Dexter and Philosophy

by Greene, Richard; Reisch, George A. ; Robison, Rachel

  By depicting the killer in such overtly white spaces, Dexter makes visible the invisibility of white identity at the same time that it parodies it. Dexter exaggerates, almost to an unreal breaking point, visual strategies for depicting white people that are common in traditional painting, early photography, political cartoons, and classic Hollywood cinema, and that continue to appear in detergent commercials, suburban serials, romantic comedies, and horror movies. Surrounding Dexter with such hyperbolic, ironic white imagery serves to demystify the myth of whiteness and its protagonist’s association with the various meanings of the tone.

  Death, Sex, and Dexter

  Death is a recurring theme in the imagery and iconography of whiteness, both historically and culturally. Death is present in the crucified Christ as figure of white male aspiration, in the sight of the white-clad Ku Klux Klan riding to the rescue in Birth of a Nation, in sub-Saharan Africans mistaking the first Europeans for the living dead, in the Holocaust’s conception as a clean, scientific, purification through the extermination of ‘dirty’ people (pp. 209–210)—a disposition Dexter shares towards the disposal of undesirables.

  This alignment between whiteness and death recurs throughout Dexter. It’s present in the cut to white which signifies the death of a character. It’s present in the scenes where Dexter chats to his dead adoptive father, where every surface seems to radiate uncomfortable over-exposed phosphorescence. It’s evident in the bright, translucent plastic glow of Dexter’s kill room, the last thing his victims see.

  Sometimes the white color of death appears with other Caucasian killers, such as the Ice Truck Killer whose very name points to the frosty whiteness of frozen water, the emotional coldness of ice, and the immaculate preservation of dead things. Dexter admires the “clean, dry, neat looking dead flesh” that his brother leaves behind, and the blood-draining process which renders the skin bleached of colour, irrespective of its victim’s ethnicity. And Trinity, like Dexter, hides in plain sight, moves like a ghost, and seems able to penetrate spaces—an office block, his old family home, Dexter’s place of work—largely unseen and unchallenged. Blending into the background with his facade of middle class heterosexual Christian normality, dressed in beige jacket and pale slacks, with grey hair and blue eyes, Trinity does an even better job than Dexter at conforming to the generic tradition of the white ordinary-looking serial killer.

  Sex presents another paradox at the heart of whiteness. As Dyer puts it, “To ensure the survival of the race, they have to have sex—but having sex, and sexual desire, are not very white” (White, p. 26). There’s something awkward about white sexuality. White people have historically seen themselves as less sexual than other races, as if sexuality, along with bodies and bodily instincts, were something that white people are supposed to transcend.

  So, Dexter has a problem with sex. When we first meet him, we learn that he has taught himself, using the same cold and emotionless precision with which he dismembers a corpse, how to perform heterosexual desire. Dexter admits he has no problem with bodily fluids, only the emotions they entail. In a nod to the dispassion of whiteness, the functional approach to copulation his ethnicity has inherited, and the perverse associations between sex and death, Dexter approaches his first time with Rita as a necessary ordeal—something that may even kill their relationship.

  Dexter’s white sexuality is also reflected in the women he has sex with. The virginity or frigidity that characterised Rita in her early interactions with Dexter eventually gives way to symbols of glowing white femininity. In Dexter’s preliminary wedding vows, she is aligned with the qualities of sunlight, prayer, and Anglo-Saxon mythology. Rita is a Martha Stewart beacon of civilization, the redemptive white blonde woman who might tame the darker, hidden impulses of the white male. Her yellow hair is frequently given a halo effect, and her fair skin covered typically with light grey pants, beige cardigans, and pale suits. And despite this being her third marriage, Rita’s wedding to Dexter is white.

  The ghastly alternative to Rita’s redemptive white femininity is femme fatale Lila. Defined from the start by her coloring, Lila is described by Debra—to whom, in the frosty light of Dexter’s refrigerator, she has already shown too much skin—as a gross, pale, titty vampire. White as a corpse, Lila is Dexter’s perfect woman. And it is perhaps no surprise that Rita and Lila end up dead.

