dead or alive. It's where they can page through their scrapbook of death, caress stolen locks of hair and other much grosser tokens, pour over newspaper clippings picturing their Eliott Ness-like arch-nemesis, have full-on conversations with their delusions. Delicately place fragile furniture just to knock it over in a juvenile fit of rage. All for the camera.
Buffalo Bill found an outlet. So did I a long time ago: writing. Notably, writing without a deadline or anyone to answer to. Writing for fun and writing about fun-to-me topics. I've spent the last 11 years writing copy for major retail brands. My work has been translated into dozens of languages and read by millions. No byline of course, but that's Okay. What I need now is to nurture my all-time favorite creative outlet, writing, in the truest way I always used to enjoy it. Having worked so long in the private sector where "they expect results" (Ghostbusters anyone?) my writing has been way too tied up in marketing and too dependent on what executives need for it to feel deeply rewarding.
While TV Tropes calls it a Room Full of Crazy, as a copywriter I find "insanity den" more appealing.
It's punchy and there's something about the connotations and intonations of the word "den" that evoke the silliness of many "room full of crazy" depictions. Especially for outrageous shows like Criminal Minds, which depends on pop culture's serial killer trope: the tortured and broken person who is compelled to bring hideous yet specific violence on others that are a manifestation of intricate, nuanced, and often implausible logic that they may not even be fully aware of. In other words, so many things about Criminal Minds are silly, and there's something silly about the words "insanity" and "den" together. (I have to say, there are a lot of things I love about CM and it's helped me through 2020. Because I'm one of those weirdos who chills out to true crime and crime fiction.)
What am I defining the insanity den as? It's where serial killers can be themselves, can dream, can make plans. Where they can shout it out either to the ether, a broken mirror, or to an unfortunate victim dead or alive. It's where they can page through their scrapbook of death, caress stolen locks of hair and other much grosser tokens, pour over newspaper clippings picturing their Eliott Ness-like arch-nemesis, have full-on conversations with their delusions. Delicately place fragile furniture just to knock it over in a juvenile fit of rage. All for the camera.
Buffalo Bill found an outlet. So did I a long time ago: writing. Notably, writing without a deadline or anyone to answer to. Writing for fun and writing about fun-to-me topics. I've spent the last 11 years writing copy for major retail brands. My work has been translated into dozens of languages and read by millions. No byline of course, but that's Okay. What I need now is to nurture my all-time favorite creative outlet, writing, in the truest way I always used to enjoy it. Having worked so long in the private sector where "they expect results" (Ghostbusters anyone?) my writing has been way too tied up in marketing and too dependent on what executives need for it to feel deeply rewarding.
And so, my thoughts on insanity dens coming your way to a blogger and insta near you. Mostly from Criminal Minds since that was the inspiration and that has the most fodder I know of right now. I will explore film, other TV, and will gladly take suggestions. And, while aiming to be thoughtful and sensitive to real mental health, I will have fun.
Now, won't you come inside?
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| The Problematic Buffalo Bill. Credit: IndieWire |
