The purpose of this research paper is to take a closer look at the movie “Extremely wicked, shockingly evil and vile”, which is a movie based on true events and life of serial killer and rapist Ted Bundy. This study aims to gain a deeper understanding of how serial killers are portrayed in movies and through which perspective the story is told. To get closer to our purpose we saw to two research questions, firstly how is the character Ted Bundy portrayed through semiotic resources? The second question we asked ourselves is; how can the different types of choices the production make contribute to further romanticizing of a serial killer? To answer these questions we used a multimodal critical discourse analysis method which focuses a lot on the visual elements such as a character's clothing, the way they speak and carry themselves and so on. To carry out the study we analyzed the characters in the movie, how they acted toward each other, what scenes were chosen to be shown in the movie and which parts of the real story were left out and what seemed to be the main focus in the movie. To achieve the purpose of the study the characters have been analyzed, mainly Ted Bundy. But also the different types of active choices the production made to embody Bundy and the events. Like the choice of events and how the story generally relates to reality. The results we got from our research is that the character Ted Bundy in the movie is highly romanticized when you see the way he is portrayed and what kind of scenes were focused on. It also became quite clear that the story is told through Liz’s perspective causing it to be told out of a biased and compromised angle.  Our conclusion is that it is quite clear when reading the results that there are tendencies to romanticize the main character even when it comes to serial killers based on real people.

The idea of romance, intimate sexual relationships and romantic relationships has been distorted and subsequently redefined. Emotional- and affect related behaviour such as jealousy has been integrated into relationships and has been transformed into a sign of love and care. We deem this development problematic as jealousy can be considered a catalyst in terms of integration and expression of violence in romantic relationships. Consumption of different medial phenomenon is to be considered a primary source of information with special regards to children and adolescents. We claim that this is to be considered as something problematic as media and its depiction of norms and values may not reflect reality and instead contribute to the normalization of gender roles. Such gender roles play a significant role in the expression of what is known as romantic jealousy as they dictate socially acceptable behaviours with regards to men and women involved in a romantic relationship. The aim of this study was to examine if romantic jealousy and its depiction in modern films is being romanticized and to identify the normalization of destructive behaviour that constitutes a part of the phenomenon. Furthermore, the study examined our aim by trying to answer two questions 1) How is romantic jealousy depicted in modern films? 2) How are behaviours directly relating to romantic jealousy normalized in modern films? After thorough observation of seven films this study was able to conclude that jealousy is indeed romanticized in modern films. At the same time such romanticization contributes to the masking of destructive behaviours due a pervading narration of premiss which sees love as the ultimate goal. Such masking contributes to the consolidation of stereotypical gender roles and relating norms and values which in their turn can act as both a trigger and a catalyst for the expression of physical and emotional violence within a romantic relationship. / Bilden av romans, sexuella- och romantiska relationer har förvrängts och sedermera omdefinierats. Beteende så som svartsjuka, innefattande affekt och emotion, har integrerats i relationer och omvandlats till uttryck för kärlek och omsorg. Vi bedömer att denna utveckling är problematisk då svartsjuka kan betraktas som både en katalysator och en utlösare för uttryck av våld i romantiska relationer. Konsumering av olika mediala fenomen är att betrakta som en primär källa för inhämtande av information, särskilt bland barn och unga vuxna. Vi hävdar att detta bör betraktas som något problematiskt då medias avbildning av normer och värderingar inte nödvändigtvis reflekterar verkligheten och i stället bidrar till normaliseringen av stereotypa könsroller. Dessa könsroller har en viktig bidragande roll vid uttryck av romantisk svartsjuka då de dikterar och påverkar socialt acceptabla beteenden bland män och kvinnor i nära relationer. Denna studies syfte var att undersöka om romantisk svartsjukas framställning i modern spelfilm romantiseras samt att identifiera normalisering av destruktiva beteenden, förankrade i begreppet svartsjuka. Detta syfte undersöktes genom att besvara följande två frågeställningar 1) Hur porträtteras romantisk svartsjuka i modern spelfilm? 2) Hur normaliseras beteenden som är förankrade i svartsjuka i modern spelfilm? Efter noggrann observation av sju spelfilmer kunde denna studie konkludera att svartsjuka romantiseras i spelfilm. Romantisering av svartsjuka bidrar till en maskering av destruktiva beteenden, i mångt och mycket på grund av den narrativa premiss som framställer kärlek som det slutgiltiga målet. Samma maskering bidrar till konsoliderandet av stereotypiska könsroller och deras medföljande normer och värderingar som i sin tur är högst bidragande till uttryck av fysiskt såväl som psykiskt våld i nära relationer.