TV thread

[slunken]

Do you think they were setting it up for a Ryan Murphy series about Gacy next?

[ilikeplanets]

He truly freaks me out. All killers do, but Gacy is top level creepy to me

[slunken]

my mom was always a serial killer head. growing up, i remember she wouldn't let me read her ted bundy book. instead i just annihilated the local library of all their bonnie and clyde, billy the kid, etc material.

the only guys that "got me" as pure evil in a scary way was the toy box killer or maybe Robert Berdella or Anatoly Slivko but maybe because there are souvenir photos involved. Very twisted stuff.

[slunken]

That Dahmer stuff was almost comical: "hey you wanna drink a few brews? lift some weights? party hardy"

[slunken]

"did you put something in my drink?"

"no it's just dish soap"

LMAO

[slunken]

i guess my point is, is that it seems like these things were normalized when i was a kid. like dahmer chopping up and eating his victims seemed "normal" (?). only because there were way more sadistic bad dudes out there.

and why did they never get the amount of coverage? sloppy investigations? too many dead?

current serial killers in the US right now?

[ilikeplanets]

Last Podcast on the Left, The Heavy Hitters Playlist

[ilikeplanets]

BTK and Edmond Kemper also freak me out. I know they are fairly "mundane" in serial killer land, but I can't stand to look at them. Maybe I just hate ugly guys with mustaches.

[yo soy el mejor]

i took a criminal justice class in high school and my teacher assigned us a book called 'whoever fights monsters' written by a former FBI agent who coined the term 'serial killer'. i was (and still am in some sense) always fascinated with the psychology of crime and the fluidity of laws, etc, so i was not upset being assigned the book. but i had nightmares...the same way goosebumps and fear street gave me nightmares but i still loved them.

at some point, i had to stop telling my mom about my bad dreams cause she would just say to read something else. anyway, i told her about this assigned book giving me scary nightmares and she called my teacher and basically i "didn't have to" read it anymore. i was a h.s junior.

[yo soy el mejor]

when i have nightmares about work, does that mean I should quit?

[teh b0lly!!1]

Originally Posted by reprise85

It's really not a great show but it doesn't seem to be trying too hard to make him sympathetic IMO, at least not to that degree. Dahmer himself was very against blaming his parents. In fact, he's one of the only really famous serial killers who didn't turn into a whiny scared baby after being caught and try to blame their parents, porn, the victims, etc.

That said, I agree with mythologizing serial killers being troubling generally even though I'm a part of the problem.

I don't think being well read on topics like this makes you a part of the problem. Ultimately it's history.

I think my issue with a show like Dahmer: Monster: Shiny and Oh So Bright is that this information should not be popularized and made into entertainment. It's a really grim reality. If you seek out this knowledge out of some morbid fascination about how extremely far the human psyche can go, that is not the same as watching some reenacted dramatized hyped shit on TV that popularizes this information that really should not be popular, just because it resembles what's considered classic horror fiction. (edit: I'm sure being white, blonde and pale blue eyed certainly helped the decision to dramatize Dahmer's story and not, say, I dunno, Ramirez)

Is nothing off limits for the sake of money anymore? Why don't we make a dramatized reenacted doc about unit 731? Or perhaps Albert Fish? According to our market research on unbelievably creepy reddit groups, the scenes where he would put needles in his ballsack and assault little girls will be a home run with our incel audiences for sure boss?

[teh b0lly!!1]

I'm not being a prude, just legitimately wondering if this is kind of the end for us

Seems like we're kinda ready for the nukes

[teh b0lly!!1]

Originally Posted by slunken

i think the discourse is funny between "they didn't consult the families" vs "let's build a park for the victims, so these voices are heard"

also very funny Dahmer is in the "gay" section of Netflix.

Tbch that's not a completely wrong classification

Dahmer spoke in interviews about seeking out the best looking men he could find. Searching for the most beautiful male bodies he could find.

With that said though, as much as Dahmer is terrifying, I find him a lot easier to empathize with than people whose monstrosity I truly cannot comprehend, i.e David Parker Ray. Reading about that guy really left some kind of scar in me.

