Serial killers. Mass murders. Political assassinations. These subjects engross the public in true crime novels. Popularized by Vincent Bugliosi’s best-selling Helter Skelter and Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, these novels depict real crimes. However, considering the tragic nature of many crimes as well as the tendency for the author’s bias to seep through their work, whether the genre is ethical or not is up to debate.
But what is ethical? California’s Santa Clara University says that ethics refers to “well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues” (Velasquez). An ethical action must not violate anyone’s rights, be unfair to anyone, or defy anyone’s moral or social obligations. The problem with true crime is that it dubiously passes this criteria.
The reason Tana French’s In the Woods is exempt from ethical scrutiny while Capote’s In Cold Blood is not is due to a simple distinction – the difference between fiction and nonfiction. The murder in In the Woods is entirely fictional, but the murders in In Cold Blood actually occurred. The Clutters were not fabricated characters, nor were the killers Richard Hickock and Perry Smith. With that comes a serious question: does it breach privacy to write about real crimes?
Capote met and interviewed Hickock and Smith when he was worked on the novel. However, all four Clutters were murdered before the novel was written, so Capote could not receive any verbal or written consent from them to write the book.
Even worse, Texas, the site of the crime, has a statue which grants people “the right of publicity” after death. A deceased individual’s “name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness” becomes their property, fifty-years-exempt from use of “advertising, selling, or soliciting the purchase of products, merchandise, goods, or services” (Rothman). By turning a tragedy into a book that sold millions of copies (and undoubtedly made thousands of dollars), Capote not only violated the Clutters’ right of publicity, but profited from their murders; thus, this is an example of how writing and selling true crime novels can be unethical.
TIME Magazine may argue that Capote’s writing and “meticulously crafted account of [the] heinous killing” earned the novel its profits, not the crime (Altman). Indeed, Truman Capote is a skilled storyteller, seen with the success of Breakfast at Tiffany’s which preceded In Cold Blood. However, the book would not be nearly as impressive if the events were not real. The brutal truth of the Clutter murders (and crimes in all true crime novels) makes the genre appealing for people including myself. I picked up In Cold Blood solely because it is a thriller about real murders. But is that not unethical or unfair to the victims of crimes? To be shocked, but ultimately entertained, by how their lives were ended?
Here lies another problem: true crime novels can diverge from the truth. Since the author has the sole responsibility of depicting crimes, it is easy for their opinions to influence a person’s image. This becomes dangerous when people take nonfiction as fact, and so the author fails in their moral obligation to paint a true picture of the crime.
Although Capote claimed his novel is “immaculately factual,” the Kansas Bureau of Investigations suggests that some details are inaccurate. The Wall Street Journal writes that “in the book, Capote says an agent was sent immediately to follow up a tip-off that the killers might be Perry Smith and Richard Hickock. KBI documents suggest, however, that Dewey waited five days before he followed up on the lead” (Bowie-Sell). Did Capote intentional intend this to further the suspense of a determined detective for readers? If so, it would not be the first time Capote enhanced a true crime. After meeting Hickock and Smith, Capote took a liking to Smith. This is readily apparent in the novel: Hickock is portrayed as a sadistic mastermind, while Smith is a victim to Hickock’s charming façade (though Smith physically pulls the trigger in all four murders). This influences the reader’s interpretation of the crime. And it is likely that all true crime authors show bias towards characters, making changes to crime details.
Does that mean true crime should be condemned or banned? Not quite. Instead, we should be wary as to why we write it, why we read it, and what it means. The intent behind true crime is what determines whether it is ethical or not. With a true crime novel, if an author writes to exploit or a person reads to enjoy pain, then it is unethical. Fortunately, these are not usually the case with true crime novels. What is important is that we remember nonfiction is based on fact, but is not fact itself. As long as the variations of the facts do not treat anyone unfairly, then true crime is fair game.
By Abitha Suthakaran
Please note that opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views and values of The Blank Page.