  In his various relationships with these women—one an angelunicorn, the other an “emotionally colour blind” sociopath—Dexter dramatizes anxieties about white sexuality that are only one aspect of the general ambivalance of whiteness. As Dyer observes, whiteness is riddled with paradoxes, inconsistencies, and anxieties. So it is fitting that in Dexter we see so many expressions of white identity’s problematic relationship with the its own corporeality, the self-serving but ennui-inducing sense of whiteness as devoid of character or substance, and white people’s discomforting relationship with death and their own far-from-white history.

  20

  Happiness, Dexter Style

  MIKE PIERO

  Dexter Morgan, everyone’s favorite serial killer, seems to have it all: the great job, friends, and a killer beachside apartment. But his secret—his Dark Passenger—complicates who Dexter is as a person and adds to his isolation from others. Can we even think of Dexter as a genuine human being, given his out-of-work activities? Let’s face it, if Dexter’s chums at the Miami Metro Homicide Department knew about his need to kill, they would, at the very least, think twice about taking one of Dexter’s daily morning doughnuts. Somewhere between evil serial killer and avenging force for good, Showtime’s Dexter sets us up to question not only the legitimacy of his humanity, but also how we define good and evil.

  In the first five minutes of Dexter (“Dexter,” Season 1) we learn that he loves Cuban food, pork sandwiches, and killing people. But, he doesn’t kill just anyone—not prostitutes like the Ice Truck Killer or young women like Trinity—he has “standards.” Right away, the Code that Harry Morgan taught his adopted son is given center stage. Yes, he kills because he can’t help himself, but he does so with a specific set of rules that keep him safe from being caught and given the electric chair. That’s the overarching rule: Don’t get caught. What about Dexter’s other needs as a person, a human being? How much fulfillment can Harry’s Code bring to Dexter? In Season 1, Dexter is portrayed as a lone wolf who has no feelings and keeps everyone at a safe distance. As Dex says in “Popping Cherry,” he must “maintain appearances to survive.” No doubt, there is more to this serial killer than meets the eye.

  One Code to Kill Them All

  To learn more about Dexter, we have to take a close look at his reverence for the Code of Harry as well as how his needs evolve throughout the series. Dex is a changing man; he’s growing up. It’s how he changes from Season 1 to the later seasons that shows how “normal” he actually is. To begin, let’s lay out exactly what we know about the Code that Dexter follows when choosing and killing his victim. Harry’s Code boils down to the following four rules:

  1. Don’t get caught—the ultimate rule

  2. Be absolutely sure he’s guilty; never take an innocent life

  3. Make sure he will kill again; killing that serves no purpose is murder

  4. Blend in, maintain appearances, and pretend to be like others

  These rules govern not only Dexter’s kills, but his entire life. In Season 2, upon learning of Harry’s infidelity and shortcomings, Dexter begins to question whether or not the Code is right. Harry could have been wrong, or worse yet, lying. He lied about Dex’s biological parents. In the season finale, “The British Invasion,” however, Dexter makes peace with the Code and takes ownership of it: “The Code is mine now, and mine alone.”

  Another interesting change begins in the last few minutes of Season 2; Dexter continues his commentary on his Code by admitting more changes: “So, too, are the relationships that I cultivate. They’re not just disguises anymore. I need them, even if they make me vulnerable.” Dexter
is realizing that he is his own person and is capable of having a regular life, even with the Dark Passenger inside. He progresses through what psychologist Abraham Maslow called the five basic needs that innately motivate a person in life; these are oftentimes referred to as “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.” You may have seen this concept expressed visually as a bright, rainbow-colored triangle.

  These universal needs are arranged in a hierarchy, or what Maslow calls “hierarchies of prepotency,” which means that in order to move on to fulfilling the second need, you must first meet the first one.61 Maslow believed that “man is a perpetually wanting animal,” and was interested in what motivates such wants and behaviors. He came up with five basic needs, in order: Physiological, Safety, Love, Esteem, and Self-Actualization. The “normal” human being moves from the first need through the others to self-actualization. From Dexter season one to season five, we see Dex progress through these needs as he learns more about what he wants out of life for himself.

