Netflix released a ten-episode biographical series September 21 about serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer titled “Dahmer-Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Series”. Dahmer was responsible for murdering and cannibalizing 17 men, almost all of them men of color, between 1978-1991. The series covers these murders along with the rest of Dahmer’s life.
Although it’s glaringly evident how popular the new Dahmer series is, coming in as “Netflix’s second most popular English-language series of all time in its initial release,” according to Variety, questions about the morality of not only this show but all others like it arose.
Before the release of “Monster,” there was no shortage of movies and shows discussing Jeffrey Dahmer. From “The Jeffrey Dahmer Files” to “My Friend Dahmer” to “Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.” And this isn’t even mentioning true crime podcasts, Youtube channels, or books about the killer.
It’s not just Dahmer either. For whatever reason, people see serial killers–in general–as golden movie-making material. “The Ted Bundy Tapes” tells the story of Ted Bundy’s murders, and “John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise” and “JohnWayne Gacey Tapes” unsurprisingly discuss John Wayne Gacy in all his horror. Maybe sensationalizing these nefarious men also makes directors incapable of coming up with unique titles.
Giving these men, who are villains in all senses of the word, their own shows, gives them the attention and fame they don’t deserve. Making them the main characters in these pieces of media makes them seem like protagonists no matter the point of view.
According to Post-Doctoral Researcher Howard Skylar, from the English Philology Unit at the University of Helsinki, “Empathy and sympathy are phenomena we experience almost daily in our dealings with others, and they play key roles in the way we respond to fictional characters…we tend to respond to [the characters] as though they were real individuals.”
This means that even if one is aware that the character they see on screen is an objectively bad, even evil, person, they will still feel some sort of desire to empathize with them. This is amplified when characters go through hardships, for example, Dahmer getting bullied for the majority of his childhood. “Monster” dwells on Dahmer’s feelings about alienation and his frustration with who he is.
These points are breeding grounds for sympathy, they can and will trick people into downplaying who Dahmer was; the murderer becomes this shy, misunderstood boy who can’t be held accountable for his actions because it’s actually society’s fault.
There seems to be no reason to retell these stories over and over again. With every new adaptation people seem to forget that the stories of these serial killers are real, and with these very real stories come very real victims. These victims and their families suffer a great deal when new shows are released, and in most cases, they never see a cent of money.
Eric Perry, a relative of one of Dahmer’s victims, wrote on Twitter, “No, they don’t notify families when they do this. It’s all public record, so they don’t have to notify (or pay!) anyone. My family found out when everyone else did.”
Aside from the ordeal that these families go through every time these stories get a film adaptation, every time a new serial killer series comes out, especially one that stars a famous conventionally attractive actor, it whips the internet into a frenzy.
It was noticeable in the past with Zac Efron when he played Ted Bundy, and again with Ross Lynch when he played Jeffrey Dahmer in a previous project. But it’s arguably more evident in this recent series with Evan Peters, who played Dahmer in Netflix’s rendition of the Jeffrey Dahmer story.
The main problem isn’t just that people find these actors attractive, but that people extend that infatuation to the killers themselves.
With every new serial killer-themed piece of media, a new wave of fans flocks to these heinous men, willing to forgive all their crimes for the sole reason that they perceive these men to be attractive, charismatic, and smart.
Take for example the public’s reaction after “Monster” came out: people were making edits of Evan Peters as Dahmer, expressing their attraction to him, making memes out of the show, there were Dahmer fan accounts, and some even praised Dahmer for his ability to evade arrest for so long.
It would take an extraordinary amount of time to count out how many different ways these responses are tone-deaf, but one thing worth mentioning is that Dahmer is no mastermind, he just used his privilege as a white man and put his faith in the fact that the justice system would not attempt to protect minorities.
To credit Dahmer with this nonexistent intelligence is to discredit years of people of color struggling to be heard. He wasn’t smart. He had frequent run-ins with police before his arrest.
His neighbors knew and attempted to alert the police only to be ignored by police who refused to ruin the life of an “innocent” white man.
The other side of responses to the Dahmer series were from those who had ingested so much true crime media that they’ve become desensitized to it. There were many people who not only sat through the whole series completely unaffected but wished it was gorier.
From people who wished they had shown the real photos that Dahmer took to those who wished that it was just more bloody in general, some people were more than proud that they could sit through hours of innocent men and boys being killed and eaten.
The desensitization that comes with popularizing true crime media is a rising problem in our society, especially seeing how prevalent true crime as a genre is becoming.
The American Psychological Association found that “exposure to media violence can desensitize people to violence in the real world and that, for some people, watching violence in the media becomes enjoyable and does not result in the anxious arousal that would be expected from seeing such imagery.”
The more that people see and digest violence in media in a casual capacity, the less shocked they become when violence occurs in day-to-day life.
Becoming desensitized to crimes carried out against unprotected, helpless victims in any capacity, whether it be in media or real life, depicts a change in morality that is dangerous.
Documentaries and dramatic retellings like these don’t do anything but immortalize those who deserve it least while exploiting the trauma of victims and their families. It’s an industry that thrives because producers know they can count on gore and shock to bring in viewers no matter what source material they pull from, and in all honesty, are extremely overdone.