If you haven’t already heard, Jeffery Dahmer is back in a big way (thankfully only on televisions this time). The Netflix miniseries Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story has been breaking Netflix streaming records left and right, beating out Squid Game as the platform's most streamed show in the shortest amount of time, as well as being their second-highest performing English language series to date. It's safe to say audiences are still hungry for true crime, and this series seems to be nothing but a case in point proving that notion.

While most previous programs of the same nature don’t seem to veer too far from the eyes of their intended niche, Monster has had droves of viewers tuned in for several weeks now. With a show of this magnitude, and the influence it's certain to have over television culture from this point, there’s always a lot to consider. Mainly, in this case, it's Dahmer himself and the effect protagonists like him and these kinds of stories can have on ethics and zeitgeist.

Monster Turns Jeffrey Dahmer Into a Tragic Antihero

Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story
Netflix

The plot of Dahmer is one that's pretty straightforward and assumed. We follow infamous real-life serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer through a tumultuous childhood and into his years of adulthood and violence that those aforementioned developing years are assumed to have helped cultivate. Dahmer’s sprees of violence are unsurprisingly hard to stomach, but what’s more is the way we see those instances stem from fantasy to reality.

See, the show’s narrative is much less linear than it is reactive, meaning that for all the atrocities documented not only in court but within the show’s runtime, we’re given subsequent scenes of elaboration on where exactly those stemmed from. Warning signs are shown to be ignored by parents, professionals, and friends of Dahmer alike, all with an underlying air of “this could’ve been prevented” beneath most of the scenes detailing his origin. While this could be read as simply a warning to be preventative, some could read this as an attempt at pathos in the direction of individuals generally undeserving of the sentiment.

Related: Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story - What the Series Tell Us About Society

At the heart of this script, Dahmer reads as less of a twisted villain and more of a tragic antihero. The sensitivity needed to handle a topic as touchy as this, while also visualizing adolescence and so many points of vulnerability for the character is a notion not too keenly found throughout the series. We get repeated scenes of Dahmer’s awkward nature reading more as a lost and scared puppy than the violation of human nature we know to be true.

A repeated theme throughout the series is that of potential partners leaving Dahmer, and the character not knowing how to handle his homosexuality in appropriate ways in social context. Dahmer is seen trying to incite romantic interaction in ways that play off innocently enough in the moment, but the audience knows all too well that it will end in something beyond sinister.

The Netflix Series Monster Ignores Real Victims Today

Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story
Netflix

One of the main ethical issues this show raises isn’t all on Dahmer itself, but rather on how the writing of Monster treats the victims affected. The show does not spare any expense letting you get to know Dahmer’s victims in detail before their ill-fate is met. We see his first victim, Steven Hicks, and the infatuation that led Dahmer to pursue him in the first place fester and eventually become something vile. Tony Hughes, the deaf victim Dahmer was known to have had an extensive relationship with prior to his murder, is shown on screen with Dahmer several times before his eventual murder takes place. All in the name of a good narrative, right?

Related: Why Jeffrey Dahmer Is One of Evan Peters’ Best Performances

Sure, except for the fact that the producers and writers didn’t really get any approval from the families of Dahmer's victims before the show was released. Some victims' families said that neither Netflix nor Murphy asked them about the show, let alone let them know it was in production before its release date a few weeks ago. For these victims, a case like this highlights a much bigger issue within developing true-crime series of this nature. The wounds which get potentially re-opened from an extensive character study like this may not be worth it just for more successful content from a streaming corporation.

Monster is About Jeffrey Dahmer, and That's its Problem

Shirley Hughes being sent a comic on Dahmer by a "fan"
Netflix

This brings us to the final and main ethical issue presented within a show like this: the romanticization and glorification of villainy. It's no secret that after Dahmer's arrest and sentencing, the serial killer received droves of support and sympathy from fans and those who felt that they could relate to his disorders. How does the show intend to cap off its grand finale, you may ask? By showing Dahmer in his final moments on screen reading mountains of fan mail in his prison cell.

Even in the heat of what was surely known to be one of the boldest releases of the year, the focus still rests on Dahmer, a man who could use a lot less of the spotlight, instead of the victims affected by these violent attacks. Monster, a show that had the opportunity to put light on unshared parts of the Dahmer story, chose to go for the gasp and glorify someone who is already a household name, rather than provide a new light to shine on those who truly deserve it.