This article originally appeared in T&S Issue 36, Winter 1997/98.
Of the acres of newspaper space discussing the killings in Dunblane, very little was feminist, and analysis seemed to consist merely of pop psychology about Hamilton’s motives and upbringing. Sue Scott and Linda Watson-Brown look at the fairytale elements of the press coverage and ask whether an emotional response to an event precludes a feminist analysis.
What is the difference between ‘normal’ men and killers? To ask these questions, it seems to us, is to ask something about men — or more precisely, about the construction of masculine sexuality in our culture. (Deborah Cameron and Liz Frazer The Lust to Kill, p35)
When I’m with you
I want to be the kind of hero
I wanted to be
when I was seven years old
a perfect man
who kills (Leonard Cohen)
Once upon a time a gunman entered the Primary School in the pretty little city of Dunblane, with its ‘closely knit community’ and opened fire on a class of five-year-olds. As the world now knows, Thomas Hamilton ultimately killed sixteen children, their teacher, and himself. Hamilton’s actions — and his legal possession of four guns — initiated a staggering media furore and public response. Such was the reaction that emotion completely overtook analysis. We were both at the time working very close to Dunblane — this proximity has made this piece rather more difficult to write than might otherwise have been the case and, in part, explains why it is only now being written, more than a year after the event. In the immediate aftermath we were given the strong impression that analysis was out of bounds — the only proper response was seen to be an emotional one and one in which the proper emotions were displayed. Of course what happened was appalling, of course we felt sick at the thought of it. It would have been inhuman not to be shocked and saddened by such carnage, especially when wrought on small children. There is however something deeply problematic about the tabloid press telling us how we should feel — such manipulation of our feelings should not be confused with a genuinely shared response. The kind of response which was being generated seemed to us to produce sentimentality, anxiety and powerlessness, turning us all into victims. We feel strongly that emotions should not be separated from ideas and analysis so, despite having been told that what happened that day in Dunblane is beyond analysis and too sensitive to write about, we want to encourage feminist analysis both of the event and the response to it. At the same time as being appalled by the tragedy we were angered by many aspects of the response: Why was there such emphasis on the individual killer, as maniac/animal, and none on his gender? Why was it assumed that all the children were ‘safe’ until Hamilton happened along? Why was the reporting so fundamentally homophobic? Why was it assumed that only parents can care about children? In what follows we will explore the ways in which what we saw as the key themes in the response to Dunblane: the killer as beast, the family as ‘normal’ or ‘deviant’ and children as innocent.
The Beast
The murderer, Thomas Hamilton, was immediately labelled evil, a madman, a psychopath. Of course the idea of the murderer as a maniac, a beast, a fiend, or a monster is not a new one, but what is of interest here are the materials out of which the beast is constructed, by whom, and for what purpose. The media emphasis was on explaining the crime entirely through the individual who committed it. Hence, the many and detailed unfolding stories relating to Thomas Hamilton, the ‘Why?’ headlines, and the personalised reminiscences of those touched by his existence.
There was a strongly ‘religious’ theme running through the early discourse of the Dunblane massacre which drew on metaphors of ‘good’ and ‘evil’. The idea that Hamilton was so bad, so decayed, so different from the rest of his community was prevalent. The stereotypes well-documented by feminists from the Peter Sutcliffe/Yorkshire Ripper case onwards, were once again presented to us as fact. Thus, Thomas Hamilton was described as ‘the evil monster’ (Sunday Mail 17/03/96), ‘a twisted madman’ (Daily Record 16/03/96), and an ‘evil psycho’ (Daily Record 14/03/96). He was referred to as ‘madman’, a ‘ticking timebomb of a spree killer’ (Daily Record 13/03/96), and, a ‘crazed gunman’ (Daily Record 14/03/96). These terms are from a familiar lexicon which is applied in situations such as these and parallels were drawn with Michael Ryan and the Hungerford massacre. This emphasis on evil and/or madness appears to be necessary in order to create the maximum distance between the killer and the rest of society, which is by implication made up of ‘normal’ people. Thus a cordon sanitaire is created between ‘us’ and ‘them’. The fact that ‘they’ are usually ‘he’ is rarely made explicit. This process, of course, further serves to pathologise the killer to the point where it is difficult to imagine anything other than an entirely individual explanation. In this case, however, it was insufficient to provide psychopathological diagnoses. The crime was defined as so awful that the perpetrator must have been sub-human.
