#'gianni versace has nightmares about me' | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

meeda · 2 months

Text

I don’t want to say I have “favorite” true crime cases but there are ones that stand out to me for various reasons

the slenderman stabbing for one because the perpetrators and victim were so young, and the one who did the stabbing has the same illness as me. I like to stay up to date on this one, hearing how the victim is doing (apparently she’s pursuing a career in medicine) but also the perps. I know one got released from the psych ward recently and her gps monitor is getting removed, but I believe she still has to have her internet access restricted. The main perp also petitioned for release a couple times but her team keeps withdrawing it for some reason.

the gianni versace murder also intrigues me because the perp was a “spree killer,” which is less common than a serial killer. he was also gay, half filipino, and an escort, not the usual demographic for a violent killer.

alyssa’s case terrifies me, because she was fifteen when she murdered a nine year old girl. when you look at pictures of Alyssa, she just looks like an average high school girl going through her edgy scene phase. her diary entries were reminiscent of late 2000s/early 2010s rawr XD type verbiage. she looked so normal but she was a monster. the interrogation footage was haunting as well, as her grandmother was present and you could see the exact moment she learns that her granddaughter is a killer.

and of course there’s jodi, the gaslight gatekeep girlboss of murderers who many a female manipulator girlblogger love to idolize for reasons i can honestly kind of understand. She’s gorgeous, manipulative, possessive, she’s a man’s worst nightmare and a tumblrina’s power fantasy. I only recently watched some videos discussing her case, and in all of them, they attempt to paint her victim in a good light. But if you ask me, he sounded like a prick, and also made weird pedophilic comments about jodi. you won’t find me mourning his death. I don’t care as much about this case as I do about the, uh, fandom? jodi has many admirers, mostly female, which is amusing to me. Usually I only see hybristophile women attracted to ugly male killers. but like I said, jodi is seen as a sort of power fantasy. Shes probably not the kind of person people should be idolizing, but then again there are worse people to look up to.

1 note · View note

acsversace-news · 5 years

Link

The Assassination of Gianni Versace was another Ryan Murphy success. Not that we’re really surprised by every show of his going on to be critically acclaimed, but you know, it’s still a difficult feat to accomplish. The title of the series encapsulates what the plot is about, but it’s not until you watch it that you understand just how riveting it is.

Following the events that led to the assassination of famed fashion designer Gianni Versace, the series stars Darren Criss as the frightening Andrew Cunanan. Criss plays the role of the man that killed Versace execution style. The show starts in reverse order with the assassination first and then explaining bit by bit what ultimately drove Cunanan to commit such a crime.

It comes as no surprise at all that The Assassination of Gianni Versace is up for a Golden Globe nomination for Best Limited Series. And it is almost common sense that Darren Criss was nominated for Lead Actor in Limited Series–seriously, this was his best work yet. With the magic of Criss’ talent, Murphy’s vision, and the rest of the cast, The Assassination of Gianni Versace was one of a kind show.

Criss’ performance is haunting, convincing, and feels all too real. I’m still wondering how he was able to pull off some of the moments he did. Let’s just say nightmares were very common in the days following the end of the season. I believe it is a given that the series along with Criss should walk away with the Golden Globe on Sunday night.

In fact, Criss has already won the Emmy for it, so this will simply be a formality at this point. He’s that good in it, trust me. The series itself encompasses a very dramatic time in the 90s and touches on the political/sociocultural climate of the time. This is one of Murphy’s specialties and it certainly shines through in this series.

Here’s to hoping that the series wins a well-deserved award, and Criss walks away with yet another reward for his best performance yet!

#acs versace #awards talk #darren criss #article #review #golden globes 2019 #january 2019

44 notes · View notes

v4viola · 6 years

Text

AHS: CULT Season 7, Episode 1 Election Night [unpublished review]

Tuesday, September 5th, 2017, just days before Stephen King’s IT hit theatres worldwide, the anticipated clown-centred new season of Ryan Murphy & Brad Falchuk’s anthology series, American Horror Story, premiered its seventh season, Cult, on FX.

