Netflix’s new show about Jeffrey Dahmer sparks controversy

The 10 part series stars Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer and doesn’t hold back when portraying the gruesome details of Dahmer’s decade-long murder spree. While fans of true crime have long been excited about its release, the show has sparked criticism from surviving families of some of Dahmer’s victims.

Rita Isbell, the sister of victim Errol Lindsey, has been speaking openly about the fact that Netflix never contacted her about the show, despite portraying her in it. Many other viewers criticized the show, saying that the continuous retelling of Dahmer’s crimes re-traumatizes the victim’s families and is unnecessary to begin with. Katrina Rodriguez, a student at USC, said this:

Katrina Rodriguez: I did see an article that said that they’re like going through the trauma over again by, you know, seeing all of the discourse surrounding it right now.

The series has also been receiving backlash for their portrayal of Dahmer in a way that makes the audience sympathize with him.

Katrina Rodriguez: It’s kind of like generating empathy for the the killers, which is really bad, in my opinion. Even watching it, like I found myself kind of feeling bad for Jeffrey Dahmer sometimes because he had a really rough childhood and stuff, but it’s still, you know, super traumatizing and definitely really bad stuff.

Netflix has not yet made a statement about all the backlash, but they did remove the show from the LGBTQ category after more complaints from viewers, proving at the very least that they have been listening.