IT’S GORY. IT’S TERRIFYING. AND IN ITS DEBUT WEEK, IT GARNERED OVER 196 MILLION HOURS WATCHED ACROSS THE WORLD.
[Outro music from Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story/Nick Cave and Warren Ellis]
MONSTER: THE JEFFREY DAHMER STORY IS THE LATEST ADAPTATION OF A TRUE CRIME STORY THAT HAS CAPTIVATED AUDIENCES INTERNATIONALLY, ALTHOUGH NOT WITHOUT ESCAPING CONTROVERSY. BUT TRUE CRIME POPULARITY IS NOTHING NEW. WHETHER IT’S EVAN PETERS PLAYING JEFFREY DAHMER,
[Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story/Evan Peters] “Jeff Dahmer”
ZAC EFRON PLAYING TED BUNDY,
[Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile/Zac Efron] “Ladies and gentlemen, I am that innocent suspect.”
THE WILDLY POPULAR SERIAL PODCAST,
[Serial/Sarah Koenig] “From This American Life and WBEZ Chicago, it’s Serial”
OR EVEN THE GRUESOME CRIME LEAFLETS OF THE 1600S – THE FASCINATION WITH TRUE CRIME HAS BEEN AROUND FOR A LONG, LONG TIME.
BUT JUST BECAUSE THE GENRE IS IMMENSELY POPULAR ISN’T ENOUGH TO EXPLAIN WHY IT EXISTS IN THE FIRST PLACE. WHY ARE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE GLUED TO THEIR SCREENS WATCHING A REENACTMENT OF DAHMER DISSECTING HUMANS? HOW CAN SHOWS LIKE CRIMINAL MINDS
[Criminal Minds/Thomas Gibson] “Wheels up in 30.”
SUSTAIN 15 SEASONS OF GRIM MURDER AFTER MURDER? AND WHY IS TRUE CRIME THE MOST SOUGHT AFTER DOCUMENTARY SUB GENRE BY FAR? I MEAN, WHAT’S SO MUCH MORE APPEALING ABOUT CANNIBALISM THAN WATCHING PLAYFUL POLAR BEARS IN A NATURE DOCUMENTARY?
[Planet Earth/David Attenborough] “After months of confinement underground, she tobbogans down the slope. Perhaps to clean her fur. Perhaps for sheer joy.”
APPARENTLY, TRUE CRIME ALMOST ALWAYS BEATS OUT FURRY WINTER MAMMALS FOR A FEW REASONS:
[Dr. Mike Brook] Stories allow us to explore the dichotomies inherent in human existence, like love versus betrayal, life versus death, the familiar versus the unknown. Or, of course, in the case of crime stories, the struggle between good and evil…. Of course, the thing that fascinates us about our fascination with crime in itself, and especially true crime, is that these very dark aspects of human behavior are often taboo, and are not supposed to be something that we’re enthralled with. But in fact, there are several perfectly valid psychological explanations for why we’re drawn to these stories.
THAT’S DR. MIKE BROOK, AN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN THE DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES AT NORTHWESTERN AND THE DIRECTOR OF A RESEARCH PROGRAM THAT STUDIES VIOLENT BEHAVIOR.
[Dr. Mike Brook] Crime stories allow us to process our thoughts and emotions around very dangerous situations without actually being in danger. Studies show that fear of crime has grown substantially in the US over the past 50 years, despite the actual crime rates steadily declining over the same time period. So, in essence, we’re safer than we have ever been but are more afraid than ever.
Another reason is, is just purely that our attention and emotions are automatically drawn to calamity. This is the same reason why we can’t look away from a car accident. There are numerous behavioral studies that have found that disaster scenes, when they’re shown on the screen to people in the lab, hold our attention more strongly than neutral or pleasant scenes. And evolutionary psychologists tell us that this is an important learning mechanism that may help us better prepare ourselves for potentially dangerous situations.
SO WE’RE DRAWN TO SEEING PEOPLE ACT IN WAYS THAT ARE UNFATHOMABLY, INHERENTLY EVIL, RIGHT? WRONG. IN FACT, THE REASON WE LIKE TRUE CRIME MIGHT LIE IN THE GRAY AREAS, THE IDEA THAT EVEN PEOPLE WHO HAVE DONE HORRIBLE THINGS LIKE JEFFREY DAHMER HAVE A MUCH MORE COMPLEX LIFE THAN JUST THE GRUESOME ACTS THEY’VE COMMITTED.
[Dr. Mike Brook] Our fascination with true crime is based on more or less a misconception about why people commit violent crimes. We see that violent crime is not born out of evil, or bad genetics, or corrupted morality, but is most often a result of poor decisions compounded by unfortunate circumstances. By sort of humanizing the people behind the headlines, they break down the moral pedestal on which we all put ourselves and thus help frame our own lives in a, in a more realistic light. So that we realize that we may be not more than several steps away from from a similar disaster.
IN OTHER WORDS, THE OBSESSION WITH TRUE CRIME HAS JUST AS MUCH TO DO WITH JEFFREY DAHMER AS IT DOES WITH US. OR RATHER, WITH WHAT WE ARE CAPABLE OF DOING
[Dr. Mike Brook] What may attract us to true crime stories in the first place may be different from what keeps us involved with them, keeps us engaged in them. Maybe the initial attraction is, is to see something inhumanly evil, freakish, right? To get an insight into a behavior you don’t think you would ever be engaged in.
But if a story is well told, as I think many of those podcasts and movies and TV shows are, you realize that the unfortunate series of circumstances that led someone to commit a series of these horrific crimes, is nothing but a series of unfortunate events. And so in that way, we do see ourselves in them. So maybe what keeps us engaged with these stories, is the realization that it could be us. And maybe in some ways, thankful that it’s, that it’s not us.
[Outro music from Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story/Nick Cave and Warren Ellis]
FOR WNUR NEWS, I’M HELEN BRADSHAW