The past six seasons of American Horror Story (AHS) have catapulted viewers into the depths of the horror genre; every season tells a different story at a different time with different characters and themes. The popular show features returning and seasoned actors like Angela Bassett, Sarah Paulson and Kathy Bates, as well as guest stars like Gabourey Sidibe, Lady Gaga and Cuba Gooding Jr.

Countless characters have left lasting impressions on AHS and every fan has their favourite: Lana Winters of Asylum (Season 2), Fiona Goode of Coven (Season 3), Elsa Mars or Twisty the Clown of Freakshow (Season 4), The Countess of Hotel (Season 5), or The Butcher of Roanoke (Season 6). The sinister list goes on and on.

American Horror Story may stand alone but it is no stranger to acclaim as it’s been nominated for an impressive 300+ awards. Jessica Lange and Lady Gaga both won Best Performance by an Actress in a TV Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television at the 2012 and 2016 Golden Globe Awards for Murder House and Hotel. The Primetime Emmy’s have awarded the show as well.

Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have managed to garner a cult following. Pun intended. Together, they’ve created “Teen TV” juggernauts like Glee and Scream Queens, and are the executive producers of the critically acclaimed first season of American Crime Story: The People VS. O.J. Simpson, starring AHS alumni, Sarah Paulson and Cuba Gooding Jr. The series sweeped award shows and the second season (The Assassination of Gianni Versace, starring Penelope Cruz and Ricky Martin) is slated to air in the early months of 2018. Last but not least, who can forget the return of Jessica Lange (alongside Susan Sarandon) earlier this year in Ryan Murphy’s Feud: Bette & Joan. The debut season of another anthology series (also produced by Brad Pitt) reimagines the tensions between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford on the set of the movie What Ever Happened to Mary Jane? in 1962. Murphy and Falchuk are clear forces to be reckoned with when it comes genre television. When they hit, they hit big.

So when the countdown to Season 7’s premiere was over, fans erupted. Some loved it, some hated it, and some threatened to boycott it because of an irrational fear of tiny holes. Yes, tiny holes. The unique fear is called trypophobia: an intense fear, distress or anxiety caused by irregular patterns or clusters of small holes or bumps. The term is believed to have been coined in 2005 on an online forum and AHS has decided to showcase its abilities to make your skin crawl in a way we’ve never seen before. Hence the trigger warnings. Seriously, people are freaking out!

The title of this premiere episode is Election Night and the opening scene takes viewers back to the night of November 8, 2016, flashing some of the most viral and ludicrous presidential campaign snippets of Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump, one after the other.

“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” an actual clip of Donald Trump flashes, reminding viewers how screwed the United States is with this clown in office. It’s clear that AHS is using the real-life 2016 election as the focus for this year’s horror tale, set in Michigan.

“FUCK YOU WORLD! USA! USA! USA!”

Kai Anderson (played by AHS heavy-weight, Evan Peters) shouts this as the 45th president of the United States of America is announced. Kai is a blue-haired loner celebrating Trump’s win in a dingy basement, dry-humping his big screen TV like a fanatic. “Freedom!” he yells, and his glee for Trump’s victory is a tough pill to swallow.

Evan Peters is a returning AHS all-star and his acting chops shine brighter from season to season. In the opening of this new season, Cult, Peters grips us from the get-go, and throughout the hour-long first episode, we begin to see why his character is so happy with Donald Trump’s victory.

Kai emulates the far-right narrative with precision. Scenes throughout the premiere (where he blatantly disrespects women and Mexicans) reveal a very real and twisted perception that men are superior to women and that “white is right.” Kai is indicative of what Trump spews to the public, and what makes it so uncomfortable to watch is that this series is a lot more than a just a scary TV show now. It’s about our social and political climate, today. This is art is imitating life, in real time.

