









































Smooth Criminals: An 
Introduction to the Prevalence 
and Power of True Crime and 

Crime Fiction in Society 
Makayla Edwards, Caleb Hardesty, Hannah Holmberg, 
Bella Hughes, Rae Keeler, The Digital Literature Review 

Editorial Team

 Crime media has the capacity to highlight the reality of flaws and 
misconceptions in criminal justice. While these stories are intended to convey a 
realistic portrayal of the pervasiveness of crime, most only succeed in perpetuating 
stereotypes. Crime fiction has skyrocketed in popularity over the last couple of 
centuries as it has developed into a definitive, nuanced genre. This is for a multitude of 
reasons, the most obvious being that people are fascinated with crime, especially as 
a dramatized form of entertainment (Lettieri). Readers thrive on being able to follow 
the forensic clues and investigate a crime alongside the detective to try to figure 
out the criminal’s motives and subsequently how to guard themselves against such 
horrendous crimes (Donovan). Crime fiction can also be a medium through which 
people can explore their fears and anxieties surrounding the possible repercussions 
of larger social or cultural problems. For instance, the Industrial Revolution took place 
when the genre began to define itself in the 19th century and the World Wars were in 
the background during the Golden Age of crime fiction which gave rise to authors like 
Agatha Christie and novels such as The Maltese Falcon.   
 Crime fiction has developed in many ways throughout history, leading us into 
more diverse territory. As the popularity of crime fiction continues to grow, audience 
and author demographics widen with it. We no longer exclusively see the restrictive 
storylines of locked rooms and police procedurals; the genre has evolved to provide 
contemporary authors with an outlet to discuss social issues involving race, gender, 
and class, such as those Ellen Bain examines in her essay “The Art of Persuasion: A 
Rhetorical Analysis of Amy Dunne’s Narration in Gone Girl.” There are still many more 
advancements to be made concerning intersectional diversity within the genre, 

6

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/decoding-madness/202109/why-are-we-so-interested-in-crime-stories#:~:text=Some%20researchers%20concluded%20that%20the,accompanies%20criminal%20behavior%20and%20homicide.
https://www.mysteryandsuspense.com/forensics-in-fiction/


such as those Riley Ellis calls attention to in her discussion about scapegoats in her 
essay “Money Moves: Class-Based Scapegoats and the Decolonization of Literary 
Crime Fictions,” but the increased representation of marginalized voices sets a more 
progressive tone for the future of crime fiction. As time has progressed, so has the 
genre. Society and culture have become increasingly complex and so have the crimes 
along with the criminals that commit them.  
 Much like crime fiction, true crime has garnered attention in recent years, 
becoming increasingly popular across all genres. The genre was originally full of works 
authored by those within the professions associated with crime–law enforcement, 
judicial participants, and reporters (Roysdon). While these figures are still heavily 
involved in works of true crime, production of the genre has expanded to more 
diverse fields. When true crime was first introduced in the 16th century, it was a way 
of communicating news and simply reporting a crime story. These pamphlets and 
short narratives gave literate audiences an inside look into criminal cases and legal 
proceedings (Burger).  
 As the genre grew and progressed, audiences began to gain more from the 
often graphic content. Around the 19th century, audiences began stepping into the 
detective role, gravitating toward true crime mysteries where they could put their 
wits to the test and attempt to solve the case. True crime also began to lean towards 
critiques of the criminal justice system and law enforcement, interacting with the ever-
evolving culture that surrounds it. For some–particularly female audiences–true crime 
has become a tool for learning how to avoid crime, as Bella Hughes calls attention to 
in her essay “Murderinos: Examining the Female Audience of True Crime Podcasts with 
My Favorite Murder.” These audiences consume the content in order to learn from 
previous victims and avoid similar fates. That’s not to say that true crime is not simply 
entertainment for some. 
 It is because of the growing popularity and possibilities of the genre that The 
Digital Literature Review chose to explore the public perception of crime. In this 10th 
edition of the journal, the team wanted to analyze how certain tropes have shifted 
to fit a more progressive society. Crime media has become a more accepted form of 
literature because of its ability to validate fears of the uncertainty of violence. Our goal 
was to reach a broad audience of authors and readers from the already diverse world 
of crime narratives. As the purpose of crime literature has morphed to appeal to new 
generations of “crime junkies,” The Digital Literature Review wanted to examine these 
narratives in terms of their benefits—or lack there-of—to the understanding of crime 
and criminals in a society prone to upholding patriarchal and racial standards.   
 While crime fiction may be filled with outlandish mysteries and characters, it is 
important to acknowledge that these stories do not exist in a fully fictionalized bubble 

