CONTENT WARNING: Descriptions of gore, violence, murder, and the demonic. NOT FOR CHILDREN OR THOSE WHO ARE FAINT OF HEART
The Netflix docudrama Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story has quickly found itself topping the Netflix charts, becoming the second most-viewed English-language series on the platform in just its second week. It currently dominates the Top 10 list.
It is no wonder why this show is doing so well. Jeffrey Dahmer is perhaps the most infamous and notorious serial killer in American history whose crimes are the stuff of horror movies. The show is also extremely well-made and captivating, and with Hallowe'en right around the corner people are prepped to watch disturbing, horrific material like this. However, this series and its stunning popularity have reignited an old debate : should series like these exist?
The answer is very simple: absolutely not.
Let us begin by reiterating that this film was very well made. The acting was spectacular, especially on the part of Evan Peters who played the titular serial killer and showed both the uncomfortable facts of the Dahmer case and the uncomfortable fact that Dahmer, like you and this author, was a human being. The score was bone-chilling and truly stirred the emotions; there was one specific scene in which Dahmer calls the sister of one of his victims to cryptically taunt her and the score underlying that scene made it absolutely haunting. The effects were top notch, and you could almost get the feeling that what you were really watching what actually happening.
And in therein lies the problem: this show is one, ten-hour long snuff film. This film portrays, in grueling detail, the most horrific murders committed by the most notorious serial killer in possibly all of human history. From him flushing the body of Steven Hicks down the toilet, to caving in the chest of Steven Toumei, to drilling a hole in the head of 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone, to the absolutely disgusting depiction of Dahmer pan-frying and eating the flesh of Anthony Hughes, to recreations of the mangled human bodies found in his apartment the night he was arrested, this film pulls no punches and shows in gruesome fashion the depths of Dahmer's demonic depravity.
To top it all off, this is done not for educational value (as there are plenty of books and articles to be read without visually consuming the carnage), nor is it done to make a statement or to bring awareness to the victims (whose families were not compensated or even contacted about the making of the series). This was done solely for entertainment purposes. After all, considering the popularity of shows like Squid Game, Ozark, and other true crime series, it's no wonder that Netflix and Prospect Films decided to make and release this show just a month before people begin their annual Hallowe'en festivities.
Creating this gore-fest for the sole purpose of putting on a good spooky show forms the bedrock for further problems. The problem that this author had while watching it was that he felt monstrously unclean for watching it, not merely because of its contents, but because of the nature of it. To illustrate: if one watches A Nightmare on Elm Street, one can enjoy it because serial killers don't die and become dream demons, according to the laws of both the natural and the supernatural orders. The same goes with Child's Play, Friday the 13th, some of Steven King's supernatural horror films like It, The Shining, or The Children of the Corn, or even more realistic crime movies like Silence of the Lambs or Psycho. When one watches these movies, he can easily think "this isn't real," suspend his disbelief, and move on.
In this case, though, not only is one unable to suspend his disbelief, but to do so would almost certainly be immoral for the chilling fact that there is no disbelief to be had. The events of Dahmer, though fictionalized, actually happened in the same ways that they play out on screen. You cannot pretend that this didn't happen because to do so is in discord with reality and it trivializes what is nothing short of a satanic crime against the dignity of the human person.
From this, we see that Netflix, in making a series that revolves around an evil person and makes an evil person the protagonist of the series, by nature glorifies his evil and makes him someone the audience feels the need to root for. In the series, Dahmer is not the villain in the victims' stories (although that would not justify this murder-porn), but the victims are hopeless, unfortunate wanderers in Dahmer's story who are present literally for his consumption. That is what setting up this story in this way does (albeit the episode "Silence" does put the main focus on victim Anthony Hughes).