Kai is maniacal from the opening scene where - in celebration of Trump’s victory - Kai makes a cheeto smoothie, rubbing the orange paste all over his face, mirroring Trump’s infamously orange glow. His mannerisms are reminiscent of the legendary comic villain, The Joker, with his creepy stare and smudged cheeto “face paint”. Perhaps the sub-theme of coulrophobia (fear of clowns) influenced a nod to the king of crime. After all, The Joker is one of the ultimate clown villains of the last century. It is rumoured that DC Comics is looking to solidify Leonardo DiCaprio as The Joker in an upcoming origin story set in the 1980’s. If that doesn't work out, Evan Peters would be perfect!

Across town, we see Ally Mayfair-Richards (Sarah Paulson), and her wife, Ivy (Alison Pill), in what reads as a parody of a wealthy, white, lesbian couple. They’re hosting a viewing party with their neighbours, a liberal heterosexual couple, Mr. and Mrs. Tom and Marylin Chang (Tim Kang and Nanrissa Lee). When Trump is announced president, Ally has the complete opposite reaction from Kai Anderson, and that familiar AHS Sarah Paulson shriek fans grew to love in Asylum and Roanoke tears through her living room, directed at the flatscreen television. She’s absolutely mortified, as many of us were that night, but the results trigger Ally in a way that leaves her out of breath and panicked. Soon afterwards, we understand why.

Ally suffers from multiple phobias, high anxiety, and hallucinations. “Ever since the election, it’s been getting worse,” she says to her therapist, Dr. Rudy Vincent (Cheyenne Jackson).

“The coulrophobia?” He asks.

“Yes. The clowns...” she trails off, “but also,” she continues, “confined spaces, and blood... Particles in the air, the dark, that coral thing that's been staring at me since I came in here!” Ally appears to be dizzy. Nauseas even.

“You have a fear of coral?” Dr. Vincent asks.

“No. I-I… Its the holes,” she takes a deep breath, “it’s repulsive!”

Ally tells Dr. Vincent that coping with the election results has triggered all of her old phobias. It’s almost as if AHS is mocking the right-winged notion that those on the left are automatically fragile and plagued with political correctness, but by bringing these unconventional yet very real phobias to the table, we see that this season’s theme isn’t just about the current events in American politics, clowns, or tiny holes. No, this season is about the fear in politics and what it can do to people on both ends of the political pendulum. Ally Mayfair-Richards’ character shows us how these conditions and phobias can provoke mental health breakdowns with a raw and in-your-face delivery.

The premiere also marks the return of Freakshow’s Twisty the Clown, but only as an imagined character in “The Twisty Chronicles” comic book. Oz Mayfair-Richards (Cooper Dodson), Ally and Ivy’s son, secretly admires the clown’s comics and he is nothing more than a fictional character in Cult. So far, anyway. The gruesome Twisty scene unfolds, reminiscent of the clown’s murderous debut in Season 4, and we think we’ve seen the actual return of Twisty until Ally interrupts and it’s realized that this was just a scene in Oz’s comic book. Since Ally has an irrational fear of clowns, the cover illustration of the savage Twisty prompts her to have a full-on panic attack. If you have any inclination of what Twisty looks like, it's understandable for a coulrophobe to freak out. Twisty is what nightmares are made of and fans are patiently awaiting the mayhem Twisty might be getting up to this season. Another character that’s sparking intrigue is Winter Anderson (Billie Lourd), Kai Anderson’s younger sister. In the beginning of the episode, when Kai covers his face in the cheeto mask, he storms into his younger sister’s room and jumps on her bed, staring her down as CNN announces that Hillary Clinton will not be speaking after conceding to Donald Trump. She looks up from her laptop into her brother’s eyes, his orange face smudged with tension, and begins yelling at him to get out, hitting him repeatedly. He starts laughing at her screaming, uncovered by the blows. She's lost some sort of bet and now she has to follow through with some elaborate scheme after admitting that children are her worst fear. [Unfinished first rough draft]

