The truth behind true crime

The genre is more harmful than it seems

Jackie Marquez / Asst. Opinion Editor / The USD Vista

Pop culture is experiencing a true crime renaissance. Currently, “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story’’ is the No. 1 show on Netflix in the U.S.  “Serial,” the most popular true-crime podcast on Spotify, has been downloaded over 340 million times.

Americans  are fascinated with true crime, but this fascination is not harmless. The rise of true crime blurs the line between fact and entertainment, harms the victims’ family members and desensitizes audiences to violence.

True crime draws viewers in with its disturbing portrayals. People want to know what pushes other human beings to do the unthinkable. Some enjoy the adrenaline that comes from the stories’ terrifying details. Others enjoy trying to solve the case for themselves. Regardless of the reasons for watching, many viewers fail to think critically about the media they are consuming.

Shows such as “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” sensationalize murderers. Criminals are depicted by popular actors that are often more attractive than the people they are portraying.

Dahmer has been depicted by Jeremy Renner, Ross Lynch and now Evan Peters. According to the New York Post, individuals are “thirsting” over the modern portrayal of Dahmer on social media platforms. One user posted: “Jeffrey Dahmer’s mugshot definitely gives something I didn’t know or think it would give.”

This trend is not unique to Dahmer. Portrayals of American serial killer Ted Bundy garnered similar reactions. Zac Efron played Bundy in the 2019 film “Extremely Wicked; Shockingly Evil and Vile.” The film depicted Bundy’s life based on his former girlfriend’s memoir.

Bundy himself was described as handsome and charismatic. He even gained media attention during his trial because of his looks. According to an article by The Guardian, Efron was cast because he personified the charm that enabled Bundy to commit the crimes that he did. Casting Efron was a way to explore how murderers can be anyone. However, this sentiment went over viewers’ heads. Instead of thinking critically about how Bundy’s appearance played a role in the case, audiences swooned for Efron’s appearance. It received so much attention that Netflix tweeted a response:

“I’ve seen a lot of talk about Ted Bundy’s alleged hotness and would like to gently remind everyone that there are literally THOUSANDS of hot men on the service — almost all of whom are not convicted serial murderers,” the company wrote.

These glorified representations of criminals lead viewers to mentally separate the entertainment value of the show from the reality of the story. The perpetrators become nothing more than characters. It’s crucial that audiences remember these shows and movies are based on true stories. The killers were real people who brutally murdered other real people. These were individuals with family members, friends and futures.

The sensationalization of true crime especially harms said friends and family members of the victim. After the loss of a loved one, many of these relatives were thrust into the public eye. When cases are put in the spotlight, these were often the first people hounded for information about what happened.

Yet, they are often not consulted when their loved ones’ stories are used for entertainment. When left out of the retellings, their family members’ deaths are exploited without their consent.

Eric Perry, the cousin of Dahmer’s eleventh victim Errol Lindsey, spoke out about the new series’ impact on his family on his Twitter account.

“I’m not telling anyone what to watch, I know true-crime media is huge rn, but if you’re actually curious about the victims, my family (the Isbell’s) are pissed about this show. It’s retraumatizing over and over again, and for what? How many movies/shows/documentaries do we need?” he tweeted.

These stories are traumatizing, but they’re not treated as such. The events they depict draw audiences in with their horrifying details and gory reproductions. In many of these series and films, audiences feel like they’re in the room with the victims. The studios and companies making these portrayals profit off the cases’ shock value.

With constant exposure to true-crime entertainment, audiences are becoming desensitized to violent and criminal subject matter. According to Karyn Riddle, in her paper “A Theory of Vivid Media Violence,” desensitization is a decrease in cognitive, emotional and behavioral responses to violent material. Long-term exposure to violent media can lead to this desensitization in frequent consumers of true-crime content.

Consuming true crime constantly exposes viewers to the suffering of victims, and, the more they consume, the less impactful the stories are, resulting in normalization and desensitization. Viewers are less emotionally responsive each time, and as a result they’re experiencing less empathy for victims.

Instead of encouraging empathy towards the victim, these stories humanize killers. True-crime media helps people understand violent criminals by focusing on their past. Usually this background is a childhood of neglect or abuse, which leads to the audience sympathizing with them. While these people are still human, their actions are not.

To sympathize with them is to overlook the inhumanity of their actions. The sympathy afforded to them by true-crime media is undeserved. Viewers must be mindful of how the content they’re watching influences their attitude toward the criminals being portrayed.

True crime poses a number of issues, but some may argue that it also offers benefits to the real life cases behind the screen.  Featuring these cases in film, television, etc. can help bring attention to unsolved cases and, in rare instances, it can help align evidence and track down more answers. However, this mass media attention is very much a double-edged sword. While it can expedite justice or provide new perspectives on the case, this kind of investigative entertainment can also reopen closed wounds. As reported by NBC, Lee’s brother, Young Lee, spoke to the court following the decision to vacate the conviction.

“I’ve been living with this for like 20-plus years and every day when I think it’s over, whenever I think it’s over or it’s ended, it always comes back. And it’s not just me. It’s killing me, and it’s killing my mother.” he confides.

It’s important to note that the majority of the true-crime community is not qualified to play a role in these cases. Although media attention may sometimes be beneficial, it is not guaranteed that this attention will make a positive difference in the case. More often than not it convolutes the justice process and harms the victim’s loved ones.

The surge in true-crime entertainment harms not only friends and family of victims, but audiences as well. These stories are incredibly immersive, and they place viewers in the shoes of the detective, the victim and the killer. It is imperative that viewers think critically about how these individuals and events are portrayed. They must remember that these are the stories of real victims and real criminals. Their reactions toward these stories aren’t expressed into a void; they can have an impact on the justice process as well as people close to the victims.