I wasn’t aware that “murder film” was something with a specific definition aside from “video footage containing a murder” (I can’t find anything that tries to define it). Obviously CCTV footage that happened to catch a murder wouldn’t count as snuff.
In post #43 I argued that “Respect is also a currency, as is gratification in fulfilling a demand.” Filming a murder not for cash but to gain notoriety would count, IMHO.
At any rate, I think we’ve established that the modern meaning–as defined by Oxford, Wikipedia, etc.–doesn’t require financial exploitation. My younger self–in about the timeframe that Cecil’s column was written in–also saw no such requirement. So at the least, I posit that even if there was a narrower definition in the literature 20+ years ago, that it was somewhat diluted by the time it got to the ears of the public.
Interesting! Never underestimate the bizarre things some will believe to support an ideology.
I should have inserted a “popular” in there, but aside from that I thought this was fleshed out upthread. To quote some online definitions:
(note the bolded or: either entertainment or financial exploitation are possibilities)
And so on. No commercialism required. Maybe they have changed over time, or maybe the literature on them has retained a narrower meaning. I make no claims about that.
Ok. There appears to be no shortage of very lucid, intelligent members here, but I have to posit that the term “snuff film” is broadly defined and, as such, is hackneyed into oblivion . My only contention re this matter is that the now 21 yr old dispute did not commence when the ubiquitous internet was available. Uf you only google “mexican chainsaw beheading” or “Libyan execution” or go to liveleaks and dig around, you will find a plethora of filmed murder that should no doubt leave you convinced that “snuff films” are actually innocuous cousins of today’s gore.
With regards to Snuff, I think we all agree that merely filming a murder does not make it a snuff film. Compiling films of deaths/murders to distribute for entertainment/profit (e.g. Faces of Death) does not count.
The key element of the definition is that the film had to be made for entertainment purposes and distribution as entertainment. I think that is the inherent nature that makes it a Snuff film. Motivation to get off by the person filming the movie is incidental. Motivation to kill a specific person for the film is irrelevant. The key element is that the motivation of some audience using the film as a form of entertainment, typically sexual gratification.
Now many rumors surrounding snuff proposed a snuff film industry. Certainly the idea that someone would film a murder on commission is a strong element of the concept.
Dr. Strangelove, if I understand your point, you are saying the distribution for entertainment might not necessarily require monetary compensation to the filmer/distributor - some form of status within the distribution network might suffice as incentive to meet the requirement for the definition of snuff. Still, that does require some form of network of recipients of the distribution, some community that has the ability to make that reputation/status meaningful.
So does the stuff by the Dnepropetrovsks meet the standard? There was a claim circulated that their motives included the idea they could sell the movies to make a profit. That meets the minimum definition of someone who thought they could make money on the distribution. However, it does not establish an industry or a market for the films, merely the belief that there is a market. And the claim as to their motive is disputable.
Luka Magnotta posted his video to a website for distributing and celebrating gore. However, it isn’t clear that his purpose for committing the murder was for entertaining some audience. Rather, his motivation appears to be some form of demented attention-seeking behavior. His previous actions with social media support that idea. His distribution of the body parts fits as well. I’m not sure this fits any reasonable definition of a snuff film.
What modern technology provides is a lowered threshold for anyone to film such a movie, and an easily accessed distribution form for any movie so filmed. It does not provide a market for compensating the filmer with money, but certainly can with attention. However, it seems to make the idea of an industry that operates filming these kinds of things and selling them to the ultra rich ultra freaks something going the way of 8-track tapes.
From the wikipedia article, one of MacKinnon’s comments:
There’s a fairly compelling theme that on-camera murders in Syria are for-profit.
That is the Saudi, Qatari, and Kuwaiti insurgent backers pay extra for an on-camera murder, and in particular for throat slitting and beheadings.
While there is an argument that this is political the financial argument is strong. The subjects will be kharked anyway. The method of despatch however makes a difference in remuneration - so long as it’s videoed in loving detail and delivered to the Gulf paymasters and also to the Internet as trophy videos.
I dug a little into the leads provided by Irishman. Catharine A. MacKinnon stated, “It certainly seems important to the audiences that the events in the pornography be real. For this reason, pornography becomes a motive for murder, as in “snuff” films in which someone is tortured to death to make a sex film. They exist.”
