‘The Ripper’ cuts into patriarchy

Considering how enamored the public has grown about serial killers, it comes as no surprise that the new Netflix documentary on the Yorkshire Ripper has become a top-rated feature.

But what sets this apart from other dives into the minds and manifestations of gruesome killers, is that the perpetrator is almost second fiddle to the exploration of the film.

It’s not even until the fourth and final episode of the miniseries that we really get to know any details about Peter Sutcliffe (who, perhaps in serendipitous timing for the release of this documentary, died on Nov. 13, 2020 from COVID-19).

“The Ripper” debuted on Dec. 16 and is a wonderful choice for New Year’s binge-watching, especially for those of us still wishing for the macabre season of Halloween that never really panned out, as so much of the holidays have been watered-down in 2020.

The miniseries takes a deep look at the 13 murders spanning over five years, as well as living would-be victims (of which there were seven “documented,” although some of the victims were told they couldn’t have been assaulted by the Yorkshire Ripper because their eyewitness accounts didn’t fit the description—more on that later).

Who really comes forth as the villain in this miniseries are the police officers and higher-ranking members of the force, who are too myopic to pay attention to actual evidence.

Sutcliffe, as revealed in the final episodes of the miniseries, had been interviewed by the police at least nine times during the course of the yearslong investigation when solid leads were followed.

As many of the victims of the Yorkshire Ripper were women in troubled domestic situations—the first victim was the single mother of four who frequented a local pub—they were often written off as prostitutes, even when after the original police reports were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act decades later, it was revealed that most of the women were, in fact, not sex workers.

Then there is the infamous tape and letter sent to the police, supposedly from the Ripper himself, sporting a distinctive Geordie accent, as the murders took place in West Yorkshire, that further pushed investigators into this prostitute-hating lore that ignored the fact that quite a number of the late victims were young university women.

In cringe-worthy replays of police chiefs scolding young women for wanting to go out, there is the reminder that the paternalistic world goes beyond, “You’d be prettier if you smiled” and has dire, life-and-death consequences.