How Netflix turned Jeffrey Dahmer into its ‘star’ of the month

Netflix will showcase plenty of big-name stars in the weeks ahead as the streaming service begins its buildup toward awards season.

But its current leading man, its MVP for the month, is Jeffrey Dahmer, the notorious serial killer who died in 1994.

And in case that hasn’t satisfied interest in all things Dahmer, that will be followed Oct. 7 by “Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes.

Obviously, there’s an enduring fascination with serial killers that has fueled interest in a certain strata of the most prolific and heinous of them – what criminologist Scott A. Bonn called “celebrity monsters” in a 2017 piece for Psychology Today.

Yet the renewed fascination with Dahmer again raises questions about whether these Hollywood productions starring charismatic actors.

The producers of “Monster,” Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, were clearly aware of those concerns, seeking to place more emphasis on Dahmer’s 17 victims, and a justice system that allowed him to get away with murder as long as he did.

Nevertheless, there’s an unsettling quality to the way the program – with the benefit of 10 episodes to tell the story – prolongs some of those encounters and depicts the grisly evidence of Dahmer’s crimes.

View More