True Crime
2023
video series & performative lecture
Drawing from my own experience as an actor in true crime reenactment shows over five ‘gigs’ in 2021 and 2022, True Crime is a project based on my own participation and related research in the “true crime entertainment” industry. The project is a way to consider the implications of the true crime genre as entertainment and its popularity in this time of constant content and storytelling consumption through seemingly infinite streaming options.
I was initially driven by curiosity and the extra income to be a reenactment actor, but after one episode shoot I became fascinated with the theatrical process of the production. In television specifically, there is a “close but not exact” strategy employed across all forms of portrayal, and a blur effect in post production used to hide the inaccuracies and emphasize the idea of memory. I am curious about the implications of this approximation, and what this means for a medium so widely consumed and referenced as “true”. I wonder about what this narrative representation strategy reifies and perpetuates, in a genre so closely tied to perceptions of the justice system.
Below are excerpts from completed and televised productions in which I played a role.