Women in Mindhunter

Recently, I watched the Original Netflix Series Mindhunter. Only one season of this show has been released so far, but season two is in the makings. Mindhunter is about an FBI agent who decides he wants to study serial killers, in the 1970’s, in order to figure out how to prevent more serial killers. While that could bring up the discussion of profiling, I want to talk about something different.

As I watched this show I couldn’t decide how I felt about it. There are two main women who are recurring characters. While these two characters are portrayed as strong, intelligent women, they are still only in the background, and even used at some points by the male characters.

For example, the main character, Holden Ford, tells little lies about his girlfriend, and sometimes a little of truth, in order to get the men he is studying to tell him what he wants to hear. Not only did this bother me, but at the end of the show he even goes as far as making comments that crossed a line into pedophilia in order to get a man who raped and murdered a minor to confess. Maybe his tactics are clever, but also a bit disgusting at points.

Ford also uses his girlfriend as someone he can vent to, and while this is always healthy in a relationship it is toxic in this case because not only does he not ask her about things going on in her life, he also gets angry when she shares an opinion the he disagrees with, or gives him advice that he doesn’t want to follow.

Lastly, I want to acknowledge that so far this TV show is inspired by real life male serial killers with female victims. What direction would Mindhunter take if Ford studied female serial killers as well? What if some of the victims were men? What if the show was told in the perspective of one of Ford’s female colleagues, Wendy Carr?