Ted Bundy was a serial killer and a rapist, one of the most notorious criminals of the late 20th century. He sexually assaulted and killed several women in Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, and Florida between 1974 and 1978. They only got him for 28 murders originally, and he confessed to 30 later, but some estimate that he may have been responsible for hundreds of deaths. He was executed by the electric chair in Florida in 1989.

Bundy was insanely smart, went to college, and was very social when he got older (he was shy beforehand). After to the recent announcement of a Bundy movie coming out called Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile, I’ve noticed a bunch of people trying to argue by saying nothing was special about him; he wasn’t clever, he was antisocial, he wasn’t smart, and he wasn’t attractive. He was very smart. He dropped out of college because he wanted to get into a job, not be in school. He also volunteered at the Seattle office of Nelson Rockefeller’s presidential campaign, and in August 1968 he attended the Republican National Convention in Miami as a Rockefeller delegate. Ted Bundy once aspired to become the governor of Washington State. The only reason he didn’t get the chance to run was because of the murders.

Bundy was regarded by many of his young female victims as handsome and charismatic, traits that he exploited to win their trust. He was known for being handsome, social, a cookie cutter republican, and charming, which is none of what the police were looking for. His own victims that survived have said this. He lured them in with his personality 98% of the time. Women literally sent him love notes while he was in jail.  The people who wrote the docu series and movies never focused on his good looks and charms to romanticize him, rather they focused on it because that’s not how the police working on the case imagined serial killers. This wasn’t the first serial killer. People refer to him as that because the actual term “serial killer” was created based off of him, but mass murders like this still happened. It just didn’t get the recognition.

Everyone is saying Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile is sexualizing Bundy because of Zac Efron. What a lot of people don’t know is that him being portrayed like that is the entire point. He was attractive, brilliant, hard working, clean, and actually really funny. That’s what was scary. It was a huge deal because he wasn’t who you thought of when you thought “serial killer.” It was basically uprooting anything the police were using as a common profile. It could’ve been anyone. He was insanely charming and manipulative so everyone was crazy about him and the story. Casting Zac Efron was probably the smartest choice they could’ve made.