Who asked for another TV show about Jeffrey Dahmer? The serial killer – who murdered 17 men and boys in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – died in 1994, but thanks to Netflix, he's back in the spotlight once more. Not that he ever really left.
Since Dahmer's conviction in 1992, the true-crime machine has barely taken a break from churning out documentaries, film and TV adaptations, books, and podcasts (so many podcasts) about his life and crimes. This relentless stream of Dahmer content is realised through a creative disregard for the families of his victims, who – as Eric Thulhu, a family member of Errol Lindsey's, who was tortured and murdered by Dahmer – recently tweeted – are constantly being re-traumatised.
Not only are these family members expected to cope with the literal re-enaction of their trauma (see this comparison clip of Rita Isbell, Errol Lindsey's sister, confronting Dahmer in court), but they must also suffer the indignity of witnessing the real-time romanticisation of Dahmer's image, prompting not-so-guilty declarations of lust from many true-crime fans.
Over on TikTok, multiple users are sharing a scene from episode three of Dahmer in which Evan Peters (cast in the lead role) strip teases in front of a mirror, wearing an unbuttoned plaid shirt that hangs loosely against his glistening, muscular chest. While this clip is often shared with some form of loose disclaimer – “like I know Dahmer is about a serial killer…” – or an assurance that the subject of desire is Evans “not Dahmer – fvck Dahmer [sic],” it's still unapologetically about lusting after the portrayal of a serial killer.
It's not the first time Netflix has been criticised for glamorising a serial killer. Take the 2019 Ted Bundy adaptation, bizarrely titled Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile, which starred Zac Efron – yep, one of the most lusted-after men in Hollywood – in the titular role.
Unlike in Dahmer, an effort was made in the Bundy biopic to avoid graphic depictions of the criminal's various murders and sexual assaults. But in casting Efron in this role – dark curls and all – the show's creators relied on an aspect of true crime that few would openly admit to experiencing: thirst.
It's an unsettling reality that most male serial killers have some sort of fanbase, mostly consisting of young, white women. And we're not just talking about the women who waited outside courtrooms, sent love letters, and sometimes even married (as in the case of Ted Bundy) convicted rapists, cannibals, and serial killers. We're talking about young women with Ted Bundy's name in their Twitter bio (followed by a love heart, of course), communities on Tumblr devoted to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (who murdered 13 people at Columbine High school in 1999), and naturally, endless TikToks about how Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer is kind of hot, actually.
In fact, you can even buy a T-shirt with Evan Peters in his Dahmer get-up printed on the front. Or, if you prefer, you can opt for a quirkier design of Dahmer himself, plastered on a retro pattern with the slogan “I eat guys like you for breakfast” – a play on the fact that Dahmer ate some of his victim's body parts. Because why wouldn't you want to walk around with that on your chest?
It's creating an environment where bisexual survivors are less likely to seek support.
The creepy fascination with serial killers – who usually need to be white, male, and relatively good-looking to sufficiently capture our imagination – has turbo-charged the true-crime industrial complex. And guess what? True crime is significantly consumed (and thus marketed to) women, with one study finding that the true-crime podcast audience is 73% female, while another study (which focused on true-crime books) theorised that by consuming true-crime, women could gain potentially “lifesaving knowledge” about avoiding or escaping from a serial killer.
Rachel Monroe, journalist and author of Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession, touches on this theory, telling The Guardian, “Reading a true crime story about a stalker who murdered his girlfriend might be a way for a woman to process her own anxieties.” However, Munroe adds, this theory typically favours “stories about attractive middle-class white women who’ve gone missing versus stories about the people who are much more likely to suffer violence in our society.”
Ryan Murphy's Dahmer perfectly illustrates Monroe's point. Jeffrey Dahmer's victims were all male. He targeted gay men who were mostly “poor and African American, Asian, or Latino” (per Encyclopedia Britannica.) There's no “lifesaving knowledge” that could possibly justify a white woman crushing on Dahmer – she was simply never endangered by him in the same way that Black, gay men and boys were. Their attraction to Dahmer overshadows any potential compassion for the lives of his victims, further centring themselves as the key players in the true-crimeiverse.
GLAMOUR has contacted Netflix for comment. This article will be kept updated.
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