Emphasis added. With the help of the internet, we can investigate this 1985 claim. Her citation references articles written in August 1983. I forked over $2.95 to NewsLibrary and obtained the August 7, 1983 AP article published in the Miami Herald:
Huh. I guess snuff films do exist then. Or maybe not. The article mentions suspects Fred Berre Douglas and Richard Hernandez, who were at large and accused of killing Beth M. Jones, 19, and Margaret Krueger, 16 two unwed mothers. Here is a 1985 article regarding Douglas’ sentencing for the murder. And here’s the failed 1990 appeal, if I read that correctly. He had more luck in 2003. Article. (The 1985 LA Times piece hinted that his accuser Hernandez was a dubious witness.) Back to the 1983 article: “The girls thought they were going to be paid $500 to be in a porno movie, possibly with bondage,” Rackauckas said. But the pictures actually were to be “snuff-type films or photos,” he said. Douglas was indeed an amateur photographer and had been accused of setting up a filmed murder in the desert during the late 1970s: the trial resulted in a hung jury.
What’s missing is any evidence that Douglas shared his work with others or even that he filmed any killing at all. I’m not sure whether any work of his was even published. Indeed the 1983 article stated: “Investigators seized more than 100 pictures allegedly taken by Douglas, but none show acts of killing, Rackauckas said.”
The 2003 LA Times article has an interesting assertion: At Douglas’ trial, a woman testified that he had asked her to help him kill young women in the desert while he made sex films that included bondage and sadism. He said the bodies would be buried, Kathy Phillips testified, and the movies could be sold for large profit “to people in Las Vegas.” Phillips said she had refused, but hadn’t told police because she had a drug problem. The 2003 article also details Douglas’ mental health and neurological issues.
From the 2003 appeal: At the guilt phase of Douglas’s trial, the State corroborated Hernandez’s description of events with testimony about a similar incident with Douglas a few years prior to the crime. Kathy Phillips testified that she was a friend of Hernandez, who often supplied her with drugs and lived next door to Douglas’s furniture refinishing shop. Hernandez introduced Phillips to Douglas in 1979. Douglas told her he would pay her if she posed nude for photographs while in bondage. She agreed, and Douglas took her to his shop, tied her hands and ankles, and gagged her mouth. He showed her photos of several other women to indicate how he wanted her to pose. He told her to “look scared,” but did not harm her.
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Phillips went on to describe how, two weeks later, Douglas asked her if she would assist him in killing young women in the desert while making sex films that included bondage and sadism. Douglas apparently believed having a woman present would make it easier for the victims to trust him. Phillips testified that Douglas told her that his plan was to bury the bodies to eliminate any evidence and that they could make a lot of money selling the films to “people in Las Vegas.” Phillips refused to participate in the scheme, but did not go to the police because of her drug habit. Her contact with Douglas ended when she was convicted of burglary and sentenced to jail. …
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The jury convicted Douglas of first degree murder and found the special circumstance of multiple murder, making him death eligible. At the penalty phase, Julia McGettrick and Vickie Pendleton testified of separate incidents in 1976 in which Douglas forced or frightened them into posing for nude photographs or performing sex acts in the desert. A third woman, Pamela Williams, testified that in 1977 Douglas had picked her up hitchhiking and sought her participation in a plan to make movies involving the torture and killing of young women. Douglas was charged with attempted murder and other crimes arising out of this plan, and, after the jury deadlocked, eventually pled nolo contendere to solicitation to commit a felony. 316 F3d 1079 Douglas v. S Woodford Rswl | OpenJurist
That’s pretty much it. TSBG and I earlier draw analogies with pedophile rings, which seem to exist and run more on status than cash.
As you say, the claim on their motives is dubious. And even if it weren’t, it doesn’t seem that they had any real contact with a community. Supposing that they did intend to distribute, though: does it make a difference if they were delusional or not? On balance, I lean towards yes: the attempt has to be “legitimate” in some way. So, not snuff.
Agreed. It’s kind of a fine line, but I think we can distinguish between distribution for the entertainment of the recipient vs. attention-seeking.
