As the streaming service gets ready for awards season, Netflix will show a lot of big-name stars in the coming weeks. But the notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer who died in 1994, is the show’s star right now. He is the MVP for the month.
According to Netflix’s self-reported data, which was released on September 27, “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” is the most watched title right now, with more than 196 million viewing hours in the last week. And if that isn’t enough Dahmer for you, “Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes” will come out on October 7. It’s the latest in a series of documentaries that has already covered Ted Bundy and, most recently, John Wayne Gacy.
Obviously, there is a long-lasting fascination with serial killers, which has fueled interest in a certain group of the most prolific and evil ones, which criminologist Scott A. Bonn called “celebrity monsters” in a 2017 article for Psychology Today. The audience is not an innocent bystander in this rather shady equation.
But the renewed interest in Dahmer makes us wonder if charismatic actors like Evan Peters, who plays Dahmer here, and Mark Harmon, Zac Efron, Chad Michael Murray, and Luke Kirby, who has played Bundy in the last few years, can’t help but romanticize them in a media-obsessed age. Kirby said in an interview last year that he had to get over “an ‘ick’ factor” before he could play Bundy in “No Man of God.”
Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, who made “Monster,” were well aware of these worries. They wanted to put more attention on Dahmer’s 17 victims and the justice system that let him get away with murder for so long.
Still, there’s something unsettling about how the show, which has 10 episodes to tell the story, drags out some of Dahmer’s encounters and shows the grisly evidence of his crimes.
Netflix chose not to let reviewers see the show before it came out, which didn’t hurt its ratings, which are among the best of its dramas, along with “Stranger Things” and “Bridgerton.” This could have also helped avoid some of the controversies that has come up since about how the production affects the families of the people Dahmer killed.
Rita Isbell, the sister of Dahmer victim Errol Lindsey told Insider, “I feel like Netflix should have asked if we mind or how we felt about making it. They didn’t ask me anything. They just did it.”
As has been said, people have always been interested in “celebrity monsters.” Jeffrey Dahmer’s recent resurgence isn’t the first time we’ve heard about him, and it won’t be the last, whether it’s in a documentary or a play. Serial killers have their own kind of currency in the media, which is a lot.
The fact that the genre is popular doesn’t change the “ick” factor, as Kirby put it. “Monster” might have tried to get ahead of some criticisms, but this is one that Netflix and the entertainment industry as a whole still haven’t solved.
Both “Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes” and “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” can be seen on Netflix starting on October 7.
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