Streaming bloody murder: documentary celebrity and Sophie Toscan Du Plantier anniversary media (SAM)

Abstract

ABSTRACT In 2021, three documentary series revitalised the unsolved murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier in 1996 in West Cork, Ireland, for a global audience of true crime enthusiasts. This article analyses the podcast West Cork (Audible 2018/iTunes 2021) and two streaming series, Murder at the Cottage: The Search for Justice for Sophie (Sky Crime 2021) and Sophie: A Murder in West Cork (Netflix 2021) and argues that they conferred documentary celebrity on their central figures, Sophie Toscan du Plantier and Ian Bailey. The celebritisation of these individuals as victim and villain, was achieved through the development of a convergent narrative across the three series, one salted with the plot twists, end-of-episode cliff hangers, emotional confrontations and supernatural speculation familiar to viewers of true crime, reality television and serial drama. Moreover, the gendered discourse deployed by these documentaries posthumously transformed Sophie Toscan du Plantier into a world-famous victim while providing an opportunity for Ian Bailey, who remains the prime suspect, to self-brand as a Gothic villain. Bailey’s 2022 announcement that he would launch a podcast and television series and his self-promotional activity on TikTok confirm the cultural capital associated with documentary celebrity, even, or especially, for the infamous.