‘[A]nimal brutality and lack of remorse continue to function as marks of the beast […] There has also developed a distinctive vocabulary reinforcing this picture of the sex-killer as a subhuman, lust-crazed demon: its keywords are maniac, beast, fiend and monster…’ (Deborah Cameron and Liz Frazer The Lust to Kill, p41)
We were faced with a situation which, if not beyond belief, was portrayed as beyond analysis — evil and madness were presented as explanations, but evil beyond hope of redemption and madness with no hope of a cure. This was not the language of modernity — there was no space for expert help or scientific explanation — this was the language of myth and legend. The act was beyond reason, thus the only legitimate response was an emotional one. We should have realised, we should have acted, but we were all held in thrall — like the citizens of Hamlyn watching the children disappear behind the pied piper!
In Thomas Hamilton’s case however, we were, as early as the third news bulletin, offered a further explanation — members of the ‘community’ labelling Hamilton as ‘sleazy and strange’, a ‘weirdo’, ‘a sleazebucket’, and ‘a dangerous pervert’ (Daily Record 14/03/96). What emerged from this discussion was that Hamilton’s private life — as a ‘fat, balding 43-year-old, who spoke with a posh Scottish accent’ (Daily Record 14/03/96) — revealed innuendo represented as fact. Later, legitimate concerns did arise about his treatment of young boys in clubs he ran, but in the first days after the event ‘Neighbours told how Hamilton entertained male visitors at his home’; ‘Most callers were in their 30s… I never saw a woman. The men would often stay for a couple of hours or more. I don’t know what they got up to’ (Daily Record 14/03/96). No tenuous or superficial stereotype was too weak for this angle — ‘There was something sleazy and smarmy about him — he had extremely clean hands’ (Daily Record 14/03/96). Even Hamilton’s ‘single’ status was used to condemn him.
The mark of the beast was, of course, clearly visible with hindsight and in fact many, including the police and local MPs were chastised or berated themselves for not having predicted and averted disaster. This is in itself a profoundly problematic response: it is always relatively easy to re-construct the narrative when the end of the story is known. Reliance on such accounts suggests that it is possible to read ‘potential murderer’ from the activities and characteristics ascribed to Hamilton. While we are by no means attempting to justify Hamilton’s prior or ultimate behaviour, we would suggest that the elision of homosexuality and paedophilia and, in turn, paedophilia and murder is highly problematic. The image presented of Hamilton as an animal who was driven wild by being kept away from his prey — feeds, dangerously, into the still popular stereotype of the homosexual as a ‘child molester’.
The Family
There have been a number of ways in which the notion of ‘family’ has been represented in the aftermath of Dunblane the main ones being: the importance of the ‘normal’ family, the dangers resulting from the ‘deviant’ family and the community as an extension of the family. From the first news bulletins parents (ungendered) were drawn into a network of common understanding and common grief — it was clearly stated that all parents would understand and, that by implication, that those who were not parents could not. An idealised picture of family life in Dunblane was set against Hamilton’s own family background which was portrayed as aberrant to say the least. We were presented with tabloid psychoanalysis as it was revealed that his parents had separated before his birth, and that Hamilton’s father had not seen him for over forty years. Under a headline ‘I wish my son had never been born’, Mr Hamilton senior said, ‘I’m sorry I planted the seed that created him’ (Daily Record 15/03/96). Hamilton’s father then insisted he had nothing to do with the child’s upbringing — this was presented as a claim for absolution rather than cause for condemnation. This illustrates one of the many contradictions in the piece — Hamilton was depicted as both intrinsically bad and also as the product of a strange upbringing. The media were having it both ways, blaming nurture as well as nature, grasping at any plausible or implausible straw to explain the seemingly inexplicable. After his father’s desertion, Hamilton was adopted by his maternal grandparents, and grew up believing his mother to be his sister. This tale of family irregularity was completed with the revelation that ‘Bizarrely, they [his grand–parents] had also adopted Agnes herself [his mother]’ (Daily Record 15/03/96). Thus, we can see an implicit suggestion that, in situations where families are ‘unnatural’, evil will out. Hamilton’s mother was, of course, singled out for blame with such ‘revelations’ as, ‘Mother is a gun film fan… [she] adores violent movies… and even has a budgie named after Death Wish star Charles Bronson’ (Daily Record 15/03/96). If it were really so easy for women to influence men the world might be a different place!
