the outrage over Netflix’s Dahmer series is decades late, plus: I’m annoyed by every perspective on this topic

Several weeks back, Kate recommended the Dahmer series on Netflix. I was worried it was going to be overly dramatized, really full of over-emoting and shit, but we started it and I actually like most of it so far. We’re six episodes in now, I think.

Then today I was texting with my pal Steph about it and she mentioned the controversy around the fact that the creators of the series never spoke to any of Dahmer’s surviving victims, or the families of the victims, and they also never volunteered any kind of payment to those people. I hda been blissfully unaware of this so I looked it up and found myself quickly annoyed by numerous aspects of the situation.

1. Wtf is wrong with the creators of the show? Why wouldn’t they reach out to the people directly involved with the story they are telling? Probably because they’re inhuman Hollywood scum who’d rather ask forgiveness after making a lot of money on a show instead of asking people for permission and risk being told “no,” or have lots of restrictions placed on the shit they want to make. So the show’s creators suck, right out of the gate.
2. On the other hand, I saw the sister of one of Dahmer’s victims suggested the show should have given some money to the children of the victims, and I think this is kind of fucked too. I agree that it makes some sense and I think that’s the instinctive reaction most of us would have but when I really think about it, it’s so fucking offensive that anyone would want to profit off the murder of their family, period. It would be like, “I traded my relative’s life for this cash,” you know? I doubt many people would see it this way but I can’t stop thinking about it.
3. On top of that, now there is a lot of criticism being leveled at the true crime genre as a whole, with opinion articles suggesting that the genre needs to change its ways if it’s going to survive. But wtf is different now from 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago? Dateline and Hard Copy were doing this shit way back then, why the outrage now? Did millenials need to compulsively consume true crime for a decade before it occurred to them that the genre is incredibly exploitative? I mean, every show since the dawn of time has been like “we’re doing this for the survivors, we’re doing this to educate people so we can avoid similar tragedies,” but that’s all obviously horseshit that anyone who gave it an ounce of thought should have seen through. The only reason anyone does anything, ESPECIALLY in Hollywood, is money, recognition, accolades, etc. If suddenly you took that stuff out of the equation, if all true crime shows and podcasts suddenly had to be done anonymously and were not allowed to earn any income from them, do you think they would continue doing their work as charity for the survivors, for the general public? Not on your life. It’s easy to talk big about your philanthropic endeavors when you’re making bank on them. So don’t give me any of that do-gooder shit. We live in a gratuitously capitalist society that is trying harder and harder to whitewash that fact, but it will always be the driving factor in why we do anything. I think believing anything else is naively idealistic. So why now, why are people only decrying true crime en masse after decades of happily suckling at true crime’s tit? And is there some happy medium, where true crime can be both made more ethically, and consumed more ethically? Sure, but I doubt that will happen. It’s a business, and people making money off it aren’t going to willingly take less for it. And the vast majority of consumers don’t give a fuck about this stuff, they just wanna binge watch trash on Netflix, so nothing will change in that regard.
4. I’m fully down with talking to the families of victims before going ahead with making shows about the shit, but at the same time I can see the argument for not bothering. I mean, history is history, and that’s free to anyone and everyone: like, if you want to do a documentary or something about the Franco-German war, should you need to consult the offspring of those who died in it? If so, how many generations? All of them? What do you do if some say yay while others say nay? I know that’s a silly example and most people would probably agree it’s not necessary for something like that, but what’s the difference with Dahmer? Is it because it’s newer and fresher? If so, who decides how much time needs to pass before you’re allowed to make content about shit without asking for permission from the affected families? This is murky territory in my opinion so I feel like it’s a case by case thing but I really don’t know. I think it’s worth consideration though.
5. One of the criticisms I’m seeing about Dahmer is how it’s portraying Dahmer himself, and his victims. Some people feel like the show makes Dahmer too attractive, or humanizes him too much, or doesn’t give enough of the victims perspectives. This is all obviously up to personal taste, and I think it’s important to hear what other people have to say on topics like these, but to also think critically about those criticisms and if after some thought you think those criticisms are wack, know that it’s ok to disagree with those criticisms. I say this because I definitely do disagree with them — while it’s done pretty poorly in the show, I do like that it is illustrating the ambivalence of the police towards Dahmer and his crimes. It’s like the OJ series I watched a few years ago that tied the politics and racial tensions of the time into the story of OJ — I loved that because in that context, you have a better understanding of why people were doing what they did at the time. As far as Dahmer’s looks, I don’t know how anyone could be like “wow what a hottie” — the actor actually looks just as weird and nerdy as Dahmer — but I agree there are a lot of gratuitous shots of his insanely lean, muscular build. So I guess I can agree with that criticism, especially when you consider that women make up the vast majority of the true crime audience. I certainly don’t think it humanizes him though. Watch real interviews with him and you’ll see that the actor in the show really nailed the way Dahmer speaks, and how he speaks about his actions to the police — it’s an accurate portrayal in that regard so I don’t see how anyone could have a problem with that.