I was prepared to draw less flattering conclusions about the professor. But reviewing the evidence, I’ve backed off. Was MacKinnon’s stated view wholly unreasonable in 1983, 1985, 1988 and 1993?
I’m prepared to assert it was clearly false. Otherwise one of these alleged films would have turned up by 1993, never mind 2014. But consider the following:
Some dudes have weird kinks.
Some dudes collect weird stuff, for reasons of curiosity or even because they are completists.
Lots of people support extremely immoral markets. Purchases of cocaine prop narco-trafficking whose violence undermines multiple countries.
It doesn’t have to be much of an industry. One psychopath with a camera and an illicit distribution system would be sufficient.
And with all of that as background, there was the testimony that a convicted killer alleged to a female witness he could sell his material in Las Vegas for big bucks. There is much about this claim that is frankly dubious, but it does provide some specificity to the preceding generalizations.
Now Professor MacKinnon is/was a legal scholar, so one might expect her to maintain more rigorous standards of evidence. So I perceive egg on her face. But the urban legend doesn’t seem so ludicrous to me anymore c. 1988. Nevertheless, it is still highly problematic that MacKinnon presented the snuff industry as a fact, rather than a disturbing possibility or even probability. I had thought that her lack of substantiation was suspicious. But it’s possible that she didn’t want to give an industry that she believed to exist greater publicity.
I don’t think the recent events of the mass schoolgirl abduction in Africa meets the criteria for the claim.
With regards to a snuff film, in theory there doesn’t need to be a very big distribution network to qualify as a snuff film. In theory, some uber-rich freak could, via his “fixer” and possibly another layer intermediary like a sketchy private investigator or whatnot, hire some really sketchy ex-cons to film a murder in the manner like the Douglas case presents, and thereby acquire his own copy of a sex-murder film. That would be a procured film of murder for sexual gratification.
That does not, however, support any reasonable description of a snuff film industry, nor does one rich freakoid having a handful of said films procured really reach that status. I would think a reasonable claim for an “industry” would require multiple clients and probably multiple agents working independently to create said films.
So, what level of claim did MacKinnon claim? She states that snuff films exist, but falls short of claiming an extensive network or industry exists. Still, I think she overstates the evidence.
Catharine MacKinnon may be a legal scholar but she’s also a fanatic. She has written, for example, that pornography underlies all rape, and that rapists don’t actually realise they’re raping, again because of pornography. I would not assume that she actually had evidence for something just because she asserted it to be true.
I think she does assert a network, judging from your quote upthread: “It certainly seems important to the audiences that the events in the pornography be real. For this reason, pornography becomes a motive for murder, as in “snuff” films in which someone is tortured to death to make a sex film. They exist.” Emphasis added.
MacKinnon pretty explicitly ties snuff films to audiences, not individuals. Implicitly these audiences would be presumably small, but they exist according to MacKinnon because of the general desire by men for realistic pornography (sic). She also explicitly asserts that snuff films are a motive for murder, though that could entail the lone rich guy, the lone psycho and the lone go-between.
Ok, I’ll take another dive into the internet for MacKinnon’s POV:
The quoted rapist describes his feelings, not the stuff he watches.
There’s no mention of the guy being rich.
Endnote 25: I reached my limit at Google Books. Maybe it’s around page 118.
Another source: Bound and Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of Fantasy in America by Laura Kipnis : Duke University Press, 1996 - History - 226 pages
Schiro was convicted of a raping and murdering a woman in 1981: [INDENT]" At trial, Schiro argued that he was a sexual sadist and that his extensive viewing of rape pornography and snuff films rendered him unable to distinguish right from wrong. In support of this assertion, his expert witness, Edward Donnerstein, testified that after a short exposure to aggressive pornography “non-rapist populations * * * begin to endorse myths about rape.” R. 1549 (testimony of Edward Donnerstein).
