During my long rainy weekend, I decided to watch the most popular Netflix show of the moment. After settling down and hitting play I was stunned by the portrayal of the story. I have watched many serial killer mini-series and movies, from Aileen Wuornos to Ted Bundy. This Docuseries idolized Jeffery Dahmer far too much. Evan Peters, the actor who played Dahmer, is famous for his portrayal of sociopaths. Peters portrayed Tate Langdon in American Horror Story, which was a descriptive, scary, amazing show. When people began to idolize Tate Langdon I partially understood, and was not as bothered by it, because the plot was purely fictional. When people began to idolize the completely real Jeffery Dahmer, who took the lives of seventeen men and young boys, I began to become disgusted. 

After watching the Dahmer Documentary I thought about the victims’ stories and the killer’s story. Now behind all of these stories, there was a woman who was the neighbor of Dahmer. During the years they had lived across the hall from one another, suspensions grew for the older woman, who called the police many times on suspicious odors and noises. Glenda Clevland was not listened to because of her race and the people who lived around her. Due to the Aids epidemic that was rising in the eighties, the few policemen who had arrived at the apartment did not want to enter at the risk of catching the disease. The story of Dahmer also seemed more sympathetic than the story of his victims. They portrayed the man as a sick, misfitted person who needed time and a friend. The victims were portrayed in the minor light, almost just as objects, which Dahmer liked to refer to them as. After using my detective skills, I thought about the aftermath of the show. What if there were copycat killers? There had been many from the Jack the Ripper copycat to the movie scream’s copycat. 

There were so many more hiccups in the aftermath of the show. Most of the stories of victims were aired and made more viewers aware of the sad end to some young lives. The one victim that was seen the most during the series was Anthony Hughes. He was found to be deaf after a doctor had misprescribed a medicine used to treat pneumonia as a baby. After being diagnosed as deaf, his family was very adaptive and began to learn American Sign Language. The young man had left home for his modeling career. He soon met Dahmer at a bar and the two soon hit it off. After having a decent relationship for a few months it began to go sour as Dahmer began dreading the boy leaving. He killed the man, leaving a few victims until he was caught. 

For the show’s production, my opinion is the complete opposite of how I viewed Dahmer. For the show’s pace, it was quick but slow enough to understand and was detailed packed. The background music went along amazingly well with the scenes. It also did not have a quiet moment and portrayed the thoughts of characters better than any show I’ve watched. My final opinion of the show was that the production was amazing but the overall message could be damaging.