2 notes · View notes

acsversace-news · 6 years

Link

**MAJOR SPOILERS FOR EPISDOE 6**

As we enter the back half of "The Assassination of Gianni Versace," it's becoming clear that this is the Andrew Cunanan story. The show is less an examination of how the fashion designer was murdered but why he was murdered, putting the spotlight on his killer, marvelously portrayed by the dynamic Darren Criss. This is another week where we don't see the Versace crew, including Penelope Cruz, Edgar Ramirez (Ramirez's Gianni does appear in one scene but as a figment of Andrew's imagination) and Ricky Martin.

In the sixth episode of the season "Descent," directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton and written by Tom Rob Smith, the show travels further back in time - a year before Andrew went on his cross-country murdering spree. The episode opens with Andrew celebrating his birthday in San Diego where he's living with an older, wealthy man named Norman (Michael Nouri) in a fabulous seaside house. But it's all a show, an attempt to woo and impress David Madson (Cody Fern). Andrew explains to his best friend Elizabeth Cote (the wonderful Annaleigh Ashford), that he's staying with Norma "curating" his home and designing its decor. Andrew goes on to say he sees a "future" with David and that he's trying to be "someone he can love."

Also at the birthday party is Jeff Trail (Finn Wittrock), dressed in blue jeans and sneakers. Andrew hands Jeff a pair of fancy loafers to wear for the party. Jeff has brought a gift for Andrew, but Andrew gives him another gift to pass him in its place.

"I want [David] to see I have really good friends," Andrew tells Jeff. "...I need you to look the part."

"What does a good friend look like?" Jeff asks. "How is this going to help?"

"I need him to know [that you love me]," Andrew says.

Jeff finally agrees but before Andrew tells him that he told David he is still serving in the Navy. He reluctantly agrees.

As the episode goes on, it continues to dig into Andrew's compulsive lying as well as his drug addiction. Not only does he lead David to believe Norman's house is actually his, but he tells him he used to design clothes with Gianni Versace. Later in the episode, we see Andrew doing hard drugs.

"We'll have a house like this one day. Maybe this very one," he tells David. Shortly after, Jeff hands Andrew the gift Andrew gave him, which turn out to be a pair of Ferragamo shoes.

That's when Jeff and David meet for the first time - and seemingly make a connection, upsetting Andrew.

"Descent" also features one of the few characters in the series who acts as a direct foil to Andrew. One of Norman's friends, played by "Saturday Night Live" alum Terry Sweeney, is fully aware of Andrew's lies and act, giving him a hard time throughout the episode, letting Andrew know he's on to him.

"I have a birthday present for you, it's a piece of advice. You think Norman is the lucky one. You're wrong, you're the lucky one," he tells Andrew. "Norman is a conservative old queer... most men would make it clear you're an employee, but he wants you to feel like you're an equal. But you're not an equal."

He goes on to say Norman was vulnerable when he met Andrew and that his partner died of AIDS, suggesting Andrew preyed on his friend during a difficult time.

"What a mix you are," he tells Andrew. "Too lazy to work, too proud to be kept."

"I need to get back to my party that room is full of people who love me," Andrew says.

"Then that room is full of people who don't know you," Norman's friend responds.

As the party continues, Andrew grows more concerned about Jeff and David getting closer and he attempts to balance out his lies. Later on, Lee Miglin (Mike Farrell) shows up at the party, adding to the episode's fever dream quality - like at the end of "Alice in Wonderland," where Alice confronts all the characters she's met throughout her bizarre journey.

After the party, Norman confronts Andrew about his lies, his past, and his current behavior. He says he won't be taken for a fool, and if Andrew can't share his life with him then he has to leave Norman's multi-million-dollar home. This upsets Andrew, who smashes Norman's glass table with a chair and announces he's leaving but "expect[s Norman] to call me."