The geographical specificity of the story was also much exploited. From the outset, there was a sense of disbelief, not just at what had happened, but in relation to where it had happened. Amongst stories of the ‘community’s anguish’ (Daily Record 15/03/96), we were told, ‘It is inconceivable that a tragedy like this could have occurred in this country and particularly in Dunblane’ (Daily Record 15/03/96). Similarly, ‘you usually expect these things in Miami or the Bronx’ (Daily Record 13/03/96), but not ‘a very Scottish town in the very centre of Scotland’ (Sunday Mail 17/03/96 editorial). Big cities were by implication imbued with danger — haunted by spectres of crime and violence — suffering from the loss of community. The ‘community’ of Dunblane became globally symbolic — it was a place where many commuter-families lived, parents were said to have moved there, often from inner-city Glasgow, for the benefits they perceived in raising their children in a small, ‘close-knit’ area. This romanticised story of a small Scottish town reads rather like nostalgia for the imagined community of Tannoch Brae. But the boundaries had been breached by an outsider — much was made of the fact that Hamilton came from nearby Stirling — and an alternative symbolism was required to repair the breach. The twin pillars of church and family were invoked then to provide the strength to ward off further evil. Faith had been shaken, but not abandoned and Dunblane Cathedral became a symbol of strength offering the support which the community needed to go on. The clergy were called upon, from all sides, to give a ‘clear’ moral and spiritual lead in the aftermath of the tragedy. We were presented with nostalgia for a world, based on moral absolutes, in which the church, Christian, of course, is the final arbiter: a world which, we are often told, has been lost — eroded by immorality, family breakdown and of course feminism.
Innocent children
The dominant discourse of childhood in the twentieth century has been woven around images of innocence with increasing emphasis latterly on children as innocent victims. While we would not wish to underplay the very real abuses of power which occur between adults and children, or to deny children’s rights to be protected from such abuse, we would suggest that the abuses of power are reinforced rather than disrupted by representations of children as angelic and powerless. Also, as Jenny Kitzinger points out, the symbolic use of innocence to provoke public reactions to child abuse can backfire: ‘the notion of childhood innocence is a source of titillation for abusers. A glance at pornography leaves little doubt that innocence is a sexual commodity.’
