The Tragic Truth of Jeffery Dahmer

The series starts out with a shot of infamous serial killer Jeffery Dahmer in his Milwaukee, Wisconsin apartment on the night of July 22, 1991, with a man who would end Dahmers 13-year murder streak, in which he killed at least 17 men and boys. From this moment, the Netflix show “Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story'' details the life of Jeffrey Dahmer and the impacts his actions had on not only his victims' families but the world. It has gained a plethora of attention and viewers have many mixed emotions. While watching the show, viewers see several tragic storylines of how Dahmer killed his victims, the impacts these murders had on the victims’ families and those around Dahmer, along with a glimpse into the murderer’s life from childhood through adulthood. 

The whole experience of watching this new limited series is one that is hard to describe. Many viewers, however, are fascinated that one man could have caused so much pain. 

We get to see Dahmer as a little boy growing up and then throughout his life. The show seems to focus a lot on Dahmer and his past rather than the victims and how their lives lead, unfortunately, to him. There are many complaints from the victims' families saying they were never contacted about the show. Errol Lindsey, one of Dahmer's last victims, has a sister who was very upset she was never contacted. She told the Los Angeles Times she was never contacted and has no desire to watch the show. “I lived it, I don't need to watch it,” she said. 

Shirley Hughes, mother of Tony Hughes, another victim of Dahmer, said in a phone interview with The Guardian, “I don't see how they can do that. I don't see how they can use our names and put stuff like that out there.” It's hard to imagine someone's pain and suffering becoming a show that a friend might binge in one weekend. 

Having a show like this come out on such a well-known platform is bound to get a lot of attention. Dahmer quickly became Netflix’s number-one watched show only days after its release with 196 million hours viewed. Is this shedding light on the heinous crimes or is it just putting Dahmer in the spotlight again? 

It also exposed a lot of racism against African Americans and people of color during the time, as well as the LGBTQ+ community. When making a show this serious, the directors tried to create an authentic portrayal of the situation at the time. However, bringing up those issues of racism and prejudice can understandably be triggering to viewers. 

America still has a long way to go with the relationship between the police and people of color. Dahmer brought up a good topic with the character Glenda Cleveland, Dahmer's neighbor. The show was actually very inconsistent with this character because Cleveland neither lived in the Oxford apartments nor ever met Dahmer in real life. It is true however, she had called the police multiple times about Dahmer but was always pushed to the side and ignored. The police didn't bother listening to her because she was black, and we see that a lot throughout the show. 

Dahmer also touches upon the topic of the AIDS pandemic and how the public was repulsed by the disease and therefore thought being gay was wrong. Dahmer himself was gay, so he only went after men; gay or straight it didn’t matter to him.  

The series shows two cops who said they had to get “deloused” after walking into Dahmer's apartment because they didn't want to catch anything, hinting they didn't want to contract the AIDS virus. There were also a of couple moments where outside characters found out they either tested positive or negative for AIDS. These scenes added nothing to the story and just showed that gay people had to worry about the disease. 

Dahmer tried to play the victim throughout his life. He was constantly saying people were out to get him and that he was not interested in anything. He, in reality, was just a creepy guy who was making a lot of wrong moves. The show attempted to put Dahmer in an innocent light by showing his backstory but other than a disconnected family, he wasn't really in a bad position. He didn't try very hard to get ahead in life and couldn't get over his compulsion to go after people. 

I think by watching this show viewers can get a good understanding of how he was easily able to get away with his murders and lure the victims back to get them right where he wanted them. He tricked and played a lot of people to get away with what he did. 

Since Dahmer was a white male and the people going against him were people of color, he was almost always able to get the police on his side. In the case of 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone, the police led this poor boy back into Dahmer’s arms because he claimed that Sinthasomphone was his boyfriend. The boy was Laotian so the cops didn't really bother with trying to see if he was really ok. This is just another example of the blunt racism the show portrays. 

The show is a good watch to understand what exactly he did to his victims, however, it doesn't explain why he did it. It is disturbing to look at what he did to his victims, so viewers should be aware of that, but overall the show was a good indicator of what crimes Dahmer committed. 

The acting was also exceptional and really well played out. Evan Peters, the star of the gruesome show, had to transform into a different person for the role. “I had to go into really dark places for an extended period of time,” he told Netflix when they asked about his prep. Director Ryan Murphy pushed Peters to watch the NBC interview with Stone Phillips when he talked to Dahmer about his crimes. Peters studied his police reports and read biographies and news articles about his crimes.

All the scenes were recreated close to perfect and most of the events were fairly accurate to what actually happened. There were the small things the show got wrong, like the real Dahmer not wearing his glasses during the trial or that his door only had 2 locks instead of the several bolts that were shown. On the other hand, the directors had an almost picture-perfect replica of his Milwaukee apartment, including the blood-stained mattress and chemicals in the kitchen. The series never included anything about 19-year-old Errol Lindsey but used his sister's testimony in the end of the series. This was a little odd considering his sister's outburst was so memorable they included it, but nothing about the victim and his story at all. 

Dahmer's story has been told multiple times over, but this series dives a little deeper. I think this is a show that only needs on watch because of its heavy content, but it gives a good idea about Dahmer and how he terrorized the city of Milwaukee.