Andrew indeed leaves, moving into a crummy studio apartment. Jeff then visits Andrew, and the two fight about Andrew sending Jeff's father a postcard that suggested Jeff is gay. During their argument, Jeff tells Andrew he's moving because he's unhappy, and Andrew contributed to that unhappiness.

Andrew then invites David to Los Angeles, where he arranges a five-star hotel stay, rents a sports car and wines and dines David, continuing his unhealthy, lying lifestyle. Despite all his attempts to impress David, which includes buying him a new suit, David still isn't connecting with Andrew and tells him so.

A desperate Andrew tries to impress David even more but it doesn't work and David says the two can't take the next step in their relationship. He says he wants to get to know the real Andrew and get to the truth. But Andrew can't help himself and he continues to lie about his family, saying his dad was a wealthy stockbroker and his mother ran a successful publishing house. David, however, sees through Andrew's lies; an excellent Cody Fern plays the moment so well you can see David's face drooping in disappointment.

"David, I'm a good person, who wants to be good to you," Andrew says.

"One day you're going to make someone very happy. I know you will," David responds.

After things dissolve with David, Andrew is left feeling helpless and spiraling out of control. Parts of "The Assassination of Versace" have had a dreamlike quality, as writer Tom Rob Smith had to create a number of moments. "Descent" features one of the most vibrant and creepy scenes in the series, where a drugged-out Andrew envisions himself meeting Gianni Versace; the scene is cloaked in a crimson red glow as Andrew debates with Gianni about the life he should have had and that Gianni stole it from him.

"People have taken from me and taken from me... now I'm spent," he tells Gianni, as he measures him for a suit. "This world has wasted me while it has turned you, Mr. Versace, into a star."

"You think you're better than me? You're not better than me. We're the same - the only difference is you got lucky," Andrew adds.

"It's not the only difference, sir," Gianni says.

"What else you got?" Andrew asks.

"I have love," the designer responds.

After the nightmare, Andrew, disheveled, high and desperate, tries to break into Norman's house late at night, pleading with him to take him back. Of course, Norman doesn't and threatens to call the police.

The next morning, Andrew goes to his mother's home, who lives in a sad one-bedroom apartment. The end of "Decent" is completely devastating, as it's the first time we see Mary Ann Cunanan (Joanna P. Adler), who is a sad and unhinged woman.

"I'm unhappy," Andrew tells his mother, who ignores him and launches into a story about how she ran into a friend and bragged about Andrew working with Versace, traveling the world - of course, none of this is true and only adds to Andrew's self-hate in the moment.

"I wish you could stay with me," Andrew's mother says, holding her son. "But I have to share you with the world."

As Andrew leaves, he tells his mother he is going to visit Minneapolis - where David lives and where Jeff eventually moves.

"Descent" gives more context to Andrew and why he is the way he is, but it's only scratching the surface of what's to come.

#acs versace #edge media network #2.06 #recap #review #article #acs spoilers #february 2018

12 notes · View notes

acsversace-news · 6 years

Link

Andrew Cunanan, who shot and killed Gianni Versace on the front steps of the designer’s palatial estate on the morning of July 15, 1997, was good at bragging. In the second episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace, a new FX miniseries about the crime and the years that led up to it, Cunanan (Darren Criss) lands in Miami’s South Beach. It is the last stop on a three-month killing spree, in which he has already murdered four men in three different states. Boasting energetically to a new friend, he claims he was once engaged to Versace (he wasn’t), who took him to dinner at the fabled San Francisco restaurant Stars (he didn’t). He launches into a reverie on Versace’s gift for design, and when his friend replies with, “Sounds real nice,” Cunanan is not pleased. “I don’t see something nice. I see the man behind it. A great creator. The man I could have been.”