With Dahmer though, he a) accepts full responsibility without ever making any excuses, and seems to be very aware of exactly what he is, and b) he was mostly sadistic to his victims postmortem (at least afaik), and c) he spoke outwardly about committing these murders to keep people from going away from him. Wanting to keep a piece of them with him. There's something fundamentally human about that.

Not justifying any of this stuff, make no mistake, but it's so easy to just slap a huge "MONSTER" tag on a guy like that and not see how it could be any one of us being born into a particularly unfortunate life. You can almost pity him. Guys who relished in torturing and playing twisted mind games, truly cruelty for cruelty's sake, that is what I simply cannot comprehend

[teh b0lly!!1]

To wrap up my point, if there ever was one:

Just because this topic can be so wildly offputting and interesting in a "can't look away" type way, it absolutely does not mean it should be made into entertainment, because it isn't. It's horrifying, disturbing reality. And the dumbfucks who irresponsibly produce this garbage to capitalize on real misfortune are probably too stupid to understand that even when they think they're delegitimizing it, what they're actually doing is to celebrate it, and anoint role models for a very, very, very bad crowd that unquestionably lurks just beneath the surface, and is arguably more volatile than ever in this era of seething, bubbling violence

[ilikeplanets]

Originally Posted by teh b0lly!!1

Not justifying any of this stuff, make no mistake, but it's so easy to just slap a huge "MONSTER" tag on a guy like that and not see how it could be any one of us being born into a particularly unfortunate life. You can almost pity him.

I know this is the prevailing opinion, but I disagree. That was my earlier point about the Sad Boi. It is NOT something any one of us could do. Millions and billions of people have miserable lives, devastating circumstances, mental illnesses, and deep loneliness and dissatisfaction. He was fully aware of his decisions and made those choices. Many, many times. That is a monster who is undeserving of pity. I surely have none for him.

[topleybird]

My dad used to be Ted Bundy's paperboy

This was when Bundy was also a child and so, he's unlikely to have chased down my dad on his bike, captured him, and killed him, also because I think Bundy only killed women, but still — it could have happened and frankly I doubt any of your dads could say the same, so in a way that makes me pretty special

Okay, well, have a good one

[teh b0lly!!1]

Originally Posted by ilikeplanets

I know this is the prevailing opinion, but I disagree. That was my earlier point about the Sad Boi. It is NOT something any one of us could do. Millions and billions of people have miserable lives, devastating circumstances, mental illnesses, and deep loneliness and dissatisfaction. He was fully aware of his decisions and made those choices. Many, many times. That is a monster who is undeserving of pity. I surely have none for him.

I hear what you're saying.

I meant it in more the sense that, we are all basically just manifested possibilities. Blank slates. When you grow up under abusive upbringing your whole worldview can distort totally irrevocably, beyond recognition. It's not the child's fault. But the adult absolutely is fully accountable.

Rather than "I could have gotten there", I see it as "I feel bad for this human that his life was so fucked up that he actually got that way". And again, he still seems so strangely aware of himself. Like he understands how profoundly corrupted his psyche is, and almost seems repentful (is that a word?), but at the same time has no illusions that he wouldn't do it all over again in a second if he had the chance.

[vixnix]

I think longitudinal studies have shown we are not blank slates - we are born with genetic predispositions which are either activated or not depending on our upbringing.

Our longest study in NZ seemed to show that if you have a particular genetic marker, and trauma during childhood, you’re four times as likely to be charged with a violent crime, than someone who doesn’t have the marker and is raised without trauma.

I say that in support of your point though, that anybody who has that specific combination of factors has a high chance of becoming the same person. Though even with genetic predispositions and exposure to certain life factors, there is a lot of variation.

But free will is pretty limited - and for some unfortunate people, it’s much more limited than it is for others. So I agree - people are not born monsters. But breaking down monster hood into certain really divergent and problematic behaviours - perhaps the predisposition toward those behaviours, people are actually born with. But they have no choice in that, and no choice in experiencing the childhood trauma that may trigger them

[slunken]

Originally Posted by topleybird

My dad used to be Ted Bundy's paperboy

My mom has a friend who 100% believes she narrowly escaped Bundy by rebuking him for a ride

[topleybird]

Goddamn it. Goddamn it!