…Schiro contended either that pornography is a mitigating factor akin to intoxication or mental disease or defect which rendered him unable to appreciate the criminality of his conduct, or that pornography caused him to suffer from sexual sadism, which in turn rendered him unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct. After hearing such evidence, Judge Rosen rejected the arguments on the basis that defendant was sadistic, not psychotic or insane, and on the basis that he was able to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct." [/INDENT] That’s the only mention of snuff films in the opinion. More on Thomas Schiro: Thomas Schiro | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/row/schirot.htm
In March 1994, MacKinnon writes a letter to the NY Review of Books:
…It also turned on the fact that the jury handed down a life sentence, while the judge upped the penalty to death.
At any rate it seems that MacKinnon was asserting the existence of a snuff film distribution system that could reach a 20 year old felon in Indiana.
Part of the reason the judge did so was connected with Schiro’s deceptive behavior during the trial: [INDENT]F. Deceptive Behavior at Trial
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According to Judge Rosen, Schiro tried to deceive the jury into believing that he was mentally ill.12 Judge Rosen stated:
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This Court personally observed the Defendant, while the jury was present, making continual rocking motions, which did not stop throughout the trial, except when the jury left the courtroom. In the court’s outer chambers, out of the presence of the jury, in the eight days of trial, the Court frequently observed the Defendant sitting calmly and not rocking. It is apparent to the Court that this may well have influenced and misled the jury in its recommendation. [/INDENT] I maintain that a decent legal scholar in pursuit of the truth should discount uncorroborated claims that Schiro viewed snuff films, in light of his penchant for deception during the trial. At the same time, I’ll also note that I couldn’t locate any definition of snuff film given: Schiro may have been referring to fictional slasher films for all I know. It is disappointing that MacKinnon neither provided stronger evidence nor indicated that her chief witness to these snuff films was a man on trial for rape and murder with documented deceptive behavior. I hope and trust that MacKinnon’s future commentary on snuff films provides such clarification.
As I understand it Catherine MacKinnon is a highly respected jurist among militant feminists. Wiki notes that she is the Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. In 2007, she served as the Roscoe Pound Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. So a close study of her scholarship is beneficial insofar as we can ascertain which methods or devices are worthy of emulation.
She flatly stated that snuff films existed, in the plural. I perceive that this was not a minor aspect of her argument. Substantiation of such claims was invariable relegated to footnotes AFAIK. In a 1985 peer reviewed work cited by Irishman, claims in footnotes were elaborate and somewhat less expansive. I add emphasis: “In movies known as snuff films, victims sometimes are actually murdered [cite statement of Senator Spector in Congressional Record].” Also, “Information on the subject is understandably hard to get.” Cite felony complaint, 2 newspaper articles and an unpublished 1975 manuscript. I tracked down versions of those AP articles upthread pertaining to the Douglas case. The implication, such as it was, of her footnote that her evidence was weak was well grounded.
There was less hesitance in her works that did not undergo peer review. In Only Words (1993) her characterization of snuff films is narrower: “Consider snuff pornography, in which women or children are killed to make a sex film.” In a 1746 word letter published by the New York Review of Books (NYRB) in 1984, “extensive consumption of sadomasochistic pornography and snuff films,” by the killer Schiro was taken as fact with the uncertainty regarding whether this material made Schiro unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of his acts. The footnote stated only that the case was under Supreme Court review. A casual reader might falsely conclude that the existence of snuff films was confirmed by a court, as opposed to asserted by a killer pleading for his life.
In 1994 and in 1985, the sorts of citations and claims offered by Professor MacKinnon were unlikely to be tracked down by the reader. Today, it’s a chore that can be done on the internet. I conclude that if your evidence is weak, it’s more difficult to paper that over with vague footnoting. But some of MacKinnon’s techniques still maintain applicability: the last paragraph of her NYRB letter contains an instructive blend of overheated rhetoric, ad hominem attacks regarding the motivations of her reviewers, unsupported claims and table pounding that a segment of the internet community might hold up as magisterial.
I discussed this in post 68: it’s the Douglas case. Recall that Douglas had not been apprehended at the time the 1983 article was written: he was convicted in 1985. No snuff film materialized, never mind a profitable one.
I had thought that MacKinnon was displaying weak scholarship c. 1985 - 1993, but flat and unqualified assertions of the existence of snuff films in 2007 – long after snopes, Cecil and numerous other authors had weighed in – crosses some sort of line. I’ll remind my audience that books are not peer reviewed.