Cunanan’s curdled sense of self-importance runs through the next seven episodes of the series, which travel backward from Cunanan’s crime spree to his troubled childhood. His parents, a depressive Italian-American mother and a Filipino immigrant father, poured all their hopes into young Andrew. He slept in the cavernous master bedroom by himself and attended a swanky private school in La Jolla, California, even though his parents could barely afford the tuition. He wore a red leather jumpsuit to school on occasion and was voted “Most Likely to Be Remembered” in his senior yearbook, but his own page gave almost no information about him. Instead, he inserted just one quote, attributed to the French King Louis XV: “Après moi, le déluge.” After me, the flood.

Cunanan’s first victims were Jeff Trail (Finn Wittrock) and David Madson (Cody Fern), two young gay men he met through the San Diego and San Francisco nightlife scenes when he was in his twenties. Trail, a former naval officer, befriended him when his ship was docked in the San Diego harbor. Madson, a promising young architect from Minnesota, and Cunanan had met in San Francisco in 1995, when Cunanan spotted him at a restaurant bar and sent a cocktail over. That night, according to writer Maureen Orth’s account (the FX show is partially based on Vulgar Favors, her 1999 best-seller about Cunanan’s crimes), the pair had a “nonsexual sleepover” inside the Mandarin Oriental hotel, where Andrew was staying thanks to an allowance he collected from a wealthy, older La Jolla businessman named Norman Blachford.

Blachford, whose partner of 26 years had just died when he met Cunanan, allowed him to move in to his mansion and decorate it, giving him credit cards, a $33,000 Infiniti, and a $2,500 living allowance. Cunanan was apparently ashamed of being a “kept” man but also flaunted his nouveau riches, spending lavishly on friends and acquaintances. When he met Madson, Cunanan felt a genuine emotional connection and obsessed over the architect romantically for the next two years. By the time Trail took a blue-collar job in Minneapolis, where Madson also lived, Blachford had dropped Cunanan, who was now alone. Cunanan flew to Minnesota, killed Trail with a claw hammer inside Madson’s airy loft, and then shot and killed Madson four days later on the banks of East Rush Lake, an hour outside town—perhaps out of jealousy or despair.

The Assassination of Gianni Versace sticks with Cunanan throughout his spree. Versace (Edgar Ramírez) and his longtime partner, Antonio (Ricky Martin), only appear intermittently, like pops from a flashbulb rather than fully developed characters. This feels purposeful: Cunanan was preoccupied with fame, perhaps to the point of psychopathy, and he put celebrity on a pedestal. He saw himself as destined for greatness, and it is this tragic misconception of himself that makes his story so very American. Versace was an openly gay immigrant, succeeding at the highest levels of American business. This must have enraged Cunanan, the openly gay son of an immigrant, who saw in Versace the anointed prince that he longed to be.

Shortly before the first episode aired, members of the Versace family distanced themselves from the new show, which they thought “should only be considered as a work of fiction.” In Vulgar Favors, Orth asserts that Cunanan had met Versace in San Francisco around 1990, when the designer created the costumes for a San Francisco Opera production of Capriccio. Although it’s not clear whether the two met only in passing or were much better acquainted, we see this encounter in a scene in The Assassination of Gianni Versace. If they had dated, as Cunanan often boasted to friends, Cunanan’s violent act may have been personal: Some reporters at the time speculated—with a homophobic slant—that Cunanan may have been an “HIV killer,” out to get revenge on former boyfriends. (A medical examiner later testified that he was not in fact HIV positive.) Versace’s family holds that he never met Cunanan, that the designer was a victim of his own fame and of one man’s twisted rampage against a sparkling culture that rejected him.

The second installment in Ryan Murphy’s American Crime Story anthology series, the show doesn’t aim to establish which version is true so much as to expose the rot at the center of American culture—horrors that could only happen here. (Last season followed the trial of O.J. Simpson, dissecting the racial and gendered complexities of the case.) What we do know, from Orth’s book and from several other reports following the murders, was that Cunanan’s life was one of deception and delusion, of falsehoods and fibs and chicanery. He wanted to travel in the highest echelons of society, clinking glasses with socialites and captains of industry and cavorting on yachts. He didn’t like to work but loved to party, a less talented Mr. Ripley.

