Does the True Crime series have any obligations to the

Does the True Crime series have any obligations to the victims’ families?

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One of the most watched Netflix productions of the last few days is Dahmer: Monsters: The Story of Jeffrey Dahmer, a miniseries that, as the superfluous title suggests, is about American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who killed 17 men between 1978 and 1991, including boys, who later commit necrophilia and cannibalism.

Despite the hit with audiences, similar to many other true crime series and films that tell true crime stories, Dahmer has received some criticism of an ethical nature that reignites the debate about the point of telling horrifying violent events to entertain people. In particular, this criticism raised the question of whether true crime should somehow compensate the families of the victims of the crimes it tells.

True crime works, whether serial or not, heard as a podcast or seen on screen, can be divided into documentaries and narrative reconstructions. In the former, it is more common for the victims’ families to be involved to add their own testimony to the story. However, it happens that they are also consulted in the production of films and series to help the screenwriters better understand what the people they have to turn into characters were really like. Take Ava DuVernay for the miniseries When They See Us, dedicated to the “Central Park Five,” five boys wrongfully convicted of rape.

– Also read: Why did almost all of the most famous serial killings in Italy, like in the United States, take place over three decades?

However, Dahmer was not enough and some relatives of the victims of the series’ killer protagonist have publicly complained and criticized Netflix and the writers. For example, Eric Perry, cousin of one who Dahmer killed, Errol Lindsey, tweeted that the series “continues to traumatize the family, and for what?” He also indicated that his family had not been informed that a new series about the Dahmer murders was coming out and had denied the version of the people who worked on it that they were doing it “with respect for the victims”.

According to Rita Isbell, Lindsey’s sister, a portion of the profits from the series should have been donated to the victims’ children and grandchildren. Among the characters of Dahmer is Isbell, played by actress DaShawn Barnes: in one of the scenes of the series, her outburst during the trial of the killer was recreated with great precision. “It’s sad that they are getting rich from this tragedy,” he told Insider.

Dahmer was created by Ryan Murphy, best known as the creator of American Horror Story, American Crime Story, and Pose, among others. It is not the first audiovisual product created to tell the story of Jeffrey Dahmer’s crimes: there have already been five films and numerous television show episodes devoted to the affair.

According to Aja Romano, a Vox culture critic who wrote an article about the series’ ethical considerations, Dahmer is the American serial killer whose story has been told several times alongside Ted Bundy, and as in Bundy’s case, much of the reporting focuses on him and his character, “with an emphasis on gory detail and often glossing over the heap of systemic problems and sociocultural factors that allowed the crimes to go on for so long”.

Romano points out that Dahmer’s victims were mainly gay men and African Americans or at least members of ethnic minorities. Police in Milwaukee, the city of Dahmer, are believed to have long neglected the disappearances of their victims because of discrimination reserved for these groups of people and only realized a serial killer was at work after the deaths of many of them. .

Ryan Murphy’s series shows that connection at a few moments, says Romano, but still focuses on the killer, as evidenced by the choice to use his name twice in the title: Dahmer’s psychology, family history, and habits are at the heart of the story. “Is it possible to watch a true crime product without at least partially re-victimizing real people?” asks Romano, suggesting that starting from the crime perspective, a new way of telling these kinds of stories could be found Victims without making the killers spectacular. In short, there could be a more respectful way of telling certain stories: in the case of Dahmer, for example, he says, one could have chosen to direct the plot toward the Lindsey and Isbell families, their social context, and the aftermath focus of Errol’s murder.

This kind of criticism is part of a recent widespread tendency to pretend that almost all series and films have some kind of social function, be it one of denunciation or empowerment. However, it is also a very criticized perspective because, according to many, it severely limits the possibilities of art and, in the end, makes films, series and books sterile and predictable, which should have other priorities and goals: entertain, surprise, disturb, entertain, stimulate , moving, etc., but not necessarily educating.

In other words, it’s normal and desirable for writers to focus on what they think most appeals to viewers. But the proliferation of true crime genre products in recent years, often cheaply, has nonetheless sparked debate as to whether they should follow some sort of ethical standard given that they are stories of real human suffering, who in many cases are still alive and still suffering the consequences of the episodes narrated.

– Also read: The Story of True Crime Stories