The John Mark Karr Triangle

John Mark Karr did not develop his fixation with confessing JonBenet Ramsey's murder by himself. To the contrary, Karr's confessions seem to have deep roots in the sprawling culture of American media. In fact, Karr's confessions might be best thought of as emerging out of a triangle of licit and illicit cultural media. One point of the triangle was Karr's own involvement with child pornography and pedophelia which seemed to be both longstanding and intensifying. The child porn interests would have put Karr into contact with a system of sex stereotypes that Karr a different kind of guy than the weird uncles and step-fathers that girls used to be warned about. But Karr's interests were not as far out of the mainstream as Bill O'Reilly and other pedophilia crusaders think.

The media pornographying of JonBenet Ramsey's murder was a strong point of connection to the cultural mainstream for Karr and forms the second point of the Karr triangle. It is doubtful that Karr's sexual fantasies would have focused so intently on JonBenet Ramsey if tabloid magazines and reality tv had not transformed the little girl's murder into a ten-year peep show. Although most people did not go into the same child pornography detail as Karr, his obsessions with Jon Benet were shared by millions. If anything, the long-running JonBenet porn show was heightened by the blanket coverage of every detail of Karr's arrest, flight to LA, and the sexual detail of his phony confessions. Perhaps Karr's ultimate fantasy was to become the new star of the JonBenet sex/murder show in the role of JonBenet's murderer. And it worked for awhile. The coverage was blanket. The ratings were huge. If Karr received a nickel for everytime people peeped in on him as he was being processed in the legal system, he could afford all the child pornography he wanted.

But why was Karr's fantasy focused on "confession" as opposed to copy cat murders, enacting similar kinds of scenarios with girls in Thailand, going to peep shows, or something like that. The principal mainstream cultural reference point for confession in American society would be the vast world of police dramas, crime investigation programs, reality crime shows, local news reporting on crime, and action, police, and investigation movies. Of course, there's plenty of left-wing commentary on the importance of fear in American culture, for example in Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. However, there is little emphasis on the importance of police images in American society--the pleasures that American audiences derive from entertainment based on the criminal investigations, interrogations, legal manuevering, and imprisonment that break the perpetrator. Perpetually afraid of crime and terrorism, we get a special kick out of the media destruction of the criminal and terrorist. I'm no exception here. I used to love cop shows like NYPD Blue and Homicide: Life on the Streets before I unhooked from television. One of my favorite movies is the incredibly righteous L.A. Confidential.

Just like John Mark Karr seemed eager to get himself inside the on-going JonBenet porn show, he also seemed eager to insert himself into the world of crime drama. Karr has been panting to get into the machinery of criminal investigation and justice--to be interrogated, arrested, and taken before judges and consult with defense lawyers, speak to the media, and finally be committed to prison. A big part of Karr's fantasy was to be punished by the judicial system for the crime of killing JonBenet Ramsey and he might still get his punishment wish from the child porn rap in California. For better or worse, the punishment fantasy is a big part of American culture in general.