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I don’t think it’s good for you.
A friend tells me this as I recount to her a nightmare I had after binge watching True Crime documentaries on my day off. During a time in my life where I felt disconnected from myself, it was an escapism of sorts. A way to live vicariously through the grief of others, to feel something—maybe a reminder that things could always be worse—Jeffrey Dahmer worse.
For self-proclaimed true crime junkies, Netflix’s latest series that follows the story of Jeffrey Dahmer, the notorious cannibalistic, sexual predator and serial killer is fulfilling that need to see just how worse it can get. Dahmer, a white man from Milwaukee, targeted and killed predominantly gay men of color, most of whom were Black for over a decade before getting caught. There have been several films about his life and crimes, including the most recent Netflix original, “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.”
On the other side of this latest sensationalized retelling of Dahmer’s life, which is now one of Netflix most watched series of all time, are the victims and their families. One such person is Rita Isbell, sister of Errol Lindsey who was only nineteen when he was brutally murdered by Dahmer. In an essay with Insider Rita discusses what it was like watching an actress reenact her explosive victim impact statement back in 1992:
When I saw some of the show, it bothered me, especially when I saw myself — when I saw my name come across the screen and this lady saying verbatim exactly what I said.
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.
While the film has been positioned by the actors and creators as victim-centered, according to Isbell and another relative, no one from Netflix reached out to them, IndieWire reported. Whether it’s admitted or not, this series has been an opportunity for everyone involved to further their careers and capitalize off of a horrible story that has been told one time too many under the guise of “honoring” the victims.
For some time now, it’s been hard to carry real or imagined grief, especially when it does not belong to me. It’s why I’ve had to release myself from the grips of cop-aganda: Reruns of New York Undercover; Law & Order: SVU; Criminal Minds; First 48.
One night, I found myself weeping for fictional dead children and devastated families. Chest pains, gasping for breath, heartbroken at the cruelty of this fictional (but also real) world. In that moment I realized I could no longer indulge.
It wasn’t healthy. And it’s also why I am now reckoning with my very recent fascination with true crime stories, and the ways it, too, has caused my body harm.
A few years ago, my grandmother told me she had to stop watching the news:
All of a sudden my chest hurt and I couldn’t catch my breath. It would happen every time I turned the news on. I had to stop watching that mess for a while. These kids won’t stop shooting each other.
Initially, she thought it was a stroke but it was, in fact, a panic attack.
Her experience only validated my own refusal to watch the news. And yet, I was not so evolved as to protect my own heart from eerily similar content. An American Murder. Sins of Our Mother. Binge watching Unsolved Mysteries until my eyes get tired. This was no different than consuming all the sensationalized stories airing on literally every news station, regardless of political affiliation. Like my grandmother, consuming excessive violence through the media was making me sick long before I knew it was.
The truth is we love a compelling story.
We love drama. And scandal. And plot twists.
We love the suspense and shock.
Cannibalism. Dismemberment.
It should disturb us, deeply.
But we are entertained by it. It’s cathartic.
And for brief moments, each story pulls us out of our own bodies, our own troubles, and suddenly we are an invisible bystander to somebody else’s pain. When I say it outright, it is sad. We are so, so sad— and that’s the problem.
On twitter, I came across a thread that showed white women on TikTok complaining that the Jeffrey Dahmer documentary wasn’t gory enough.
They wanted more:
As the often underestimated foot soldiers of white supremacy, brutality against Black and Brown bodies has always been a source of entertainment for them. They share this shamelessly to the worldwide internet only to be validated in their depravity:
I’ve refused to watch the Dahmer series.
But I did google him, out of curiosity. I’ve consumed many serial killer documentaries, but had never heard of him. So, in my true nature, I wanted to at least get the shortened version of his story.
After reading the details of his crimes, I was certain I would never watch the series nor anything else about him. And I was shocked that no one, at least on my timeline, had stated the obvious.
A white man with a history of sexual violence, especially against children, was repeatedly given a slap on the risk and free range to continue his terror.
He was given second chances that Black and Brown children whose lives are taken on playgrounds, at school, and in their homes, are never given. He was given everything he needed to assist in the intentional disposal of those deemed unworthy of life in this country.
His reign of terror was not an accident. So, what is the end goal of glorifying the repeated history of unchecked white violence?
This is not a call out, it’s a call in.
Many of us are sad and lonely and empty to the point of finding solace in the worst of what this world offers.
It is doing something to our hearts and to our capacity for empathy. It’s rupturing our sense of community.
This is not hyperbole.
The widely held obsession with consuming that level of violence is killing our insides. To publicly lust after a murderous sexual predator:
—to say out loud to hundreds and thousands of strangers in a social media universe, I want more…
If that is not a slow, self-induced death, I don’t know what is.
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