7

Introduction

https://crimereads.com/a-brief-history-of-the-rise-and-evolution-of-true-crime-books/
https://daily.jstor.org/bloody-history-of-true-crime-genre/


completely detached from real social impact, and thus they can become harmful 
narratives. Crime fiction gives us a clear look at many aspects of our culture, such 
as who is typically framed as a criminal, and what that can reveal about our preset 
biases. True crime narratives, too, can fall into these same biases when sensationalism 
is favored over accurate reporting, which Caleb Hardesty sheds light on in his essay 
“The White Lens of Crime Media: Examining Minority Underrepresentation in American 
Media and its Consequences.”  When we begin to examine which people are assumed 
guilty in these narratives and, just as importantly, who is assumed innocent, we get a 
glimpse into the cultural scaffolding around criminality. For groups of people who are 
often cast as deviants in these narratives, such as foreigners or those suffering from 
mental disorders, the real-life implications make themselves known when they are 
labeled as dangerous or untrustworthy due to public perception being skewed from 
constantly being villainized by the media, as found in Makayla Edwards’s essay “Taking 
the ‘Psycho’ out of ‘Psycho-killer: The Impact of Criminal Portrayals of Psychiatric 
Disorders in Horror Films.” 
 Beginning with Hardesty’s “The White Lens of Crime Media,” we are shown 
how these damaging narratives are not a new phenomenon. Using Huey P. Newton’s 
Revolutionary Suicide, Hardesty explores how racially biased media has damaged the 
reputation of American minority groups for decades, as well as how little how changed 
through contemporary comparisons. Issues like “Missing White Woman Syndrome” 
serve to illustrate how White upper-class Americans benefit from these biased 
narratives while paving the way for minority groups to be neglected by the justice 
system. In “The Art of Persuasion: A Rhetorical Analysis of Amy Dunne’s Narration 
in Gone Girl,” Ellen Bain analyzes the role of narration in crime fiction. By examining 
the privileges of the character Amy Dunne, we are shown how demographics and 
logic can be used to skew public perception and shift the blame of criminality from 
one person to another. This essay highlights the power that societal expectations 
and prejudices hold over law enforcement. Continuing the theme of harmful 
misrepresentation, Makayla Edwards’s “Taking the ‘Psycho’ out of ‘Psycho-killer: The 
Impact of Criminal Portrayals of Psychiatric Disorders in Horror Films,” walks us through 
how damaging false narratives can be to those struggling with mental illness. The 
essay explores the inaccurate and criminalizing nature of mental illness representation 
through Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, which both 
perpetuate the stigma that those suffering from mental illness are violent and 
dangerous. The analysis also addresses the real-world implications of these portrayals 
and the negative effects they have on societal perceptions of various psychological 
disorders.  
 Recently, more authors have begun to recognize the harmful narratives taking 

8

Introduction



place and have taken to calling attention to their significant influence on society. 
When examining the social issues at play within true crime, some narratives choose to 
address the questions of who gets blamed, who gets away, and what role class, race, 
gender, and sexuality play in these types of stories. Instead of subverting the typical 
tropes that are played out in true crime, fiction that recognizes these narratives instead 
leans into the tropes, specifically in ways that reflect what society is already doing. 
The genre of true crime sheds light on societal and systemic issues, depicting them 
for what they are. Without attempting to fix the issues or find solutions, these stories 
simply but masterfully show the injustices of society, and leave it in the hands of the 
reader to understand the nuance behind the narrative and the commentary that they 
make about issues of injustice.  
 This discussion of recognizing the narrative begins with “Money Moves: Class-
Based Scapegoats and the Decolonization of Literary Crime Fictions,” in which Riley 
Ellis tackles the role of the scapegoat in Tana French’s The Secret Place and Oyinkan 
Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer. Through the context of literary crime fiction 
genre conventions, she explores topics such as gender, race, and class. Ellis uses Frantz 
Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1961) as a framework to examine the significance 
of these intersectionalities and violence in the decolonization of literary crime fiction. 
In “Cogs in the Machine: An Analysis of American Psycho”, Rae Keeler connects the 
violence that is depicted in the novel with the inherent violence that is present in 
capitalism. She argues that Bateman’s victims, his style of killing, and the lack of justice 
brought upon him represent the criminal justice system and its effects on society. She 
breaks down parts of the serial killer that are depicted in Bateman and analyzes how 
they represent different aspects of the effects of trickle-down economics in America. 
Angelo Gonzalez examines the connection between setting, class, and the genre of 
crime fiction in “Mysterious Murderous Manors of Crime Fiction: An Examination of 
Setting in Knives Out.” Gonzalez argues that Knives Out is a nostalgia tribute to the 
genre but is also key to establishing themes and subverting typical tropes. Finally, in 
“New Law of the Land: The Monster in No Country for Old Men,”  Will Callan examines 
the character Chigurh and applies monster theory to understand him in a new light. 
He argues that McCarthy creates Chigurh to be a monster in order to depict the 
violence of crime and the futility of attempting to stop it. He achieves this through the 
narration of Sheriff Bell and how that perspective translates into today’s society.  
 As creators of modern crime media begin to recognize the harmful narrative that 
has perpetuated prejudices and obstructed justice throughout generations, they work 
to break ground on a new narrative in which unjust societal and systemic structures 
are critiqued and the tropes and expectations that have made up the genre for so long 
are updated for a new generation of crime fans. Some of these unjust structures are 