There is also a parallel discourse of children as unruly, even evil, very popular in the nineteenth century and increasingly invoked in the context of events such as the murder of James Bulger. In the reporting after Dunblane, however, it was as if the media had total amnesia — and children were equated with angels. Even as we write a request has been issued that we ‘light a candle for the angels’ to mark the first anniversary of the murders in Dunblane. While lighting candles may have symbolic value, the failure to focus on the humanity of children is unhelpful. Both views of children, as ‘little angels’ or ‘little devils’ are problematic and serve to separate them off from the ‘real world’ of adults — who have the power to define. The images of childhood presented to us in the aftermath of Dunblane were redolent with evocations of an idealised childhood filled with loving parents and siblings, sunny classrooms, Clarks sandals and teddy bears. The result was a reification of a particular white, middle-class, British, childhood which potentially renders all other versions problematic, and conceals the nightmare of many children’s lives behind such a facade. The anxiety which events such as Dunblane generate also serves, potentially, to curtail children’s activities in ways which may restrict their potential for autonomy and their opportunities to develop the necessary skills to cope with the world. Although the parents of the 16 children who died could hardly be found guilty of having sent them to school — other parents, and especially mothers, will be seen as culpable if they allow their children some independence and harm comes of it. However, as we well know, the major risks to children come from abuse from men who are known to them, men driving cars and accidents in the home. Having said this, it is important to stress that children are not safe anywhere simply by virtue of the context — surely the mythology of home and school as intrinsically ‘safe havens’ should have been exploded. The reporting of Dunblane, rather than taking seriously the balance of risks to children, simply served to reinforce the myth of Stranger-Danger — back to the pied piper and the wicked ogre!
Feminism not fairytales
A not insignificant aspect of the Dunblane story has been that so many of the spokespeople in the aftermath of the event have been women. Women were given a platform, as mothers, as legitimate representatives of the private sphere, of the emotional realm and often of moral conservatism. Women were seen to be the voice of the community — but only because the tragedy had involved children. The voice of feminism has, on the other hand, been largely silent. The individualism of the media reporting allowed no space for a feminist analysis of male violence or for a more collective and social response to it. Of course as feminists we must rail against sexual abuse and sexual murder, but we must also rail against accounts which suggests, however elliptically, that all non-heterosexual desire is potentially mad, bad and dangerous. The conflation, by the media, of Hamilton’s violence with his sexual orientation is, we suggest, overly simplistic and avoids any analysis of power. Most violence is perpetrated upon women and children by heterosexual men — the common thread here surely is gender not sexuality.
The homophobia of much of the media reporting, coupled with the implication that only parents could really understand, fuels the myth that those who do not have children are at best emotionally stunted and at worst potential predators. As feminists we must continue to support those women who choose not to be mothers (as well as those who are mothers). We should argue for children to have the opportunity to form social relationships with adults other than their parents. Otherwise we reinforce the notion of the fairytale family. The implication of the reporting and the effect of the anxiety which it generated is that the home is once again reified as a safe haven. The outside world thus comes to be seen as too dangerous for children. This line of thinking is deeply problematic for women who are in no position, even should they wish to be so, to spend 24 hours a day watching over their children, but who will be seen as responsible for keeping them safe. It is not a very big step from here back to a view of the public realm as too dangerous for women — the safest place is in the home! But as feminists we know better than to fall for that old story.
As we have pointed out earlier the response engendered by the media was a major outpouring of emotion. Of course feminists have long argued that emotion has an important and legitimate place in everyday life so we would not wish to condemn such legitimisation out of hand. However, the orchestration of public grief which renders us passive and unable to politicise the situation tends to produce more victims. It must be possible, even in the face of the greatest abomination, to be sad and angry and to act for change. There was evidence of this in relation to the campaigns for gun law reform, but, important though this issue is, without an analysis of gender and masculinity we are in danger of avoiding the key issue. Indeed, the ensuing debate about the reform of the ‘gun laws’ has been entirely gender free.
Media accounts, following the massacre in Dunblane, failed entirely to make any connection between what occurred and male violence more generally. By labelling Thomas Hamilton a beast it was possible to abdicate from any social responsibility for legitimating problematic aspects of male behaviour. Such a position made it possible to perpetrate the myth of an ideal world of happy families who must be protected from the present day equivalent of trolls, giants, wolves and other monsters who manage to break through the stockade. Feminists should not be silenced by such fairytales; we need all our energy, emotional and analytic, to continue the struggle against real threats in the everyday/everynight world.
References:
Deborah Cameron and Liz Frazer Lust to Kill: A Feminist Investigation of Sexual Murder (New York University Press, 1987)
Jenny Kitzinger ‘Defending Innocence: Ideologies of Childhood’ Feminist Review (28) 77-87, 1988