(Photo courtesy of BBC) ““Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story” stars Evan Peters and was created by Ryan Murphy”
Troy Lafond
Connector Editor
“Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story”. “Tiger King”. “American Crime Story”. “The Girl From Plainville”. “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile”. True crime media, especially those that focus on murder, appears to be getting increasingly more popular year after year. While this boon clearly has a large audience, is there a point where we should put an end to it.
I am personally troubled by the amount of true crime media, focusing on murders, getting major Hollywood actors and directors to portray these stories. Once recognizable talent gets behind the scene it can be hard for a viewer to discern what is fictional and what actually happened. As many devout entertainment followers know, not all “true” stories are always accurately represented, but viewers with little exposure to the original topic material may not know this. Directors cannot take these liberties as easily when taking a fact-based reporting tone used in archival footage.
However, that is the point. Shows like “Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story” are not made to get audiences informed on the subject matter or to give retribution to its victims as they might claim. All of these shows are made to make streaming services and television channels money. In fact, “Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story” is not only the 15th television show, special or documentary about his crimes, but it is also the second Netflix has made after featuring his crimes in an episode of their 2018 docu-series “Dark Tourist”.
True story media has had problems of exploitation for a while that carry on today, especially as seen by the recent release of “Blonde”, a Netflix original movie that portrays a fictionalized version of the life of Marilyn Monroe. 2022 has also seen the release of the Hulu television show “Pam & Tommy”, following an infamous scandal in actress Pamela Anderson’s career, who refused to grant her permission for the series to be made.
However, repeatedly, the issue in true story media circles back to true crime. “Blonde” and “Pam & Tommy” generated some minor buzz, but “Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story” had the best debut week for a season 1 Netflix original ever. I circle back to this example repeatedly because it is the most recent offender, but by no means is it the only.
In social media buzz around the show there has been significant controversy, but a growing concern around the series is the glorification of Jeffery Dahmer. There are subsects of fans of the series who have gone onto social media to express that they find him hot, that they feel bad for him and to even “ship” him with some of his victims.
This is where the problem with true crime media lies. Even when the creators take as much care as possible to show how horrible the perpetrators are, the cult of personality that generates around people shown heavily in the media still rears its ugly head.
It is not right for Hollywood to continue to exploit the stories of these victims to make a quick buck. When the victims of a series or their families do not give their consent to have their story made into an entertainment series, it needs to be dead in the water. Retraumatizing victims for the sake of creating a show that people like is not worth it.
