The horrific crimes of American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer have now become a common topic amongst young adults, as the Netflix show portraying the infamous killer has become popular. And even the talk surrounding the show has become controversial; some fear it might overshadow the dark and tragic realities of the victims and their families.
The show “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” was released on September 21, 2022 on Netflix, and is currently the#2 in TV shows on the streaming platform. The show recounts the stories of Dahmer’s crimes, mostly through the point of view of the victims. The discussion of Dahmer has permeated social media platforms, such as TikTok, where jokes and mockeries about the situation have spread.
One such video, from @neestorseller17 on TikTok shows himself cosplaying Dahmer while wearing the hair and glasses he was known for, and singing along to “Dark Horse” by Katy Perry, which includes the lyric: “She’s a beast, I call her Karma. She eat your heart out like Jeffrey Dahmer.”
Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, known as the “Milwaukee Cannibal” or the “Milwaukee Monster,: was a serial killer and sex offender convicted of the murder and dismemberment of 17 boys and men between 1978 and 1991. There have been multiple movies and documentaries recounting the story before, but the immediate attention gained from the new show brought controversy about whether retelling the story of Dahmer is appropriate, or disrespectful to the victims and their families.
Former cannibalism scholar Monica Hesse believes that the viewers of the show are not humanizing Dahmer’s victims or their families, and instead subjecting the families of those victims to renewed trauma.
“Relatives of the serial killer’s 17 victims have been vocal in saying the show retraumatized them,” she said in an Oct. 18 Washington Post article. “Rita Isbell, the sister of Erroll Lindsey, said she was dismayed to see her impassioned courtroom speech to Dahmer — officers had to restrain her from attacking him — reenacted word for word and transformed into a meme.” (Errol Lindsey was one of Dahmer’s victims.)
A senior who wished to remain anonymous has watched the show and finds the jokes made on social platforms about the story inappropriate.
“I think it is insensitive to the families of the victims since they are reliving the trauma through the show and social media,” the student said.
According to Metro UK, Lionel Dahmer, father of Jeffrey Dahmer, has been living in isolation from public attention to protect himself, and was not informed about the production of the show. Lionel’s assistant spoke to the U.S. Sun about Lionel’s reaction, which includes potentially taking legal action against Netflix.
Aerin Kelly, junior boarder from Maryland, does not have a good impression of the show.
“I think that it is insensitive that the show capitalize on the dead victims and glamorize Jeffrey Dahmer,” she said. “It seems like they try to make viewers sympathize with him through showing how he was messed up because of the adults in his life as a child, which undermines the horrible things he had done.”