I’m relatively sure this is some sort of regular gag. You often hear/see things where random dead hookers pop out of everywhere as people search through places (I believe.)
Wikipedia seems to be devoid of any clue to this phenomenon, though a search for “Dead Hookers” brought up some sort of page for “Dead prostitutes in Popular Culture” saying that there is no page for “Dead prostitutes in Popular Culture.”
Anyone know the history of this?
No professional opinion here. Prostitutes have long been favored victims of serial killers, partly, I’ll WAG, because they’re often relatively rootless and unstable, so they possibly won’t be missed right away, their low societal status and widely perceived immorality makes them easy to dehumanize in the serial killer’s mind and they will get into a car with a stranger.
Somebody somewhere noticed this, and a cliche was born.
Surley this whole meme stems from Jack the Ripper?
mm
I have no idea what your talking about. Where do you live where dead hookers keep popping up?
That may be true, but I’m relatively sure that it wasn’t a common joke until fairly recently. Certainly when I look at something like this, I don’t get the impression that the artist was thinking “Jack the Ripper” first and foremost.
http://www.liquidshirts.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=DH
http://www.goodstorm.com/item/litj/bees_and_dead_hookers_shirt
etc.
I heard a reference about 15 or so years ago. A local radio morning show pair said that their employer sent them to Las Vegas. Instead of sending them to a nice hotel they went to ‘the dead hooker hotel’.
Thanks for posting a the links. At least now I have a clue.
I can think of two recent movies where dead hookers play a part: Four Rooms (the Robert Rodriguez section of the film, where two children find the woman’s body under a bed in a hotel room) and Very Bad Things (a horribly unfunny “comedy” where the accidental killing of a Vegas hooker leads some friends down a spiral of lies and murder).
So maybe a low-latency, dark humor meme that I only just now picked up on…
Doesn’t make tracking it back (in it’s gag incarnation) seem very easy…
Don’t forget Frankenhooker - a modern day classic!
Or Dirty Work!
“Is that a dead hooker in the trunk of that car? And another one over there? Jesus, this is most dead hookers I’ve seen in my entire life. . . don’t gimme’ that, pal. I know a dead hooker when I see one!”
The Godfather, Part II has a dead hooker appearing from nowhere, in the scene where they set up the Senator for blackmail.
mm
“I have never seen so many dead hookers in my life”
“Lord knows I have.”
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back had a running gag about dead hookers being repeatedly found in Ben Affleck’s dressing room.
Necrophilia?
Miramax Security Guard Gordon: Echo Base, I’ve got a 10-07: two unauthorized on the lot, requesting backup.
Echo Base: [over Gordon’s walkie talkie] I thought that was a 10-82.
Miramax Security Guard Gordon: No sir, a 10-82 is disappearing a dead hooker from Ben Affleck’s trailer.
Echo Base: [slightly amused] Oh, that Affleck! Backup on the way…
(later… several security guards, led by Gordon, have suddenly rushed onto the set of Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season)
Miramax Studios Security Guard Gordon: Sorry to interrupt sirs, but we’ve got a 10-07 on our hands.
Matt Damon: [exasperated] Oh Jesus, again Ben?
Ben Affleck: [cocky] No, bullshit, because I wasn’t WITH a hooker today, ha-HA!
Miramax Studios Security Guard Gordon: There they are!
Jay: Affleck, you the bomb in “Phantoms”, yo!
Man, I love that.
It has to go at least as far back as your basic limerick:
There was an old hermit named Dave
Who kept a dead whore in his cave
(etc.)
He grinned as he licked her,
Dunno if he was a hooker, but a dead body popped up in the belongings of Dorian Corey, one of the featured subjects in the documentary “Paris is Burning,” after Corey’s death. The body had been there for at least a couple of decades and had mummified.
