BY: RUBY FOLKNER
Staff Writer
If you are sensitive to murder, please be aware of Netlfix’s ‘Dahmer.’
Although the excellent acting of Evan Peters is a true tour de force, Dahmer can’t escape the icky feeling of being an exercise in exploitation.
I think the show exploited the victim’s families and his heinous crimes far too much, whether that was the intention or not. For example, they do the exact court scenes of the victim’s families. They also use real stories. In the true crime community, there is a difference between showing and telling the crimes someone did.
Documentaries do a good job of telling what a serial killer or any killer did. Netflix ‘shows’ it, and arguably takes it further than maybe it should have.
Despite the long list of victims, they made Dahmer the character seem like he was the biggest victim. Which, yeah his childhood was not the best and now we know that could have possibly lead to a career as a serial killer. However, I don’t think this is the case. I have done all of you a favor and read the FBI’s Dahmer files. Dahmer stated in his interviews that his obsession with his crimes started at 14 when he realized he was gay and they only progressively get worse throughout time trying to suppress the obsession. Netflix doesn’t show this at all. Also not to mention, Netflix and the show’s creators do not focus on the victims, and they didn’t ask the victims families for any form of approval or consent because “it was public knowledge.”
Overall, the show ‘Dahmer’ is good in that it showed what happened well. However, how Netflix handled the show’s production was terrible, with no account for the victims’ families or the trauma that they endured. And why they would use Evan Peters, a hot actor, as Dahmer is beyond me. Using hot actors for terrible people to romanticize them isn’t a good idea.
Just remember, whatever happens in front of a camera doesn’t always make up for what happened in real life.
