'Scripting the Street': Exploring Geographies of Crime in Popular Films

Abstract

This study contends that the spaces where crime occurs in films are not neutral; they are layered with maps of meaning that we construct somewhere between the imagined and the lived. Given that popular cultural representations both shape and reflect our understandings of crime and space, a study examining where crime occurs in films was warranted but previously unrealized in the criminological literature. This study addresses this gap in the literature by considering how geographies of crime are characterized in a sample of ten recent popular crime films. Applying a qualitative content analysis approach, this study foregrounds the onscreen spaces where crimes occur in an attempt to expose and denaturalize the meanings around crime that are embedded in these backgrounds. Particular regard is given here to the twinning of crime and urbanity, the aesthetics of insecurity, and the gendering of geographies of crime.