In her study of violent protagonists in American literature, Wilson-Scott argues that “mothers are frequently used as the principle traumatizing factor, demonized and depersonalized in order to reassert their violent offspring’s humanity” (p. 191). Further, Wilson-Scott states that her work “reveals the persistent assumption that mothers make monsters” (p. 193). Taking our tacit agreement with Wilson-Scott as a starting point, we argue along with her that mother-blame remains a central motif of mainstream cultural narratives about violent masculinity. The focus of this essay is on the strategies through which mother-blame is used to validate the authorial authenticity of the male serial killer and his ways of knowing and of being in the world. In this essay we offer the first season of the popular Netflix series Mindhunter (2017–) as a case study and ask how the representation of the serial killer’s insight and seemingly accurate understanding of his own pathology is linked to its antithesis, woman-hate, and often, the pathologizing of the mother.

在她对美国文学中暴力主角的研究中，威尔逊-斯科特认为“母亲经常被用作主要的创伤因素，被妖魔化和去人格化，以重申其暴力后代的人性”（第 191 页）。此外，Wilson-Scott 表示她的作品“揭示了母亲制造怪物的持久假设”（第 193 页）。以我们与威尔逊-斯科特的默契为出发点，我们与她一起争论，母亲的责任仍然是关于暴力男性气质的主流文化叙事的中心主题。这篇文章的重点是使用母责来验证男性连环杀手的作者真实性及其认识和存在于世界的方式的策略。在这篇文章中，我们提供了受欢迎的 Netflix 系列Mindhunter的第一季 （2017–）作为一个案例研究，并询问连环杀手的洞察力和对自己病理学看似准确的理解的表现如何与其对立面、女性仇恨以及通常对母亲的病态化联系起来。