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OPINION | The "Dahmer" Debate Finally Shows What Has Been Shut Up About True Crime Stories

2022-10-07T20:33:22.589Z


"Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story" is thought provoking about how to approach true crime series and what we owe to the victims.


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Editor's note:

Sara Stewart is a film and culture writer based in western Pennsylvania.

(CNN) --

Is interest in true crime series on the wane?

The heated debate surrounding Netflix's new series "Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story" suggests that the genre must evolve if it is to survive.


The cumbersomely titled Ryan Murphy series starring Evan Peters as Dahmer was the streaming platform's most-watched new show in its first week.

But a strong reaction has arisen around the fact that the series has not consulted the families of the victims, despite the fact that the program intends to put their stories at the center of the drama.

Rita Isbell, whose brother was one of Dahmer's victims, wrote poignantly about the traumatic experience of seeing her court appearance reenacted in the Murphy series.

"I could even understand it if they gave some of the money to the children of the victims... If the series benefited them in some way, it wouldn't feel so harsh and neglected," she said.

Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer in the Netflix series "Dahmer -Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story."

Courtesy of Netflix

Members of Milwaukee's black gay community, where Dahmer lived and chose his victims, have also opposed "Dahmer," saying his stated intention to focus on victims rings hollow.

And a black crew member who worked on the show has tweeted about the terrible, and allegedly racist, treatment he received on set and his "retraumatization" of him upon viewing the show's trailer.

Murphy has apparently yet to respond to criticism of the series, though Peters said in a previous interview that the production "had one rule from Ryan: never tell it from Dahmer's point of view. As an audience, you don't sympathize with Dahmer." the".

But that hasn't stopped the disturbing trend of viewers coveting the actor who plays the serial killer on TikTok and other social media (and in some cases, sharing his feelings for the killer himself).

The disconnect between Murphy's stated intentions and the way his series has been received by audiences points to a larger set of ethical questions about the genre as a whole.

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Could the fever of our true crime obsession be at breaking point?

Netflix's numbers don't lie, but there has been a palpable shift towards criticism in the social media conversation.

The release this Friday of "Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes" could push some viewers into outright apathy toward serial killers after a decade of booming content in this popular genre.

This macabre subgenre has been a goose that lays the golden eggs for Netflix (and other platforms and networks) for years, but its power over viewers may be giving way.

The 2019 Ted Bundy drama "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile" insisted, via its star Zac Efron, that it was pointing out how white privilege allowed Bundy to get away with it for so long.

Zac Efron in 'Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile' Credit: Brian Douglas/Netflix

But both "Dahmer" and "Extremely Wicked" are shows starring young, handsome actors, a thinly veiled invitation to empathize on some level with the notorious killers (or, at the very least, consider them endearingly glamorous).

And the fact that Murphy hasn't reached out to the people actually affected by the killer underscores a related problem: "True Crime" often veers into exploitation, even when it claims to be acting in the interests of justice, education, or explanation of the cases.

Another new series is being criticized for similar reasons: Lifetime's "The Gabby Petito Story," which picks up on a crime from just a year ago.

In August of last year, Petito, 22, was killed by her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, with whom she had been traveling across the country in a van.

A police video recorded before Petito's disappearance, in which the police officers are seen interviewing the estranged couple and in which they do not notice all the signs that Laundrie had abused her, went viral, triggering a firestorm of investigation. on social media and a backlash over the media and law enforcement fixation on white women in danger, while countless victims of color are ignored.

Actress Thora Birch, who made her directorial debut with Petito's film, told The List in an interview published on September 27 that she saw the film as potentially educational for other young women.

"Exploring [the story] as realistically as possible, given the facts that we knew, was something that I found very intriguing, but also, I saw it as an opportunity to maybe be useful as a cautionary tale."

Petito's mother released a statement about the Lifetime dramatization, stating that the family had not been contacted.

"We think our fans should know that the Lifetime movie about Gabby Petito has no connection to the Petito family nor did they endorse it," she wrote.

"Lifetime made the movie on their own."

And earlier this year, Renee Zellweger produced and starred in an NBC miniseries, "The Thing About Pam," based on a Dateline podcast of the same name about the 2011 murder of Betsy Faria. Faria's mother and daughter they stated that they were not told about the production, and have said that the series got countless facts wrong and took an oddly comedic tone in its portrayal of the most disturbing event of their lives.

Series director Jenny Klein spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the importance of honoring "Betsy's story, her family's story, and honoring the truth as we know it," though she didn't mention contacting them.

Jeremy Dean as Officer Carrigan, Renée Zellweger, Cuyle Carvin as Detective Brian Hilke in "The Thing About Pam" Credit: Skip Bolen/NBC

Even if these two series had contacted the relatives of the victims for consultation and permission, they are representative of another core problem with the true-crime genre: its almost exclusive focus on whites.

According to journalist Veronica Wells-Puoane, "For people like me, black women and other people of color, the phenomenon of true crime is a reminder that while we are being watched, questioned and sneered at for dining, white people literally and figuratively get away with it. Instead of calling it for what it is, a parody, we call this content 'marathon-worthy.'"

What's more, she says, "I'm afraid these shows, whether they're documentaries or fictional shots, put out some kind of sick notice to white audiences....Commit a crime and go to infamy with a Netflix documentary." .

The "Dahmer" debate also makes for an interesting juxtaposition with the latest "Serial" event, in which accused murderer Adnan Syed was released after more than 20 years behind bars due to a series of flaws in the way that your case was handled.

"Serial," the seminal 2014 podcast, is credited with putting the spotlight on Syed's case, though some have also pointed out that his attorney Rabia Chaudry did most of the heavy lifting that led to the revocation of the case. court.

In any case, "Serial" and a handful of other prestige series have spawned countless copycats and couch potato detectives, and true-crime series listeners and viewers hope they can help solve cold cases.

But make no mistake: the human fascination with scary news is largely voyeuristic.

True crime is addictive because it is often fascinating.

Many true crime series have been meticulously researched and well told;

others simply provide dark escapism.

The statistical scarcity of serial killers makes their stories a safer scare than the banal, but more likely, everyday terrors.

Just as there are ways to be a more ethical consumer of true crime, there are more ethical ways to tell true crime stories.

Include the families of the victims in the narration process.

Focus on the stories of the victims themselves.

Do not include unnecessary or explicit representations of violence.

Avoid the easy game of sensationalism in marketing.

I'm a long-time true crime fan, and I'm sure I won't be quitting anytime soon.

But the more we talk about the issues inherent in gender, the more likely we are to think about what we're absorbing and what it means to the people who were affected by those events.

If we are going to continue consuming trauma as entertainment, we owe them at least that much.

serial killers series

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2022-10-07

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