Nothing is more stomach-churning than Jeffrey Dahmer’s vile and disturbing crimes. The only thing that comes close is the new fanbase he has built after Nexflix released and promoted “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.”
Jeffrey Dahmer, an American serial killer and sex offender, murdered 17 men and boys between the years of 1978 and 1991. He lured many victims to his apartment with the promise of alcohol or money. There, he drugged and molested his victims. He often murdered them by strangulation, then used their body to perform experiments, dismembering, dissecting, and even eating various body parts and organs.
Netflix released the biographical crime drama about Dahmer on Sep. 21. In a NetflixQueue Interview, producer Ryan Murphy claimed the show would not be told from Dahmer’s point of view. Rather, it was meant to tell the untold aspects of the impact of Dahmer’s crimes on the victims and their families.
Rita Isbell, sister of Erroll Lindsey (one of Dahmer’s victims), told Insider that she was never contacted about the show. She said that it felt like an attempt to profit off of an immense tragedy.
Isbell only saw parts of the show that included her sister. “I didn’t watch the whole show,” Isbell said. “I don’t need to watch it. I lived it. I know exactly what happened.”
Other family members expressed similar sentiments.
Netflix cast Evan Peters to play Dahmer, famous for his work in “American Horror Story.”
Although claiming to showcase the untold perspectives of the victims and their families, the 10-episode show spends little time with anyone else but Dahmer. Focusing primarily on his dysfunctional childhood and struggles with his sexuality, the show attempts to humanize Dahmer. This has left many viewers of the show feeling sorry for Dahmer, despite his monstrous and inhumane crimes.
You need not look far on social media platforms like TikTok and Twitter before encountering Dahmer’s new fanbase. They sympathize with Dahmer, with one comment saying “Jeff was a good man, and that’s why he gave them quick deaths because he didn’t want to hurt them.”
Other fans post clips of Peters in the show in a hypersexual context, romanticizing his disturbing behavior.
Not only does the show humanize a man who should be condemned at every opportunity, but it has forced victims’ families to relive their traumatic losses. Many families would never see their loved ones again, since Dahmer would dissect them beyond recognition, completely desecrating their remains. Netflix profits off of the families’ suffering simply to take part in the ever-popular, true crime genre. The attention garnered by this show also encourages copycat behavior, encouraging murders like these to be idolized and imitated due to their sensational publicity.
When it comes to exploiting murders for profit, Netflix is a serial offender. In 2020, it released “Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer,” which cast Zac Efron, a well-known heartthrob known for his role in “High School Musical,” to portray the psychopathic criminal. Similarly, this show created a massive fanbase on social media that was entirely too sympathetic to him, given the 28 women and girls he confessed to killing.
Due to the sensationalization of these serial killers, the families affected are forced to relive trauma that most fans will, thankfully, never fully understand. Fans of the genre seem to forget that true crime is just that, true. Just because it is trending on Netflix does not mean we should neglect the welfare of the people most affected by the horrific crimes.
