Reel Rundown: ‘Mastermind’ far more than a biography; it’s a history on obstacles women have faced with equality
In 2017, Netflix streamed a series titled “Mindhunter” that keyed on the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit (BSU). It starred Jonathan Goff and Holt McCallany as bureau agents and Anna Torv as the psychologist who provided the scientific methods the unit needed to perfect the art of criminal profiling.
“Mindhunter” ran for two seasons, comprising 19 individual episodes. And let’s be clear, the series – though based in fact – was fiction.
By contrast, Hulu’s “Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer” is clearly nonfiction. Directed by documentary filmmaker Abigail Fuller, the three-episode series focuses on Ann Burgess, the university professor on whom Torv’s character was based.
Though the series does a thorough job of introducing Burgess, it is far more than a mere biography. It’s also a history of the obstacles women have traditionally faced and how far, in general, they have come, professionally and legally, in their quest for equality.
Burgess, who was born in 1936, makes the point that the only choices open to young women of her era were to become secretaries, teachers or nurses. She chose nursing because, she said, she was curious about how people felt. Even among the medical community that was an uncommon attitude.
Her concerns ultimately led to her focusing on trauma, particularly as it affected rape victims, work that she pioneered as a professor of nursing at Boston College. Through her efforts, which involved interviewing victims of trauma and quantifying the results, Burgess attracted the FBI’s attention.
The difference was that while Burgess worked with victims, the BSU was tasked with identifying those who commit crimes. And the two main agents that Burgess ended up working with were John Douglas and Robert Ressler, both of whom had been interviewing such serial killers as Edward Kemper and Charles Manson.
Through their work together, Burgess and the BSU agents were able to devise a method of psychological profiling that would help law enforcement identify and capture killers. And despite a rough start, the agents ended up helping snare such killers as Louisiana “Ski Mask Rapist” Jon Simonis, the killer of young boys John Joubert and rape-murderer Brian Dugan.
Yet throughout her time with the FBI, Burgess fought the same type of sexism that permeated society at large. When an article was published about the unit, only the men – all of whom were agents, Burgess being only a consultant – were included in the accompanying photograph.
Burgess ended her tenure with the FBI, yet she continued to work, writing books and becoming a noted victims’ advocate. She testified in the first murder trial of the Menendez Brothers, backing up their story that they had been sexually abused by their father, resulting in a hung jury. (In a second trial, at which Burgess wasn’t allowed to testify, the brothers were found guilty).
And, too, she worked with Andrea Constand, a woman who sued Bill Cosby in civil court claiming that he’d drugged and raped her. (Cosby paid $3.3 million to settle the suit. And though he was later convicted of raping another woman, he was released from prison after serving three years).
Over the course of the three episodes, director Fuller conducts talking-head interviews with a number of fellow professionals, authors, retired members of law enforcement and family members to provide a full portrait of her subject.
One thing Fuller doesn’t do is refer to the Netflix series. But then why would she? Facts are facts and fiction is … well, largely a figment of someone’s imagination.
And as we all know, Hollywood never lets facts get in the way of a good story.