9

Introduction



examined in “Realistic Villains’: Examining Social Commentary in Crime Films through 
Knives Out and Bodies Bodies Bodies,” where Caitlin Davis uses the two titular films 
to highlight class divisions in the real world. With an examination of the symbolism 
involved in the deaths that occur in each movie, this essay adds to the discussion of 
what crime fiction can tell us about our own culture, as well as how to possibly move 
forward from unjust divisions that so often have a role in crime. Delving deeper into 
the possibilities of a younger demographic, Katelyn Mathew explores how young 
adult crime fiction has morphed to influence and reflect teenagers in today’s society 
in “How Young Adult Crime Fiction Influences and Reflects Modern Adolescents: An 
Examination of Karen M. McManus’s One of Us Is Lying and One of Us Is Next.”  Mathew 
takes the reader through the popular young adult crime fiction duology and shows 
how McManus works to connect to modern adolescents through concepts such 
as technology and progressive values. With an understanding that contemporary 
audiences recognize and condemn societal faults that were once ignored or 
encouraged, novels like these attempt to normalize aspects of public relevance, which 
Mathew discusses regarding the development of social media as a weapon and the 
inclusion of primary non-heteronormative characters. It’s important to understand 
that these new narratives aren’t limited to only crime fiction, but can be woven into 
true crime as well. Audiences learn much about crime from engaging with the stories 
of victims and survivors. In “Murderinos: Examining the Female Audience of True 
Crime Podcasts with My Favorite Murder,” Bella Hughes investigates how women tend 
to gravitate toward true crime podcasts for their educational content. Through an 
analysis of the functions of both the medium and the genre, Hughes showcases the 
connection between those functions and audience reception of true crime podcasts 
with particular emphasis on women’s feelings of agency moving forward with access 
to this resource. 
 With the ever-growing popularity of the true crime and crime fiction genres, 
identifying, recognizing, and ultimately changing the harmful narratives that often 
lie within them is imperative. The cultural significance of these stories cannot 
be overstated, and leaving them without critique only creates more space for 
discriminatory and criminalizing portrayals. The lack of intersectionality in both 
crime fiction and true crime is a paradoxical issue, which can only be solved through 
accountability and intervention. While many authors have made strides to recognize 
and diversify tropes in the genre, it still remains largely catered to and biased toward 
the dominant population (whether it be class, race, gender, etc.). That is why our hope 
with this journal is to help readers explore and examine the tropes and inequities 
in crime media and literature as well as within real-life socio-economic contexts. 
Each essay provides a different perspective on various complex issues within the 

10

Introduction



genre, offering a critical understanding of popular crime literature, film, and 
media. Throughout the journal, we encourage our readers to take an introspective 
approach to their own interactions with crime media and the significance of their 
personal consumption of it. And hopefully next time readers listen to an episode 
of their favorite crime podcast or try to solve a murder mystery, they will be able to 
understand it in a completely different light. Following the incredible work produced 
on a wide variety of subjects throughout 10 years of DLR issues, we are grateful for the 
opportunity to deliver research on such a prevalent topic in this 10th edition of the 
journal. 

Thank you, and good luck, Detectives, 
Makayla Edwards, Caleb Hardesty, Hannah Holmberg, Bella Hughes, and Rae Keeler 
Editorial Team of the 2022-2023 DLR 

11

Introduction



Works Cited

Burger, Pamela. “The Bloody History of the True Crime Genre | JSTOR Daily.” JSTOR 
Daily, 24 Aug. 2016, daily.jstor.org/bloody-history-of-true-crime-genre/. 

Donovan, Trisha. “Forensics in Fiction.” Mystery and Suspense Magazine, 17 Mar. 
2021, www.mysteryandsuspense.com/forensics-in-fiction/.  

Lettieri, Richard. “Why Are We so Interested in Crime Stories?” Psychology 
Today, 24 Sept. 2021, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/
decoding-madness/202109/why-are-we-so-interested-in-crime-
stories#:~:text=Some%20researchers%20concluded%20that%20the. 

Roysdon, Keith. “A Brief History of the Rise—and Evolution—of True Crime 
Books.” CrimeReads, 14 June 2021, crimereads.com/a-brief-history-of-the-
rise-and-evolution-of-true-crime-books/. 

12

Introduction

http://daily.jstor.org/bloody-history-of-true-crime-genre/
http://www.mysteryandsuspense.com/forensics-in-fiction/
http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/decoding-madness/202109/why-are-we-so-interested-in-crime-stories#:~:text=Some%20researchers%20concluded%20that%20the
http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/decoding-madness/202109/why-are-we-so-interested-in-crime-stories#:~:text=Some%20researchers%20concluded%20that%20the
http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/decoding-madness/202109/why-are-we-so-interested-in-crime-stories#:~:text=Some%20researchers%20concluded%20that%20the
http://crimereads.com/a-brief-history-of-the-rise-and-evolution-of-true-crime-books/
http://crimereads.com/a-brief-history-of-the-rise-and-evolution-of-true-crime-books/

