Jeffrey Dahmer series is Netflix’s top show, but here’s why some are furious over it

It isn’t just that Netflix disappointed LGBTQ viewers when it featured its hugely popular Jeffrey Dahmer series under its LGBTQ section. Or that some expressed how rehashing the horrific story — again — feels exploitative of the gay and Black men who were the serial killer’s main targets.

Critics of the Netflix series say it shouldn’t have been made in the first place. At least not without consulting the victims’ surviving families, acknowledging that their suffering isn’t over and maybe even pledging not to pocket the funds garnered from the show’s success when it was built on their trauma.

Dahmer was a notorious serial killer and sex offender in the 1980s, who primarily preyed on Black, gay men, often by luring them from gay nightclubs. In 1991, he confessed to killing 17 people and was sentenced to 16 life terms. He was murdered in prison in 1994.

Some victims’ family members explained their stance about the Netflix series on social media.

“I’m not telling anyone what to watch, I know true crime media is huge (right now), but if you’re actually curious about the victims, my family (the Isbell’s) are pissed about this show,” Eric Perry wrote on Twitter. “It’s retraumatizing over and over again, and for what? How many movies/shows/documentaries do we need?”

Rita Isbell, sister of Dahmer victim Errol Lindsey, gave an emotional victim impact statement at Dahmer’s sentencing in 1992. The Netflix series recreated it for a scene in the show.

“Like recreating my cousin having an emotional breakdown in court in the face of the man who tortured and murdered her brother is WILD,” Perry wrote.

After his tweet took off, Perry explained in a subsequent tweet that Netflix and its producers didn’t notify the family when they made the series.

“It’s all public record, so they don’t have to notify (or pay!) anyone,” he wrote. “My family found out when everyone else did. So when they say they’re doing this ‘with respect to the victims’ or ‘honoring the dignity of the families’, no one contacts them.... It’s cruel.”

Isbell told Insider that she watched the scene that recreated her victim impact statement, but didn’t watch the whole show — because she lived it. That scene alone was enough to stir up the painful emotions she felt back then, she told the outlet.

And she wishes Netflix would donate some of the show’s profits to the victims’ families, particularly their children. She told the outlet her brother Lindsey was an expecting father when Dahmer killed him 31 years ago, and his daughter is “exactly 31 years old,” she told the outlet.

“If the show benefited them in some way, it wouldn’t feel so harsh and careless,” she told the outlet. “It’s sad that they’re just making money off of this tragedy.”

In its first week, the series shot to No. 1 on the most-watched shows list on Netflix, according to Variety. Evan Peters stars as Dahmer in the series, and said in a promotional Netflix video that the series is not just about the serial killer and his backstory, according to LGBTQNation. “It’s the repercussions, it’s how society and our system failed to stop him multiple times because of racism, homophobia. It’s just a tragic story.”

Many LGBTQ people and people of color were not convinced, even after Netflix removed the series from the LGBTQ section, LGBTQNation reported.

One Twitter user warned against romanticizing Dahmer because of Peters’ portrayal of him, and urged instead to remember the victims.

“Imagine clicking on the ‘LGBTQ’ category and this is what you get,” another quipped, including the series’ promotional image in the tweet.

Others pointed out that including the series in the LGBTQ section felt like a slap in the face because the series doesn’t represent or celebrate LGBTQ culture, and instead represents Black and queer suffering. Simply put, LGBTQ people and people of color don’t want to rehash the stories of how homophobia and racism led to a serial killer getting away with preying on them. They want to see queer, Black love and identities celebrated, they said.

“Can we talk about how y’all hate seeing gay men loving each other on TV (e.g. How to Get Away With Murder and P-Valley), but y’all are totally fine with Dahmer, a show about the murders and disgusting sexual violations of gay men of color by a notorious white male serial killer?” author and podcaster Dr. Jenn M. Jackson wrote on Twitter.

“Dahmer systematically kidnapped, drugged, murdered, and defiled the bodies of queer men and someone thought this was an LGBTQ history moment.... No, it’s an archive of the ways homophobia masks the degree of violence y’all will allow and enact upon (people),” Jackson tweeted.

Netflix did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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