Not only is Netflix exploiting the victims and their families for cheap entertainment, but Netflix is exploiting them for its own profit. To make it clear, Netflix's aim is to make a profit by depicting in gruesome, photorealistic detail, the torture, sexual abuse, death, and mutilation of innocent men by a demoniac man. Netflix never contacted the families to ask if they had any problems with making this docudrama or anything of the sort, and it had the families up and arms. Rita Isbell, the sister of Errol Lindsey, said that watching the series' recreation of her courtroom victim impact statement brought back all of the memories and feelings of the event back to her and retraumatized her. Likewise, Shirley Hughes, the mother of Anthony Hughes, stated that the events of the show "didn't happen like that" and that she didn't see "how they can do that."
Dahmer does not add to our understanding of Jeffrey Dahmer's murder, or to our appreciation of his victims and their human dignity. Instead, it turns the unspeakably tragic, diabolic ordeal into a spectacle for public consumption and amusement, and for Netflix's enrichment. For that reason alone, no one should watch it.
With all of that said, there are two spiritual realities that can be gleamed from looking at the life and crimes of Jefferey Dahmer himself.
The first is that Jeffrey Dahmer was, during his trial and since, been described as pure evil, and this could not be any more accurate. There is a reason why his name tops list after list after list of the most infamous serial killers in American (and human) history, despite the fact that a good many more serial killers killed a good many more people than Dahmer did: what Dahmer did was satanic.
It is the unprofessional opinion of the layman writing this piece that Jeffrey Dahmer was a demoniac. If he was not fully possessed by a demon, he at least suffered from serious demonic influence. Consider that, to start, Dahmer would entice people into his apartment to commit mortal sin and then immediately move to end their lives. This is the work of demons and what they strive to do. Next, Dahmer was fascinated with people he considered evil and wanted to emulate them. He bought yellow contact lenses to look more like the Emperor from Star Wars and watched The Exorcist III daily. Finally, at the time of his arrest, Dahmer was reading The Satanic Bible and was in the process of collecting the human materials necessary for a satanic altar dedicated to himself. Let it be said again: Dahmer was collecting human trophies so that he could use them to build a satanic altar dedicated to himself, where he could meditate and draw power from it. Once again, this author is no exorcist and no expert on demonology or spiritual warfare, but that at least seems to point to demonic influence. This itself is another reason why no one should watch this series: it opens a door to the diabolic.
It is important to note that even if Dahmer was influenced by demons, it is not the opinion of this author that this would remove or even mitigate his culpability. By his own admission, Dahmer believed himself to be in control of his own actions and would routinely say the only person to blame for his crimes was himself. To this author, based on the real-life interviews and testimony of Dahmer, Dahmer seemed to be rational and in control of his faculties.
After being sent to prison, Dahmer was murdered by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver just two years into his nearly 1,000-year sentence. Most people are unaware of the events that happened between Dahmer's sentencing and final end, however, and these events bring us to the second spiritual reality.
Before his death in prison, Dahmer converted to Christianity and was baptized by a church of Christ minister, Roy Ratcliffe. Ratcliffe had been asked by Curt Booth, an Oklahoman church of Christ prison minister who had been keeping correspondence with Dahmer, to go and baptize Dahmer. According to Ratcliffe, Dahmer had told him that he was nervous about Ratcliffe's arrival, fearing that Ratcliffe would inform him that he was too evil to be forgiven and receive baptism. Another Oklahoman had heard of Dahmer's baptism and sent Dahmer a letter, to which Dahmer replied by sending five dollars and asking for several copies of a Bible correspondence course which he could distribute to other prisoners.
Dahmer had regularly attended Bible studies with Ratcliffe, and Dahmer would ask Ratcliffe whether or not it was a sin for Dahmer to keep living because of his crimes. According to his family, Dahmer had told them that he accepted whatever punishment he received in prison that he didn't care if anything happened to him. It seemed that Dahmer accepted all of this as a kind of penance for his heinous crimes. According to Scarver, Dahmer would make good on that resolution to accept his punishment. As he was bludgeoned to death, he did not fight back or even make a noise.
