Ted Bundy – Natural Porn Killer

Channel 4

Long-time victims of Aerial Telly will be familiar with his meticulous chronicling of Channel Four‘s anti-porn stance. It’s a drawn-out guerrilla campaign consisting of onetenuous documentary after another. The message seems clear enough: T&A are DNR,
despite the network’s impressive record of wookie coverage that had Daily Mail commentators dribbling over themselves for much of Channel Four’s first decade.

"It’s a thoughtful and balanced look at Bundy, his motivations and the marriage of convenience between his death row confessional and right wing evangelism."

So you’d be forgiven for thinking that Ted Bundy – Natural Porn Killer is just the latest in this string of documentaries. And how wrong you’d be my hard of thinking friend. Although it examines closely Bundy’s claim that pornography drove him to kill, it’s a thoughtful and balanced look at the killer, his motivations and the marriage of convenience between his death row confessional and right wing evangelism. And that’s in contrast with much of the channel’s recent output. Not that a documentary needs to be balanced. I’m all for polemic as long as it doesn’t patronise the hell out of you or just plain lie. But if you’re going to deal with something as serious as pornography creating killers then you’d best not come at it half assed.

"With a winning combination of good looks, intelligence and brutality, Ted Bundy captured the heart of 1970s America."

With a winning combination of good looks, intelligence and brutality, Ted Bundy captured the heart of 1970s America. Like some dystopian boy-next-door he killed at will taking seemingly insane risks, evading capture by crossing state lines and escaping police custody three times, carrying out his last killing spree during his final and most successful escape. Filled with the American entrepreneurial spirit he defended himself in court, playing shamelessly to the gallery of pretty girls who came in busloads to watch the ultimate bad boy who played by his own rules get away with murder. They were to be disappointed.

The pornography link was sketchy. Searches of Bundy’s property revealed only a stash of majorette magazines. Like most all-American men, he retained a cheerleader fetish into adulthood. We might speculate that images of tightly choreographed pom-pom routines could drive a man to kill but we’d be fucking stretching it a bit. I’m sure we all fantasise about killing cheerleaders once in a while but that doesn’t make us bad people, right?

"We might speculate that images of tightly choreographed pom-pom routines could drive a man to kill but we’d be fucking stretching it a bit."

They cooked Ted Bundy like a hog at Thanksgiving on 24th January, 1989 so we’ll never know exactly how many he slaughtered, what motivated him and whether or not it was the majorettes wot done it. The abdication of responsibility common to sexual predators came easily to Bundy. The language of addiction flows freely from the lips of those keen to promote a causal link between pornography and sexual violence. People compelled against their will to commit atrocity and the like. The moment you start to move responsibility away from the killer or rapist you’re on very dicey territory. And you’d better be sure you know the consequences of this. The sleep of reason brings forth monsters, y’ken.

The best thing about it: It avoids emotive cliche.

The worst thing about it: We’re all still fascinated by this freak

The verdict on Ted Bundy – Natural Porn Killer : Decent stab at a complex issue.

Marks out of 10: 7