The Dahmer Series: Stop obsessing over serial killers

TW: Violence, Murder

If you weren’t already aware of the name Jeffrey Dahmer, a serial killer who murdered 17 young men between 1978 and 1991, you’re unlikely to have continued in blissful ignorance of his existence recently. With the relentlessly publicised series ‘Monster: A Jeffrey Dahmer Story’ now the second most popular English-language series on Netflix of all time, we seriously need to think about the nature of the content that we are consuming. Writing this article has been a two-person job, journeying into the dark side of the internet to research the show itself and reactions to it, has been both horrifying and emotionally draining. Discovering how desensitised people are to these brutal acts has left us seriously worried about the state of humanity. What moral price are we willing to pay for entertainment; making someone relive their trauma? Disrespecting families? Glorifying the perpetrator? How can we justify using people’s real-life trauma for a quick fix of adrenaline, a simple thrill?

The Families

At best, dramas about serial killers are an uninteresting re-hashing of an already-known event. At worst, they glamorise and romanticise violence with no compassion for the victims and families involved. In the case of the Dahmer series, it somehow manages to do both. Multiple victims family members have condemned the show and its depiction of their loved one’s murder. It is unacceptable that shows such as this can be allowed to force families of victims to relive their life’s most traumatic experiences for cheap entertainment. Isn’t losing a loved one bad enough without being forced to relive it through dramatic TV portrayals? Isn’t it bad enough without being forced, once again, to be under the spotlight of an inquiring media, piggy-backing off the end of a successful series? 

This was the experience of Rita Isbell, the sister of Dahmer’s 11th victim, Errol Lindsey. The show recreates Isbell reading her victim impact statement at Dahmer’s trial word for word. The actress wears her clothes and has the same haircut. As Isbell explained:

“If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought it was me. Her hair was like mine, she had on the same clothes. That’s why it felt like reliving it all over again. It brought back all the emotions I was feeling back then.”

Court proceedings are in the public domain, so Netflix was under no legal obligation to tell Isbell her words would be featured in the drama, but what of their moral obligation? It must be excruciating to turn on the TV and see an actor playing the man who caused your family so much pain. It must be even more agonising to see the subsequent tweets and TikToks from deluded fans, forgiving and empathising with the man who murdered them. I don’t put it lightly when I say this is what these types of shows are designed to do, and it goes beyond all human decency. 

For Tatiana Banks, daughter of Errol Lindsey, the show has opened old wounds. Never having the opportunity to meet her dad, she slowly pieced together the story of his death throughout her childhood. The dramatised depictions of his murderer has been haunting her. She says: “Honestly ever since that show’s been on I haven’t been able to sleep. I see Jeffrey Dahmer in my sleep”. Speaking of her Dad and her family: “He didn’t deserve this. I don’t deserve this. None of the victims deserve it.” These families have gone through enough. Leaving these people in peace is the least we can offer them. 

In addition to re-traumatising the families of the victims, the series fails to acknowledge the damaging effects of revisiting this dark period of the city’s history on Milwaukee’s community. It’s not the first time the story has been dramatised and been proven deeply unpopular, the 2017 release of ‘My Friend Dahmer’ was shown in only one movie theatre state-wide. It might have been possible for citizens and families affected to largely ignore the film, but how can you avoid a series that is literally beamed into every house that has Netflix and is shamelessly promoted on social media? Where with the movie Milwaukee citizens personally affected or disturbed could avoid the cinema, it is impossible to do the same with the series.

The ‘Fans’

Twitter and TikTok have been absolutely swarmed with those defending and sympathising with Dahmer after the show’s release. There have been thousands of comments and tweets glamorising Dahmer in a sort of wattpad-fantasy-esque way. Comments such as ‘why do I find Jeffery Dahmer attractive’ and ‘the actual Jef was HAWT’ have flooded mainstream social media. Anyone who was raised on Tumblr in the early 2010s knows that this infatuation with serial killers is nothing new. From amateur-photoshopped flower crowns on Ted Bundy’s head to moodboards based on the Columbine shooters, certain corners of the internet have always had a way of cultivating fanaticism of the worst kind. Even today, the TCC (True Crime Community) tag is rife with content idolising those guilty of the cruelest possible crimes. However, with the widespread popularity of the Dahmer series, the content which was formerly confined to small online communities has exploded into the mainstream. One particular trend involves those who have watched the show seeking to impress others by how they were unperturbed by its morbid content. It has gone so far that eBay has had to remove ‘Jeffery Dahmer costumes’ from their Halloween offering. It should go without saying that people like Dahmer are nothing to aspire to, and nonchalance about his crimes is absolutely abhorrent. 

So why has this series even been made? I have seen quite a few people reiterating the ‘education’ argument to support the series; that ‘we need to learn about these events so it never happens again’ or ‘it’s important to acknowledge history’. This might be true if the show was actually accurate and informative. In reality, the show is very misleading and particularly emphasises scenes that might create sympathy for Dahmer. Lacking sensitivity and emphasising drama, the series approaches the subject with so little tact that their pitiable victim is Jeffrey Dahmer, rather than the victims and their families. Dahmer’s Father, Lionel Dahmer is reportedly preparing to sue Netflix for its representation of events, as it gave ‘attention to details that aren’t proven fact’. Clearly, the purpose of these TV and film dramatisations is not to educate, but to entertain. That’s why they play tense music, have dramatic, cinematic shots and leave viewers on a cliff-hanger at the end of each episode. People who want to learn can read a Wikipedia page, a news article or even watch a sensitive and accurate documentary. The only lesson to learn from watching a ‘sexy’ serial killer on screen, is that extreme violence is somehow okay.

On that note, we should really question the show’s casting. By placing Evan Peters, a conventionally attractive man with many internet fans, in the titular role,  the show has rightly received some serious backlash. The same controversy surrounded Zac Efron’s role as Ted Bundy in the film ‘Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile’, which was also distributed by Netflix. To be clear, conventionally attractive actors playing the roles of serial killers is far from the worst thing that media of this kind has occasioned, but using any actor with an established fanbase reads as a scummy business move meant to draw in a guaranteed and devoted viewership. Actors like Evan Peters and Zac Efron attract a certain kind of audience which is overwhelmingly teenage. Young people, who still have much to learn about media literacy, are seeing actors they love play the roles of people they shouldn’t like, and are seemingly incapable of making a distinction between the two. 

The Problem

People turn a conveniently blind eye to the fact that these shows are an act of violence themselves. It is no secret that Jeffrey Dahmer’s reign of terror was so long-lived because he sought out members of marginalised communities whose disappearances would be neglected by the police. The fact that Netflix initially placed the show with the LGBTQ tag was not only distasteful but a clear sign to queer communities that their history and trauma would be treated without respect or sensitivity. Only widespread criticism brought about a reversal of that decision to save face. This is unacceptable. Using black and Queer trauma for entertainment, for simple profit, should clearly flag that the public’s insatiable appetite for drama has gone too far. 

There will inevitably be another series or film based on a serial killer. It will inevitably glorify the perpetrator and ignore the victims. We should take a stand now so that, when this moment comes, we do not succumb to the temptation to watch it and, by association, support the show. Media producers will never-ever stop producing until we stop watching. 

In this article we have spoken a lot about Jeffery Dahmer. We want to make it clear that he is not the important part of this story. The reason that this show is so damaging is due to the lack of respect that it shows to the victims and families. It is about the men and children who are constantly ignored, removed and forgotten and left out of the story. It is the families left behind and young lives cut far too short.