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| Photo by Allyana Hernandez |
As a fan of horror, I’m always the first person to tell my friends that it’s fun to explore the morbid and macabre. In a way, I see it as therapeutic to confront these themes from the safe distance of a screen. You’re not morally corrupt for being fascinated by things that are transgressive to the human experience. Likewise, it’s possible for you to condemn horrific deeds done in real life while enjoying their spectacle when it comes to fiction.
The same can be said for the true crime genre. In recent years, true crime has seen a rise in popularity among media consumers and has bolstered dedicated communities passionate about exploring the darkest parts of humanity. It’s possible that we’ve all been part of this rise. I’ve watched Buzzfeed Unsolved, amongst other things; I’m sure most of you have as well. We all long to understand the things that elude our comprehension, and disturbing human behavior is no exception to that rule.
However—and this is a very big ‘however,’ as the fascination for disturbing real-life crimes continues to gain popularity, disturbing behavior from its consumers appear to surface as well. This has been long observed, even when it was still Ted Bundy who was the center of the true crime discussion. Now, with Netflix producing an adaptation of the Dahmer killings, it becomes all too alarming to ignore.
I’d like to preface this by saying this is not a critique of Dahmer as a series. I have no doubt that Netflix poured a handsome amount of money to ensure that the quality of the production remains top-tier. This is also not a critique of the performances; Evan Peters appears to be uncanny as the titular killer in all the comparison videos I’ve seen him in. In fact, that is the extent of what I’ve seen from the show. I don’t think I can bring myself to watch it in its entirety. For one, I already have a weak appetite—despite my enjoyment of horror. More importantly, some lines, I just do not dare cross.
That said, I also don’t think anyone who has watched the show or is planning to is necessarily a bad person. We can’t deny the draw of true crime media. It allows us to view humans in their absolute most sinister, within a safe distance of knowing that it is only a retelling of the events. Most serial killers have long been dead or are sentenced to live the rest of their days tucked away from the rest of humanity in some prison cell. To some extent, we owe it to ourselves to acknowledge their existence, and how and why they came to be. I believe that the understanding of serial killers by society at large has allowed us to identify and mitigate the circumstances that cultivate them.
That has always been the rationale of true crime media: to understand these disturbed individuals so that we may be able to identify them, or better yet, identify how to prevent them.
Where, then, have we gone wrong? I mean, if ‘Dahmer’ truly dives deep into the events and heinous deeds of the man, wouldn’t it be the single most effective cautionary tale we’d have? Can’t we just take notes from Dahmer’s upbringing and not do that to our own children?
Well, it’s not that simple. Dahmer, the series, and the majority of true crime media don’t present themselves as cautionary tales. More often than not, the fascination for true crime has evolved as the result of combining macabre spectacle with our invasive desire to pry into the personal experiences of others. It’s almost voyeuristic to read about the various deeds of serial killers and yet, one can’t help but feel compelled to dive a little deeper into the rabbit hole. Maybe then, we’d understand why they did what they did. Maybe then, we can make sense of all the violence. Maybe then, and this feels gross to say, we can find the humanity in these disturbed individuals.
However, I’d like to offer a counterpoint. This is not a unique take, mind you—just something I feel like could use a louder echo with the current state of pop culture: Serial killers don’t deserve to be humanized.
Don’t get me wrong, in any other genre, I love the idea of a villain that I can feel sorry for. I think some stories are better when they challenge the moral fabric of everything we know. The trope of the sympathetic villain is there to make us question our own values—our own thresholds. Sure, Black Panther’s Killmonger is a murderous extremist, but that’s how far he will go to ensure the liberation of the oppressed Black people in America. Squid Game’s Sang-Woo may have deceived his friends to their deaths, but he’s a man trying to survive and pay off a debt that could potentially put his own mother in danger. These are villains that we may find ourselves morally opposing, but can find it hard to not understand due to their circumstances.
We can’t say the same for serial killers. People like Dahmer and Bundy aren’t killers because of their lonely and disturbed upbringing—they’re killers because they felt entitled to the power fantasy of it. They took advantage of their privilege as white men and preyed on minorities and women to satisfy their need to feel dominant. They aren’t misunderstood individuals alienated by society, they’re psychopaths who actively chose to act on their already disturbed impulses. They’re narcissists who felt above the lives of others and felt no remorse in taking it away from them.
When we attempt to adapt their stories on-screen, we validate their pursuit for attention. We immortalize them through actors who want to evoke their spitting image as much as possible. We give them a platform to appear sympathetic in front of an impressionable audience. We warp the morality of those audiences. And what does that leave us? It leaves us with the grieving families of the victims, their trauma excavated from the memories they have spent decades burying.
I have said before that the enjoyment and fascination for true crime media are not indicative of any moral deficiency from the side of the audience. The accountability mainly lies on companies like Netflix for their continued exploitation of other people’s trauma—but I’d also be lying if I said it didn’t feel a tiny bit transgressive to indulge in the genre.
So what do we do with the guilt, if there is any? Well, the truth is any form of media will come with its own problematic qualities. It’s not rare in the production industry—be it shows, film, music, or even video games—to have people working on that piece of media to become overworked and underpaid for their efforts. The point is, there is no ethical consumption under an economic system that favors profit over welfare. Exploitative shows like the Dahmer miniseries are just an example of that.
But it won’t hurt us to demand and even practice a little sensitivity when it comes to handling the trauma of others. It won’t hurt to recognize the exploitation of the grieving families left in the wake of Dahmer’s actions. It won’t and shouldn’t hurt to humanize them for a change.