So what’s my conclusion? Should true crime content creators start doing it for free and donate all proceeds to the families of the victims they are covering? What about just a portion of it? Should true crime shit center more on the victims than on the killers, or would that kill (tee hee) what makes the genre so appealing in the first place? Should true crime shows only use ugly and out of shape actors? I don’t know. I’m currently paralyzed by a lot of these questions. I just wanted to write this all down as a starting point to figuring out how I feel about this shit. It’s a complex topic that leads a lot of questions about things far bigger than true crime entertainment, and will surely lead me back to loathing humanity as a whole, just like everything always does.

paper trail

Jenn and I are in the middle of getting raked over the coals by a company that sells manufactured homes, and if I can give one piece of advice to myself 6 months ago and to anyone else who is entering into a contract where a bunch of money and shit is at stake, it is this: don’t accept phone calls or face to face conversations — everything they say, get it in email, text, hard copy, whatever, just get something that you can bring to court to show that they fucked you around.

I’ll give a brief summary of why I say this. We bought a house from this company back in like March, and the salesman told us they would need the house out of their lot by May or June at the latest, and if it stayed later than that they would have to charge us fees. We said sure, no problem, and got to work getting our property ready for the house.

But once we had paid for the house, getting the company to commit to a delivery date was like pulling teeth. Unreturned phone calls, unanswered emails, delivery plans made and then broken, delay after delay due to workers being sick, workers on vacation, trucks broken down and can’t get parts, barge broken down, barge company bailed at the last minute, tides not right, etc, etc, ad nauseum.

At this point, our timelines for a bunch of things are totally fucked, and we’re beyond pissed at how we have been dicked around. But they still have our house, which we paid for and still want, so we don’t want to get in a fight with them just yet. The plan now is that once the house is delivered, we will give the company the opportunity to make things right by basically charging us nothing for the delivery. And if they don’t try to make it right, we will ask them to. And if they refuse, we will take them to small claims court.

Or we will at least threaten to. See, we don’t have much in terms of a paper trail for all the previous delivery dates that they bailed on, because a lot of this was done over the phone. Yeah, I know, you savvy business pricks will be like “ummm HELLO, obvi, duh.” But we have zero experience with this kind of thing, and believed they would want the house off their lot asap, like the sales guy said. We didn’t imagine we would end up here, months later, with them holding our house hostage.

And I’m sure we’re not alone. I bet lots of other people would make this mistake too, and that’s why I’m writing this. Well, that’s not true. I guess I’m just writing it because I’m so fucking pissed about this situation. This whole thing has been ridiculously stressful, start to finish. Fucking hell. So, ok, this post is just for me: next time you buy something big, get them to email you every god damn minute detail, you fucking bonehead. Because you just never know the creative ways in which people will kick you in the balls and rake you over the fucking coals.

Ps, I emailed the company this evening asking for the details of the latest delivery plan via email. I know it’s likely too late but better late than never.