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Silent killer

Media reports about Cunanan said more about homophobia than about his crimes

by Michael Bronski

The Andrew Cunanan story sparked a media blitz to rival the O.J. frenzy, but when Cunanan's apparent suicide last month swept the story off page one, several facts became

obvious. In the beginning -- when the only victims were gay men -- the press had little interest in the case. And when the story picked up, after the murder of the allegedly straight Chicago businessman Lee Miglin, the media displayed little capacity for understanding the gay world in which Cunanan lived. It was their fanciful vision of gay life -- extrapolated from flimsy evidence and colored with lurid and less-than-imaginative detail -- that took center stage.

The tone of the coverage was immediately apparent in the way the press, in violation of its usual standards, insistently referred to Cunanan as a "gay serial killer." (Would mainstream journalists ever use the phrases "black serial killer" or "Jewish serial killer"? And would Cunanan, who was half-Filipino, be called a "Filipino serial killer"?) More fascinating, however, was the way the media constructed and re-constructed images of Andrew Cunanan, each of them a variation on the theme of the evil, dangerous homosexual. These images -- often based on nothing more than hearsay or conjecture -- tell us more about the fantasies and fears of heterosexuals and the mainstream media than about the facts of the case.

Take, for instance, that endless prattle about whether Cunanan had sex for money. Cunanan was repeatedly labeled a "hustler," a "call boy," a "gold digger," a "high-priced prostitute," and a "kept boy" -- all phrases that, in a culture where men are required to be economically productive, made him seem less of a man. One report even noted, in a condemnatory tone, that "he selectively dated wealthy older men." (As opposed to what? Indiscriminately dating older men?) The reality is that we know only this: Cunanan lived, for several years, with an older man and had a lot of discretionary spending money. The same could be said of Ivana Trump, Princess Diana, or any number of other women, the only difference being that Ivana and Di had access to the institution of marriage.

In his media incarnation as a "kept boy," Cunanan was portrayed in the context of a vaguely illicit and superficially glamorous social life: he was "always picking up the tab" or "treating a tableful of friends to dinner." A sour, mean-spirited tone turned these generally innocent phrases into accusations of decadence and frivolity. One newspaper report claimed that Cunanan was a "clever, name-dropping gay socialite who would do anything for attention," seemingly implying that these traits were somehow associated with serial murder. For a journalistic-ethics check, imagine a newspaper describing someone as a "shrewd, financially well-connected Jewish socialite who would do anything to get ahead."

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After the Versace murder, all media hell broke lose, and speculation flew fast and furious. Maureen Orth, a journalist who was already at work on a story about Cunanan for Vanity Fair, came forth with a theory that seemed to say everything -- and nothing. Orth had discovered that while in Miami, Cunanan had rented several "pornographic S/M videos." Aha! Orth, appearing on television's Dateline and other faux-news shows, claimed that she had spoken to several psychologists who explained that S/M activity had its basis in unlimited and violent rage. In interviews, Orth presented this plum with great satisfaction.

The problems, alas, were manifold. What were these videos, and who evaluated them as S/M? Can we trust Orth, who has exhibited no particular expertise on gay male sexuality, to make this judgment? Many mid-list videos from such mainstream companies as Catalina and All Worlds now feature a few leather body harnesses, a dildo or two, and some light spanking. Is this what Orth took for S/M? And what if Cunanan had rented hard-core dungeon/torture videos like Kink Video's Delivery Discipline or Punishment Punks? Does that mean that he was "into" S/M? Does that mean that S/M equals rage and that rage equals murder? Orth's worthless rumor-mongering -- reported in the mainstream media as truth -- was predicated on a complete misunderstanding of sexual behavior that furthered the image of gay sexuality as monstrous and murderous.

Perhaps the most shocking example of the media's refusal to let ethics stand in the way of a good story was the rumor, broadcast in front-page headlines nationwide, that Cunanan had committed his crimes because he had AIDS. AIDS FUELS HIS FRENZY, screamed the New York Post, playing into a now-classic mainstream fear: the AIDS killer. The story had its source in the statement of an HIV counselor who claimed that Cunanan had mentioned, in passing, that it was possible he might be HIV-positive. This "fact," in turn, was promoted by the Miami police as an "explanation" for Cunanan's actions. The shoddy reporting went over with the public only because there was already a widespread belief that gay men have AIDS, and that people with AIDS are deadly and dangerous. When an autopsy showed Cunanan to be HIV-negative, it only reinforced how idiotic and irresponsible the reports had been.

In what were to be the last stages of the investigation -- and of Cunanan's life -- theories about the case became even more desperate. After finding hair clippers in a motel room in which the suspected killer was supposed to have stayed, the Miami police put out a press release saying they believed that Cunanan had shaved his body hair and was now in drag, hiding as a woman. The news media swallowed this nonsense and promoted it in all seriousness. The cross-dressing theory -- which was based on no evidence, and ignored the fact that most men would be more conspicuous in drag -- was a monument to the police and the media's obsession with Cunanan's gayness. The construction of Cunanan as a killer drag queen turned him into the ultimate deviant, the apotheosis of heterosexual fears of the queer: the feminized homosexual who embodies the male fantasy of the lethal woman. This image of the gender traitor as murderer resonates with Cunanan's earlier media incarnations as the kept boy and the gossipy gay socialite.

But perhaps the most persistently menacing take on Cunanan had to do with his invisibility. After the Versace murder, almost every news report ended with a sort of warning: In spite of intensive police efforts, Andrew Cunanan cannot be found. He is a master of disguise. He could be anywhere. Cunanan's elusiveness had as much to do with police incompetence as with anything else, but the image of Cunanan as an undetectable danger in the midst of innocence is highly evocative. It recalls the "hidden homosexual" who stalked the popular imagination of the 1950s: the queer who was passing for straight, the apparently happy suburban married man who led a secret life in the city. This terror of the invisible menace runs rampant in cultures that demonize the outsider and the nonconformist. Fear of the Jew posing as gentile was the nightmare of Nazi and British Victorian culture; the thought of blacks passing as white haunted the American South. The media constructed an Andrew Cunanan who, like Elm Street's Freddy Krueger or the killer from Halloween, lurked on the edges of reality and could strike at a moment's notice, instilling terror in the hearts of "normal" people. He was, like homosexuality itself, a threat to the natural order.

In the end, there was no need to make Andrew Cunanan into anything more terrifying than what he was: a suspected serial killer. But homosexuality is still so feared, so fraught with danger, that the mainstream media will construct gay monsters every chance they get. They need to assure themselves -- over and over again -- that whatever gay is, it is not them.

Michael Bronski is the editor of the recently released Taking Liberties: Gay Men's Essays on Politics, Culture, and Sex (Richard Kasak Books). He can be reached at mabronski@aol.com.

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