Abstract

The following thesis is an investigation into the representation of women who kill made-for-TV movies. I will look at the made-for-TV movie because it is a form that speaks primarily to a female audience and is almost always about issues that related to women. The question I will be asking is: How have made-for-TV movies formulated the term through which feminine identity is represented? Particularly as the made-for-TV movie relates to women who have stepped outside the bounds of prescribed notions of femininity and committed a violent act? As my case studies I will analyze the movies made about Betty Broderick and Aileen Wuornos respectively. Using the made-for-TV movie, I will identify how the form attempts to provide images of a normative femininity while at the same time allows for a progressive position to enter the text.