  The reason the Code exists is to keep Dexter physically safe—to stop him from getting caught. (A secondary purpose, of course, is to protect the world from Dexter, to channel his urges for good instead of evil.) In “Resistance is Futile” (Season 2), Dexter recalls when Harry once took him as a teenager to an execution to instill in him that the Code is, first and foremost, a code of survival. Maslow’s hierarchy lists physiological needs as the most basic, the most essential, to survival. Physiological needs include food, water, shelter, and clothing, the basic needs for survival. When we meet Dexter, all of these needs are met already. He has his apartment, shares with us his favorite foods and drinks, and is obviously clothed. He is, however, always on the verge of losing all of those things; with each kill, he risks being caught and having his very life taken away from him. The Code protects him from being caught and, therefore, enables him to preserve his physiological needs.

  The first season of Dexter is largely a matter of survival: of controlling the chaos with the blood, of hiding in order to keep safe. In “Love American Style,” Dex says, “I like to pretend I’m alone . . . no one left to act normal for.” He is emotionless and without concern, aside from maintaining his lies and not getting caught. It’s not until Season 2 that he begins to realize that he actually does want more out of life. Perhaps Harry left out the possibility that Dexter could have a chance at a relatively “normal” life. As we get more comfortable with Dexter, he seems to be getting less comfortable with himself and the life he’s quite literally carved out for himself according to his Code.

  Dexter: The Family Man?

  We all live by codes, whether or not we choose to articulate them. In fact, many tenets of our personal codes (of ethics, morality, belief and the like) operate in the background of our everyday life, or in other words, unconsciously. Maslow’s five needs are also at work all the time without us being aware of them. We might infer that these needs had been secretly working in Dexter when we first meet him and learn about his childhood. The cargo container where he spent days sitting in a pool of his mother’s blood as a toddler had a profound impact on him.

  That traumatic event would upset what Maslow calls safety needs, the second set of basic needs. With our physiological needs satisfied, we’ll seek safety and security from violence and harm, largely through family. This is why children have, as Maslow puts it, “a preference for some kind of undisrupted routine or rhythm . . . a predictable and orderly world.” When infants hear loud, unknown noises, they interpret them as a threat to their safety and respond by crying. Maslow even says that “death within the family may be particularly terrifying,” let alone watching your mom sawed up into little pieces with a chainsaw. Despite Harry’s best attempts to raise Dexter properly, he could never recover from the horror he witnessed that day. While many adults in our society have these safety needs largely met already—through a safe upbringing—Dexter is at a great disadvantage in this area from the start.

  With everything considered though, Dexter is remarkably well adjusted in this department. He needs his privacy because of his secret, but he’s not neurotic about safety needs except when he’s in danger of being caught, which would be a normal reaction. He is secure in his job and his finances. His health is top notch as far as we know. Security remains a great mobilizer for us, but usually only in emergencies that severely threaten our way of life. At the beginning of the series, Dexter admits that killing people helps control the chaos of his world. This is similar to the way someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder works, in Maslow’s words, to “try frantically to order and stabilize the world so that no other unmanageable, unexpected, or unfamiliar dangers will ever appear.” The Code helps him fulfill his safety needs.

  For Dexter, Rita and the kids also become that kind of protection for him. He tells us in “Circle of Friends” (Season 1) that he needs them because he feels the need to connect with someone. By pretending in order to make the emptiness within feel less bottomless, he actually begins to feel genuine care for those close to him, including his friends and family. This embodies his love needs, the third of Maslow’s basic needs. This is where the Code begins to fail him. Dexter’s safety needs are largely met, albeit with deficiencies, but he is secure in his job, his “work” for the time being, his health, and his relationships. Evidence of love needs can be seen, according to Maslow, when “the person will feel keenly, as never before, the absence of friends, or a sweetheart, or a wife, or children.” Dexter is moving towards having more friends—even dangerous friends like Miguel Prado and Trinity—and of course his family. He learns, episode by episode, what it means to have one’s love needs met.