[topleybird]

No! NO!!

[slunken]

Originally Posted by teh b0lly!!1

I If you seek out this knowledge out of some morbid fascination about how extremely far the human psyche can go, that is not the same as watching some reenacted dramatized hyped shit on TV that popularizes this information that really should not be popular, just because it resembles what's considered classic horror fiction.

Is nothing off limits for the sake of money anymore? Why don't we make a dramatized reenacted doc about unit 731? Or perhaps Albert Fish? According to our market research on unbelievably creepy reddit groups, the scenes where he would put needles in his ballsack and assault little girls will be a home run with our incel audiences for sure boss?

I kind of get what you're saying. Making movies (not documentaries) about this stuff is obviously gruesome and depraved. There was once a time when you could only read about these lurid details by reading shitty paperback books. And that's still true. There's no question people read those books because of the gruesome and depraved details. You're lying if you say you don't.

I do it! I paid $40 for a Toybox Killer book! Why? I wanted ALL OF THE DIRTY DETAILS.

Mass-marketing this stuff is always going to pale and seem light-hearted to the cold heart facts.

So I feel like the question is - should true-crime be gatekept?

What's the difference between Unsolved Mysteries and a 9 hour dumb movie about Dahmer? Where's the line between "reporting" and "a shitty movie with a hot guy"?

The only people I see getting "upset" about this show are either A) diehard researchers who think the show dropped the ball or B) total dorks who aren't into this kind of stuff but just love popular Netflix shows

What's my point? My only disagreement is that it was pretty much a shitty show.

ALL of this shit about "is it an ethical show" is just total bullshit

Blonde is the best movie of 2022.

[slunken]

also want to add that i 100% believe that if zoomers watch something and feel uncomfortable they feel it's an error. that there's been a mistake made.

this is simply not true.

Blonde is the new Fire Walk With Me.

[ilikeplanets]

Originally Posted by slunken

So I feel like the question is - should true-crime be gatekept?

No. You cannot and should not gatekeep terrible things that really happened. Should you gatekeep the Holocaust?

People that don't want details won't seek them out. Even if people consume true-crime as entertainment, legal proceedings are frequently available on the public record, and victims' families deserve a platform to speak out without being confined to a niche audience. Keeping this stuff quiet will color violent people and violent acts as cool and exclusive, and they aren't.

[slunken]

Yep

[slunken]

imagine a civil war movie and people are like "is this ethical"

DUDE

[slunken]

Have you heard the rumor that "Buried Dreams" by Clock DVA was the CD in Dahmer's stereo when he was arrested?

[teh b0lly!!1]

So I feel like the question is - should true-crime be gatekept?

I think so, pretty much, yeah.

Unless it's done for an incredibly good reason. Which is absolutely not the case. It's purely easy cashgrab with the Dahmer show, and also Netflix going for surefire ludicrous low hanging fruit while gasping for air, if you want s'more hot takes.

To be clear, the thing that I'm most up against is making these guys into heroes. Just naming them like comic book characters is bad enough imo. A TV\film adaptation almost cannot not romanticize its subject. Mythologization is a slippery slope even when it's just text in hardcovers, but making it cinematic is a totally different order of magnitude. There's literally nothing to be gained from doing this reenactment bullshit, only introduce distortion to the truth. While appealing to couch potatoes who mostly have zero critical judgement.

I like that you made the distinction between that and docs though, because that's a totally different story.

Look I'm not out here vetoing this shit from my soapbox, this isn't about "ethics". I'm just saying, IF a thing like this is to be done, it begs tremendous care and caution of the obvious pitfalls. Not just out of minimal respect for still living people whose families may have been involved, (and have gone on record saying they're pissed about the making of this show) but also because in the case of the slightest incompetence, or getting the cinematic tone slightly wrong, you're literally making violence propaganda that makes a whole lot of people idolize the worst side of humanity.

[ilikeplanets]

Really interesting how we both have the same core belief of trying not to glorify violence and killers, but feel like the approach to that is completely opposite. Kind of makes me think on a deeper level about those with seemingly opposing views to mine.

[ilikeplanets]

Expect Republicans, of course