Ruth and Lies: Class and Gender in Narratives of Victimhood in the Madoff Scandal

• In Event: Media, Culture, and Crime

Abstract

Bernie Madoff's multi-billion dollar Ponzi, emerging during the same period as the Financial Crisis of 2008, easily became a story through which multiple discourses about class inequality and greed could be expressed. In this paper I explore the ways in which the media used the class-status of the victims became a means through which to dichotomize these victims into two "camps:" those wealthy victims, undeserving of empathy, and the working class, truly innocent victims. Affluent victims were seen as emblematic of and implicated in the greed that led to the financial collapse and recession, and a sense of unusual schadenfraude permeated the US coverage, a newfound skepticism of wealth as a marker of success. I also look at the way in which the presentation of Ruth Madoff in the media complemented these narratives about the victims, while at the same time relying on gender stereotypes and the infliction of stigma typically reserved for family members of "street" criminals. I argue that while these narratives may have unfairly attributed guilt to affluent victims and Ruth Madoff, they reflected a growing level of class awareness where wealth was being demystified, less of something to yearn for and more of indicia of dishonesty.

Author

• Colleen Eren, CUNY LaGuardia