Dahmer was very different from many notorious serial killers in that he never denied that he committed his crimes, and he never attempted to shift blame to anyone else. While he would often talk about an irresistible compulsion to commit the crimes he committed, he made it clear during his Inside Edition interview that "the person to blame is sitting right across from you [i.e. himself]. That's the only person. Not parents, not society, not pornography. I mean, those are just excuses." He repeated this sentiment in his 1994 interview with Stone Phillips, saying that "there comes a point when a person has to be accountable for what he's done. You can't go around making excuses, blaming other people or other things, so I alone am the one who's responsible for what's happened." During the same interview, he talked about his conversion, but rather than talk about how he's saved and none of what he did mattered anymore, he talked about accountability: "I have since come to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the true creator of the heavens and the earth... and I believe that I, as well as everyone else, will be held accountable to Him."
The only mildly redeeming thing about the series is that Dahmer's conversion is portrayed in the final episode of the series and seems to be portrayed as wholly genuine: he tells his father Lionel he wants to be baptized, asks his father for forgiveness, and begins donating his $0.25 per hour prison-wage to the church. The series then leaves it up to the individual as to whether or not Dahmer should be forgiven for his crimes or not.
One of the critiques of shows like this one is that they often humanize their subject. While it is not good to canonize or sanctify a killer, there is no problem with humanizing them, and that for two reasons: one, someone like Jeffrey Dahmer was and is a human, just like the author and readers of this article, and we are each capable of the same horrific acts which Dahmer committed, and; two, it reminds us that Dahmer was not beyond the possibility of forgiveness. Dahmer, like anybody else, was fully capable of recognizing the error of his ways and repenting, and by all accounts that's exactly what he did.
This is not to say that Dahmer is definitely in the Beatific Vision. From a generic Christian standpoint, nobody knows the heart of man but God alone, so we cannot be fully sure if his conversion was genuine or if he persevered to the end. From a Catholic perspective, Dahmer was validly baptized but did not have access to the other Sacraments and would thereby have to have made a perfect act of contrition to be forgiven of any mortal sins post-baptism. However, the point that must be made and fully accepted is that there is at least a very real possibility that Jeffrey Dahmer did penance for his sins, was baptized, and is now a saint in the Heavenly courts.
If this thought is offensive, it is not due to a lack of a sense of justice on the part of the author, but a lack of charity on the part of he who is offended. It would be pedantic and extremely unjust to repeat the oft-said evangelical protestant line that "all sins are equal before God" and nonsense like that. Let us be clear: unless one has murdered 17 men and cannibalized them, one is not comparable with Jeffrey Dahmer. That said, all men are still sinners who deserve death and Hell and will experience both if they are not washed in the atoning Blood of Christ our Lord. One should not despair of his own salvation, but one should also not take his salvation for granted. The reader of this article and the author of the same could both wind up in eternal perdition if they die in mortal sin, and so constant repentance is necessary. If God is willing to forgive the diabolical sins of Jeffrey Dahmer, how much more will he forgive the sins of a regular person?
Do not watch this series. Though it is well made, it depicts the demonic crimes of a demented man in a way that is hard to distinguish from real life carnage, and you cannot turn simply turn your brain off to consume it because the events actually happened. Furthermore, it turns real human tragedy into macabre entertainment for the profit of Netflix's shareholders, all at the expense of the victim's surviving families.
What you should do, however, is get on your knees and pray eighteen Hail Marys. Pray one for each of the men that Dahmer killed: Steven Hicks, Steven Toumei, James Doxtator, Anthony Sears, Raymond Smith, Edward Smith, Ernest Miller, David Thomas, Curtis Straughter, Errol Lindsey, Anthony Hughes, Konerak Sinthasomphone, Matt Turner, Jeremiah Weinberger, Oliver Lacy, and Joseph Bradehoft. Then, whether you hate the man or not, pray one for Jeffrey Dahmer.
Let us hope and pray that all of these men are rejoicing in the bosom of Christ our Lord right now.
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