Modern Media and the Birth of the Serial Killer
An analysis of Fritz Lang’s film “M” and Spike Lee’s “Summer of Sam” used to address issues of media sensationalism, group hysteria, mob mentalities, and paranoia perpetuated by news coverage.
Spike Lee and Fritz Lang both go to great lengths to explore the social circumstances that enable the serial killer to thrive in modern cities as well as the cycle of hysteria that both creates and is created by the serial killer. Both films are less portraits of psychopaths than portraits of cities. Both films are saturated in allegory– Lang’s admittedly more than Lee’s but both are allegorical just the same– and provide vital social commentary to, hopefully, help viewers to reflect on the problems of urbanization and technology, industrialization, and overpopulation.
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