Cunanan wanted to travel in the highest echelons of society, clinking glasses with socialites and cavorting on yachts.

Throughout, Cunanan has to confront the mismatch between his aspirations and reality. From an early age, he bluffs about his background, telling classmates he is the son of wealthy aesthetes, that his father, Modesto (Jon Jon Briones), once served as Imelda Marcos’s personal pilot and that his mother has filled his lunch box with lobster tails. In the penultimate episode, we learn that Modesto has had to flee the country after embezzling fortunes from his clients. When Cunanan, now in his teens, goes to Manila to find him, Modesto is living in squalid conditions. Criss and Briones stare at each other for long minutes in this scene, filmed inside a tiny tropical shack. Cunanan realizes his father’s success was a lie, and that all of the confidence and self-regard he has absorbed from his bellowing belief must also be fraudulent.

Many people would experience this sort of trauma—the explosion of the family unit, the disgrace of a parent—and cave inward. Cunanan does the opposite. When he returns from Manila, his lies only get bigger. He claims that his father owns a pineapple plantation, that as son and heir, he is set to inherit millions. He tells friends that he has family in New York, Paris, and Rome, and that Signore Versace has asked him to travel around the world with him designing costumes. Even before the period when a quick Google search could swiftly puncture outrageous claims, all this bragging raises suspicion. In a conversation Madson imagines shortly before he is killed, he asks Cunanan to tell him one true thing about his life. It doesn’t happen. Cunanan was like a Gatsby so enchanted with the green light that he would kill for it, a man so bedeviled by the American dream that he became a walking nightmare.

Because the show tells Cunanan’s story backward, we often see his victims die before we get to spend time with them. We see Cunanan in the days leading up to the murder of Versace, then we see him bludgeon Lee Miglin (Mike Farrell), a prominent Chicago real estate developer, in Miglin’s garage. We see him shoot a cemetery caretaker in Pennsylvania just so that he can steal his red pickup truck. When these victims appear again on-screen, beaming and unaware of their bloody future, it can feel like agony. They die in front of you all over again, and you are mourning them even while they are simply talking and moving.

The best episode of the series is “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which follows Jeff Trail through the trauma of being gay in the military. In one scene, he tries to hang himself in uniform; in another gruesome moment, he takes a box cutter and begins to slice a tattoo from his calf, after hearing that officials can identify homosexuals by their body markings. The anguish and shame that Trail feels is devastating, especially as we know what fate lies ahead. He is forced to leave the Navy, but as he leaves, he gives an interview to a news program about the struggles of being gay and wanting to serve your country. The fact that this act of bravery—and its promise of a new, more open life—so closely precedes his death haunts the episode.

No one is safe in Cunanan’s world, but then, perhaps, it was never safe to be gay in 1990s America, even for gold-plated celebrities like Versace. The media of the time blamed the victim for his own murder as much as it blamed Cunanan. While Cunanan was “a killer on the loose,” Edward J. Ingebretsen has written in At Stake: Monsters and the Rhetoric of Fear in Public Culture, Versace was seen as “a different threat entirely, that of a profligate and well-traveled member of the upper class, whose mobility, like the killer’s, is also the stuff of myth.” The media wrapped Versace’s and Cunanan’s stories together, frequently drawing parallels between the two: both gay, fashion-obsessed men, enchanted by wealth. Yet they couldn’t have been more different—one of them created, while the other destroyed.

In the end, The Assassination of Gianni Versace belongs to Cunanan, because it is a singular story: the story of a boy who wanted everything in the world but never figured out how to get it. This is an American crime story, in that we see in the rearview how the consumerist ’90s could warp those who treated celebrity like a religion, how some were even willing to commit vile acts for a taste of rarefied air. Very little is, at its core, more American than that.

#acs versace #new republic #article #review #acs spoilers #february 2018 #.thanks musexmoirai for the link

10 notes · View notes