By: Anna Hauptman, Staff Writer
The new series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Series, has become a big hit but has also caused some extreme controversy. The series follows Dahmer’s murders as well as his life in general. Unlike most serial killers, Dahmer’s interviews were televised, giving director Ryan Murphy an accurate sense of what actually happened. While the series is based off of a true story, not every single detail, beyond what was stated in the initial interviews and newspaper articles, in the series can be verified and proven accurate.
For those who somehow don’t know; Jeffery Dahmer killed 17 people in the span of a decade. He killed only boys/men and targeted people of color. After killing his victims he cannibalized them. On July 22nd, 1991, Dahmer was finally arrested. Of the 17 murders that he confessed to, he was convicted as guilty and criminally insane for 15 of them. 7 months later in February of 1992, he was declared sane for every murder and received 15 back-to-back life sentences. He died in jail 2 years later after getting beaten to death by another inmate. We don’t know much about the intent behind the beating, but in his criminal trial he states that God told him to kill Dahmer.
The Netflix original has skyrocketed to the top of the Netflix charts in just a matter of days, but are these implications good or bad? While many believe the show is very well written and portrays Dahmer accurately, it has caused an uproar of debate online about the necessity (or lack thereof) of more shows/films about real-life serial killers. Many people are upset with the new series and are tired of Hollywood’s supposed abhorrent glorification of serial killers.One thing that sets this series apart from the other serial killer films/series is the lack of contact Netflix had with the victim’s families before producing it. The families found out about this new series depicting the murders of their family members at the same time as the rest of the world—there was no contact prior with the families from the producers or directors prior to the series release. This caused a lot of commotion on Twitter. Eric Perry, cousin of Errol Lindsey, a victim of Dahmer’s, tweeted, “It’s retraumatizing over and over again, and for what? How many movies/shows/documentaries do we need?” This tweet, among many others from the family members, demonstrated how angry and hurt they were surrounding the series. The story of Jeffery Dahmer has been told numerous times over in books and podcasts and true crime television, why do we need the story told one more time and in such graphic detail? Netflix’s depiction of the Dahmer story is not a unique one and does not portray any new details with the story; it appears that the unearthing of the trauma for the family members was certainly not at the forefront of Netflix’s awareness.Dahmer is not the first instance of this type of glorification of serial killers. Ted Bundy is another example of a media craze surrounding a horrific killer; there are at least 9 films following Bundy’s story. Bringing awareness to the case is important, but repeating the same information over and over again can really affect the families of the victims for the worse. On top of the glory brought upon these killers by film franchises, people have gone so far as to romanticize them. Lots of fans romanticized Zach Efron’s role as the infamous Bundy in the Netflix film Extremely Wicked; Shockingly Evil and Vile. A similar romantic effect resulted from reactions to Ross Lynch’s performance as Dahmer in the 2017 biopic My Friend Dahmer. If you think that is bad, it only gets worse. In early 2021 on the viral app TikTok, people started to talk about Erik Menendez and his brother Lyle. There were plenty of Tik Toks made on these two brothers saying things like how they would want to be one of their victims. This is horrible to idolize and romanticize serial killers. The victims’ stories need to be shared and people need to learn the severity of the issue at hand.
Southview Catalyst 