Romanticizing Devils
Gen Zers have fallen in love with serial killers and forgotten the intentions behind true crime documentaries
BY RAE DAMROW WITH ART BY NATALIE WILLIAMS
When I heard that Evan Peters had been casted to play Jeffrey Dahmer in the Netflix’s dramatization docuseries “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” I was excited. As someone who adores “American Horror Story,” I was thrilled to see Peters take on such a horrifying role like he has done seamlessly in the past. What I did not realize, shockingly, was that people would glorify the heinous crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer because of the light that Evan Peters portrays him in.
Almost immediately after the show dropped, fans from all over buzzed about the hauntingly morbid nature of the show. Along with those comments came something unexpected: how unbothered many were with the show. Soon after “Monster's” release, a stream of TikToks flooded people’s feeds with edits from the show. Captions ranged from “I know this man is traumatized from taking on another serial killer role, but he looks so hot tho” to “The clutch Evan Peters had me in with this scene.” Hundreds more had similar captions about how attractive Evan Peters made Jeffrey Dahmer look in the docuseries.
To take this another step further, many were making TikToks about how if they knew Jeffrey Dahmer back when his killing spree began, they would be able to fix him. “He wouldn’t have killed me because I would’ve helped him,” one of the captions read. Others took to Twitter with tweets like “Wish he was still alive. I’d def write to him” and “Jeff was a good man and that’s why he gave the men quick deaths.”
While these are more than a few examples, I feel as though several are needed in order to get my point across: stop romanticizing serial killers. You would not have changed them because no one was able to. These men were cold blooded killers who were going to stop at nothing to tear apart their next victim. Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 men between the ages of 14 and 33. He raped, tortured, dismembered, and even ate some of his victims. What bothers me the most about people romanticizing serial killers is sometimes it seems as if people neglect the atrocious crimes these men committed because they are blinded by their attractiveness. How can you neglect to remember that Dahmer was a cannibal?
The same can be said about Zac Efron when he took on the role of Ted Bundy in “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile.” A similar response to that of Peters portrayal of Dahmer flowed through social media with Efron playing one of the most notorious serial killers in American history. Bundy was responsible for the murders of over 30 women while being responsible for attacking several others. He would rape, mutilate, and bludgeon his victims to death. Even worse, Bundy continued to engage in sexual acts with the women he killed after their deaths, telling police he enjoyed laying next to their corpses. There were even times when he would cut off victims heads and use them at a later date for sexual acts. Yet, when Netflix released the retelling of Bundy’s story, starring Zac Efron, the world went crazy over him. TikTok and Twitter were once again taken over by people raging about how “hot” Efron looked while personifying Bundy.
The Wake put out a survey to test my theory on how college students view the actors from these types of documentaries, and the responses caught me by surprise. Out of the 30 people who took the survey, 8.3% said Evan Peters was “still hot” while playing Jeffrey Dahmer and 14.3% said Zac Efron “could still get it” while playing Ted Bundy. Overwhelmingly, though, most people were disgusted by the actors while they took on these roles. When asked what their thoughts were on Monster, there were two similar responses that stood out: many were upset that the producers of the show did not ask for the consent of the families of the victims before shooting the show and the show did not need to be made. There were a couple of people who said they did not want to watch the show out of principle since the majority of Dahmer’s victims were part of the LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities. Comments ranged from “I don't jive with glorifying grisly violence against black gay men” to “I think its just another example of the commodification of black pain and trauma for the entertainment of white people.” Responses for people’s thoughts on “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile” were similar to Dahmer in the sense that people did not think it should have been made since it glorified a mass serial killer and did not focus on the victims of Bundy.
I encourage people to think about what the true intentions are of these movies and shows: to remember the victims. One of the Dahmer episodes focuses on Tony Hughes, a deaf aspiring model and one of Dahmer’s victims. Hughes had been deaf since infancy because a doctor misprescribed him medication. He learned sign language and how to read lips. The episode is especially heartbreaking because Dahmer murders Hughes with a hammer when he tries to leave after the two spend a night together. The closing scene of the episode shows Dahmer cooking and eating Hughes’ liver after donating money to the search efforts for him. The mother of Tony Hughes, who is 85-years-old, talked about how retraumatizing the show is and how she is continuing to grieve the murder of her son.
Eric Perry, cousin to Errol Lindsey, another one of Dahmer’s victims, also talked about how pissed his family is about the show. In an article written by People Magazine, he said “How many movies/shows/documentaries do we need?”. So many Gen Zers are obsessed with true crime, myself being one of them. On the other hand, though, I would rather give up any sense of my entertainment than have the families of the victims relive the horrors of losing those they held close to their hearts.
We have to stop romanticizing serial killers. We have to stop making these dramatized shows that are not completely accurate. There have been a plethora of real life documentaries that tell the events of what happened with serial killers. There is no need to produce these dramatizations when the documentaries should be satisfactory enough. It is understandable as to why we are fascinated by shows like these, but as a society we need to rethink the reasons behind why we are compelled to watch shows like this. Does the financial potential of a true crime story warrant the consequent retraumatization of friends and family members of the victim? All we are doing is lifting up serial killers and giving them the attention they were so desperately seeking by committing their crimes. This is what they wanted, and we are happily giving it to them.
Jeffrey Dahmer sat down multiple times with different news stations to talk about his crimes. He talked about how addictive killing was to him, an intense compulsion. One reporter who interviewed him said they saw no remorse from Dahmer, that he was unemotional about his crimes when he spoke about them (in great detail, might I add). Dahmer said if he would have been released from prison, nothing, and I mean nothing, would have stopped him from going back to his old ways. So for those of you who think you could have fixed him, do you still believe you could have been Dahmer’s knight in shining armor?
The next time you watch a show/movie like “Monster” or “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile,” ask yourself why you are watching, and if you truly believe it is worth romanticizing devils.