  Dexter shows more sincerity and wears fewer masks as the series advances. Even in Season 1, he realizes that his days are numbered and remarks, “so I better make the most of them,” and is seen in the last few shots playing with Cody—swinging him around with a big smile on his face. He saves Deb because of some human bond between them, even when it means killing his biological brother. When Dex lies to Rita about being a heroin addict, quits the program, and then Rita refuses to see him anymore, what does he do? He goes back to the Narcotics Anonymous meetings to be part of her family, or as he says in Season 2, “An Inconvenient Lie,” “the mask is slipping . . . People who never mattered before are suddenly starting to matter.” There are many instances of Dexter starting to realize his love needs; needs which he always denied he had or thought were impossible to satisfy in his situation.

  Is Dexter Morgan going soft on us? I think we can safely answer with an emphatic “No way!” Harry’s Code could not take him past his security needs, and Dexter resents that (and Harry) for a while. Then he realizes that he is in charge of his own life and can make choices about how he wants to live. Lila (or perhaps we should call her Lie-la because she was one lying, manipulative person!), his sponsor-turned-sex buddy, shows Dexter how to pay attention to what he wants out of life. When he was content with being a loner, he sneered at love. But now, a brave new world he thought previously unknowable has been opened to him.

  Beyond the Code, Beyond the Lies

  One thing that I love about Dexter is that Dex is not the only damaged person on the show. Every main character struggles with tragic, life-altering issues. Deb has some cold-blooded boyfriends. Sergeant Doakes has the demons of his past that haunt him. Angel is recently divorced and picks up an undercover officer he thinks is a prostitute. Rita is a single parent with two failed marriages behind her. And the list goes on. We all have secrets, Dark Passengers as it were, and we all work toward obtaining some sense of normalcy.

  Maslow’s fourth set of needs is the esteem needs, which includes the need we feel to have a stable and high evaluation of ourselves “for self-respect, or self-esteem, and for the esteem of others.” This need emerges when we feel a strong urge to be liked, appreciated, and viewed as proficient in what we do; in short, to be respected by others. It’s like when you spend hour after hour rolling before the first game of the bowling to
urnament. The point in all the practice is to improve your skill so you’ll play stronger for your team, earn the esteem of your teammates, and feel a sense of worth about your performance. While some may seek out this validation by being part of a group, like Batista’s and Masuka’s bowling team, Dexter gets his esteem needs met in two other ways.

  One could argue that Dexter’s esteem needs are met mostly by the excellent blood spatter work that he does for a living. He is highly respected for his work by Special Agent Frank Lundy, Lieutenant LaGuerta, Deb, and nearly everyone else in his department. Now, is this all an act? Maybe. It does serve the purpose of helping him blend in; he’s a regular guy who’s good at his job. That doesn’t change the fact that, whether Dex realizes it or not, he receives the esteem of his co-workers and it builds up both his self-esteem and the knowledge that he is appreciated in his work.

  This need is also met in Season 3 by his nefarious friendship with Miguel Prado, Miami’s Assistant District Attorney. Despite Miguel’s truth telling being on a par with Lila’s, Miguel gives Dexter the chance to take on a disciple. The mentor-protégé relationship involves esteem needs on both sides. In Season 3, “The Damage a Man Can Do,” Dexter begins to teach Miguel the Code and how to stalk and kill his prey. He quickly realizes, however, that Miguel Prado is not the person he pretends to be, much like himself actually. Miguel spins out of control and decides, as was his plan all along, to learn the skills he needs to be able to kill anyone he sees fit, without what he sees as Dexter’s “bullshit” Code. This decision ultimately costs him his life, at his old friend’s hand. Despite the way that things turned out with Miguel, Dex learned a lot from that friendship. It also demonstrates his ability to absorb confidence and esteem from others, a basic human need according to Maslow.