Netflix has issued a discretionary tweet directed at viewers of their recent Ted Bundy doc who have commented on the serial killer’s ‘hotness.’ “There are literally thousands of hot men on the service,” they write, “none of whom are serial murderers.” Netflix wants it both ways. They’re aware that part of the fascination with Bundy is his appearance — this and an understanding of the large holes in 1970s interstate law enforcement allowed him to get away with murder. They want to glorify his handsomeness enough to get you to watch but they don’t want you tweeting about it. It’s hypocritical at best; the documentary includes footage of female admirers at his trial, including one who married him and managed to conceive his death-row kid. None of this is good news for the average-looking Joe working his H&R Block gig by day and coming home from the local pub at night minus any viable phone numbers. Life isn’t fair but we don’t need a Netflix subscription to figure this much out.
Bundy’s relative hotness is a bit of a mystery to me. I get that he wasn’t bad-looking and had more physical appeal than, say, John Wayne Gacy (no offense to Gacy relatives or supporters intended.) But even minus knowledge of his murderous ways I’d think most would pick up on a certain creepiness the guy exuded. His eyes were spaced just a tad too close together and his nose came to a rather severe point. Moreover his overall impression was one of a fake ski bum posing at the lodge over a cup of hot cocoa. He seemed like the boy who attracts girls at the schoolyard but gets hit on the head with the football when he attempts to join his peers on the field. This is the terminal curse of handsome types who can’t compete. The mixed-signals they receive are infuriating and can lead to aberrant behavior.
What Bundy did not lack was ambition. I realize this is a ballsy declaration running the risk of nasty responses from those with no contextual sense. But yes, he had ambition. From all I’ve watched and read it’s no easy feat killing someone, particularly when implementing Ted’s chosen methods. Of course this can’t explain the “why” part about the women who trusted him. Presumably most did not know he was a murderer. His ambition extended to two dramatic jail breaks and appointing himself as his own courtroom defender. This was perhaps the deciding factor for the woman who accepted his marriage proposal, which he extended while questioning her on the witness stand. Have to give it to him there as it’s far more memorable than a ring at the bottom of a Cracker Jacks box. Equally troubling is imagining the more plainly-appointed boy back home whom she rejected in favor of Bundy. Being turned down for a guy standing trial for serial murder can be a big blow to one’s self-esteem.
On a slightly more serious note, the documentary never solves the question of motive in any conclusive manner. There are the usual points; he never fit in and always came up short in more legitimate endeavors. The woman with whom he planned most loftily turned him down. Toward the end he offered a sketchy explanation involving an escalating pornography habit, but that never passed the bullshit meter either. If Bundy’s behavior is most abhorrent it doesn’t lessen other eyebrow-raisers like the Florida judge who sentenced him to death while calling him a “bright young man” and noting that he didn’t “feel any animosity” toward him. That’s setting a fairly low bar for one’s shit-list. Then there are the frat boys who turned out in large numbers for his execution while pounding cases of beer and selling Ted Bundy key chains. Ambitious perhaps, but not exactly on par with migrating penniless from Utah to Florida to successfully continue one’s murderous spree. Yeah it’s all rather sick and reminiscent of the Springsteen song ‘Nebraska’ :
They declared me unfit to live, said into that great void my soul’d be hurled
They wanted to know why I did what I did
Well sir I guess there’s just a meanness in this world
At the end of the day you’re better off watching ‘Narcos.’
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