American Icon

An iconic American is a person widely recognized and deeply tied to the history and culture of the United States. These figures capture the imagination of the public and eventually come to represent more than themselves, functioning as symbolic shorthand for some portion of the American experience. Anyone from any sphere can become iconic—from frontiersman (Daniel Boone) to inventor (Thomas Edison), from politician (George Washington) to actor (Marilyn Monroe)—but we seem to be strangely drawn to criminals.

“American culture has a long, dark history of transforming notorious killers, outlaws, and assassins into anti-heroes, folklore figures, and pop-culture anti-icons,” wrote one observer. “Rather than fading into obscurity, their crimes fuel a permanent morbid fascination.” Famed murderers offer us a potent mix of adrenalized horror over what they have done and an admiring appreciation for their boldness. Bonnie and Clyde, Jesse James, and Al Capone are examples, but none of have endured so long or popped up so often in our cultural zeitgeist as Lizzie Borden. The more resonant the icon to our current cultural climate, the more likely it is to be appropriated, reinterpreted and even parodied.

From books and movies to an opera, a ballet, and rock musical, Lizzie Borden has continually been conjured by artists to represent a particular feeling of a particular time. Early in Lizzie’s evolution toward icon status, she was symbolic of the violence that can erupt from those living under staid Victorian-era repression. By the 1960s, when the culture began skewing toward the dangers (and pleasures) of teenage rebellion, Lizzie was often depicted as a younger woman, rising up in revolt against her parents.

More recently, Lizzie has become a symbol for female rage against oppressive gender dynamics. Chloe Sevigny, who produced and starred in Lizzie, the 2018 film, said she intended it to be a “rousing smash-the-patriarchy piece” that showed the radical lengths a woman can be driven to obtain her freedom. The 2026 version of Lizzie depicted in Season Four of Netflix’s Monster series stretched the symbolic meaning of Lizzie Borden even further, in keeping with the turbulent times of a post-#MeToo backlash. The actor who played Bridget Sullivan, Vicky Krieps, described to Vanity Fair how the show’s creator, Ryan Murphy, told her, “It’s women-driven, feminist, lesbian, dirty, unapologetic.”

Of course, not all depictions of Lizzie are so heavily freighted. Between Lizzie Bobbleheads and t-shirts that tout “The Lizzie Borden School of Anger Management,” many depictions of Lizzie are light-hearted and offered with a sly wink. The quintessential example would be Lizzie’s appearance in a 1993 episode of The Simpson’s, in which Lizzie appears as the foreman of the Jury of the Damned, deliberating the fate of Homer Simpson’s soul.

The fact that Lizzie was acquitted of the crime for which she became famous makes little difference to her legendary status. In fact, her “not guilty” verdict probably contributed to our enduring fascination with her. After all, she got away with it! Lizzie seemingly committed the perfect murders and not only walked free from her prison cell but gained possession of half of her alleged victim’s fortune. As Victoria Lincoln described what she called “the legendary Lizzie” in A Private Disgrace, “Few women can have set out on the royal road to riches more abruptly or with such abandon.” Or perhaps Monster’s Vicky Krieps said it best when she exclaimed, “What a plot!”  

But acquitted or not, it was perhaps inevitable that Lizzie would achieve icon status due to the brutal nature of the crime juxtaposed with the unlikelihood that a mild Victorian spinster would have committed it. Indeed, her attorney, George Robinson seemed to see the writing on the wall when he noted in his closing argument at her trial how—in the courtroom and in the press— Lizzie had already been turned into a symbolic abstraction. “The heart waits to learn what theories they will get up about this woman without evidence. First create your monster, and put into her the devil’s instincts and purposes, and you have created a character.”

The iconic character of Lizzie Borden has been remade again and again over the last 130-some years, ever serving the cultural purpose of the moment. No doubt we will see many more versions of her in the future.

For more on different versions of Lizzie’s character that creative artists render for our entertainment, see Pop Culture Lizzie.