Since the publishing of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood in 1966, the true crime genre has grown increasingly popular in media. Especially amongst younger generations, consumers’ love for true crime has become a defining personality trait. It is something they love to share with other people. Podcasts like Crime Junkies and series like Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer have catered to consumers’ craving for true crime and united the true crime community. However, it wasn’t until the recent release of Netflix’s Dahmer that many people began to question the ethics of the true crime genre.
Since its release in September, Dahmer has sparked controversy on social media sites. Younger generations of true crime fans have posted to TikTok, explaining the ways the series has exploited victims and their families. Since this uproar, many people have realized that Dahmer was not the first true crime series to be questioned for its appropriateness. In fact, it’s more than just a docuseries. Various movies and podcasts of the true crime genre have been revisited recently (many of these are decades old), concerning their ethics. Although many people will argue that the true crime genre is an ethical and healthy form of entertainment, the recent shift from “true crime” to a subgenre of more dramatized and increasingly violent crime has shed light on the various ethical and psychological issues that communities are facing. Recent backlash to true crime as a genre indicates that viewers, especially Christian viewers, may need more self-discernment concerning media consumption.
Many people agree that true crime does bring some level of awareness to different issues surrounding crime, such as issues within the justice system, and the mental health histories of killers. Sometimes consumers will apply what they learn from true crime to their own lives and use that to keep themselves safe. These are all valid arguments for supporting the genre, but many ethical issues are created by how generally personal and serious the subject matter is.
In response to the turmoil, many reliable sources are arguing for the “healthy obsession” with the true crime genre. Journalist Linda Rodriguez McRobbie does this in her article for the Boston Globe. She begins her article by telling the story of a woman who was murdered by her husband in 1828. After not hearing from her for a year, Maria Marten’s father went looking for her. He found her body decomposing in her husband’s barn. McRobbie explains that “we know her story even today because media at the time made sure no one forgot.” According to McRobbie, plays about the murder were performed across England, while Marten’s husband awaited his trial.
McRobbie’s focus shifts from the long history of true crime to the science behind our obsession. She says, “But worrying whether true crime is bad for us seems beside the point, because the genre’s longevity is evidence that it clearly gives us something we need.” McRobbie explains that at a young age, we are “primed to pay more attention to negative events and outcomes than to positive ones.” She explains that, as children, we are taught to pay attention to something that hurts us or causes us pain. We begin with hot stoves, then as we grow older we begin to pay attention to other, more complex, things that could hurt us.
This is not the only reason we enjoy consuming true crime. In fact, no one has ever been able to pinpoint a single reason we enjoy the genre. Other reasons that McRobbie and various others have thought of include the insights it gives us into our culture and anxieties, our general curiosity as humans and the comfort in knowing that though we may not have perfect lives, someone else always has it worse.
In her dissertation Women’s Timeless Fascination with True Crime and Horror, Sarah V. Di Carluccio touches on the way we gain insights into our anxieties. She explains that women (the primary audience of true crime) are invested in the “popular narratives detailing themes of fear and specifically female anxieties.” True crime tends to validate women’s fears. However, as Di Carluccio says, “viewing these stories as a form of entertainment only exacerbates [the reality of what women fear].”
I agree with McRobbie that true crime has always been around and it is fairly natural to be curious about it. I also agree with Di Carluccio, that in many cases, our investment in true crime can be harmful to our psychological state. I believe that Di Carluccio’s distinction of viewing true crime as entertainment versus as educational is what’s really important here.
At some point in time, there has been a shift in what “true crime” really is. This is the factor many people leave out when surveying the ethics or weighing the psychological impacts of true crime. As McRobbie said, true crime has been around for decades. What she and so many others fail to see is that it has changed over time. At some point, we shifted our focus from true crime documentaries to movies and television shows that are similar to, but don’t quite belong in the “docuseries” category. Forensic Files was based on true stories about real people. Little of it was fabricated. Reenactments of the crime and lab processes were intentionally filmed in a unique style, so that viewers knew for sure what was real footage and what was a reenactment. In a 2016 interview with Jennifer Wood, Paul Dowling (executive producer of Forensic Files) says “some crime TV series today try to make recreations seamless, so viewers can’t tell what’s real and what’s not. I find that very confusing and, frankly, unfair to the accused.” In this interview, Dowling also described the narrative aspect of the documentary. Narration is a primary (and important) difference between documentaries and television series.
Though the true crime being produced today is typically based on real stories, there are many examples of what Dowling talked about in his interview: a lot of what we call “true crime” is fabricated and dramatized. This is due to the increase of violence in movies and television and the idolization of “the villain” in media (the way we focus again and again on “sensational” killers, like Jeffrey Dahmer, is a prime example of this). As we have moved from documentaries like Forensic Files, to series like Dahmer, we have lost the narrative aspect. We exchange listening to someone telling us a story for viewing extremely graphic scenes that are far more shocking, and at points, unnecessary.
This is a negative development in the genre for two reasons; violence in media does have negative psychological effects, and this extreme dramatization is usually responsible for the exploitation of victims and their families. Moving on, I will explain how the two reasons are connected.
In his dissertation Violence as Entertainment and the Effect on the Human Person, Bradley Swope explains that there is a correlation between violent entertainment and a rise in “pro-social traits.” Psychologically, the term “pro-social” refers to behavior that is positive and intended to promote social acceptance/friendship. Swope focuses especially on empathy as a trait that is often diminished by extensive exposure to violent media. Swope explains that “increasingly, research seems to show a correlation between violent content and certain
short-term effects such as a diminishing of pro-social behavior like empathy and a general desensitization to real world violence.”
Current true crime consists of the following: crime that is dramatized, criminals that are glamourized and victims and families that are exploited. There is no doubt that society has moved the bar of “normalcy,” when it comes to violence lower and lower. “True crime” that is being produced now is not just something that feeds our curiosity. As we become more and more desensitized to violence, we lose empathy. It has become a cycle.
Because we have become so desensitized to the content in this new “subgenre” of true crime, we continue to consume it without asking many questions. We are less likely to consider how this may be negatively affecting ourselves and others.
It won’t stop with television shows or movies. Serial killer themed coloring books and playing cards are being sold. How can we justify these? They provide us with nothing but entertainment. We cannot claim that they bring awareness to something important, feed our natural curiosity or help to keep us safe. To fight this, we must develop better media discernment.
Personally, I am not making a vow to never watch any true crime again. I am asking myself to truly consider what I am watching and reflect on it. I will refrain from watching something just because everyone else is. How much am I watching and why am I watching it? I am considering the scope of the content I consume.
In his dissertation, Swope lists a series of important questions I believe we should consider in our journey of personal media discernment. “What attracts me to this particular movie or television show? What does it feed in me? Does this movie/television show cause me to cheer for violence or does it cause me to more deeply value the path of peace? Does it make me more sympathetic to using or approving of real-life violence? What will we choose, as humans and as Christians, to be entertained by?.”