With Halloween fast approaching, people are looking for a good scare to get them into the festive mood. Everyone has their own go-to, from watching the latest horror movies to taking a trip to a haunted house.
Others may get their horror fix from real life stories of tragedy. Many horror enthusiasts of this type enjoy the true crime genre, which follows the events of a crime. The crime is usually a murder. Avid true crime watchers may agree with the idea that reality is scarier than fiction. Like they would a freak accident, they cannot look away from the gruesome and terrifying depiction of these murders.
True crime viewers also engage with the genre outside of the Halloween season because it can equip vulnerable populations, such as women, with ways to defend themselves as potential victims of violent crimes. True crime can also take the form of an awareness campaign for the families of the victims, who hope to find justice for their loved ones. It can shed light on the injustices that people face in the criminal justice system.
True crime becomes problematic when viewers do not engage with the content with a certain level of critical thinking and sensitivity toward the victims of these crimes. For instance, true crime content podcast and Youtube creators have been criticized for their lack of sensitivity while reviewing murder cases. Acts such as applying makeup and the jarring insertion of advertisements while recounting the gruesome events of a murder trivialize the events. These approaches to true crime are extremely disrespectful to the victims and their families.
An even worse example of this tastelessness can be seen in a Tiktok of a woman sharing that she was “bummed” that Netflix’s drama series Dahmer–Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story did not show more morbid scenes — all while donning homemade Jeffrey Dahmer earrings. This is the same series that is retraumatizing the family members of Dahmer’s victims, so maybe there is enough morbidity after all.
Oftentimes, these repetitive shows and movies on famous serial killers like Dahmer and Ted Bundy glorify them. True crime can commend these killers for their charm and intelligence that allowed them to evade the police for as long as they did. It can miss the mark by placing less emphasis on police negligence, especially when the victims are BIPOC, not heterosexual, and are of a lower socioeconomic status. Although this is starting to change gradually, there is still much improvement to be made in the way true crime is produced and how we engage with it. For instance, Dahmer accounts for disparities in the criminal justice system, but with depth that is lacking. Additionally, the production of Dahmer went underway despite the protests of family members of the victims.
True crime should not be completely done away with. After all, it is human nature to be curious about the kind of cases covered by true crime. It has great educational potential, but only when we treat the crimes as events that happened to real people and not merely existing for our entertainment. With this in mind, let’s be spooked responsibly this Halloween season!