Women as Victims in the Media Essay -- Feminism Feminist Women Critici

Women as Victims in the Media      Ã‚   One interesting aspect of murder is the way it is portrayed in different forms of media. In particular the way female murder victims have been portrayed over time reflects the social norms of the period. Focusing on the way murdered females were portrayed in various forms of media, beginning in the late eighteenth century in the United States and ending with the present day representations in film it is evident that a traditional style of portraying dead women has continued to pervade society through the twentieth century.    Stories, either fictional or based on actual events, began around 1800 portraying women victims as young, unmarried, beautiful and innocent. Their deaths were portrayed as resulting from a loss of innocent, generally through premarital sexual contact. The descriptions of the dead bodies were graphic and occasionally erotic in nature. (Cohen, 277-306) These descriptions came at a time when the literacy rate was rising rapidly and the relatively free attitude towards premarital sex was changing to a more restrictive ...