i did at least put my pirate hat on rather than give netflix the views

for a show that claims to be from the perspective of victims and loved ones it - sure doesn't do that!

it spends eight episodes just rolling around in dahmer's atrocities while presenting dahmer as - not a sympathetic figure, no, but maybe a guy you could have some things in common with

like i fucking laughed at the pig dissection scene because in third grade we got to dissect cow's eyes and i was super pumped and my partner wanted less than nothing to do with it so i got to do THE WHOLE THING and it was GREAT

(or so my memory tells me anyway, i suspect steph was probably made to do at least some of her part, but anyway)

oh, that sounds.... charming /s

oh i haven't gotten to my favorite part yet

I really enjoyed the graphic novel 'My Friend Dahmer', because it was... actually written by one of his high school friends. And dealt a lot with 'wtf happened'. And while there was soooome sympathy there for Dahmer, it was also very clear that He Chose To Kill People

(and I highly rec the graphic novel)

so after eight episodes of what i will give the show credit as being super uncomfortable television (it is blatantly clear that the viewer is not supposed to be enjoying themselves watching these things unfold, which i suppose is meant to be its saving grace or whatever)

but after that, in a breathtaking display of hypocrisy, the show has the nerve to turn around and condemn the people who were profiting off dahmer in the wake of his sudden fame!!!!!!!!!!!

i will simply scream forever

.....

ffs

you don't get to do that, show!!!

so it's certainly got me reexamining my relationship with true crime media consumption, though not in the way i think it wanted; i think it wants to be exempt from that examination, because, you see, it Said All The Right Things

now let's cut back to dahmer at the stove, smeared artfully in blood

ugh

and yes, i have heard good things about my friend dahmer, though i didn't know it started as a comic. i'd only heard about the movie

it reminds me a bit of the Jurassic World movies, which sometimes pretend to be a critique of consumerism and Big Budget Movies Always Demanding More... while being a shallow series of shallow Big Budget Movies

hah

yeah, the movie is based off the comic afaik! i haven't seen it, but the novel is good. it has a genuine air of the author trying to wrestle and make sense of wtf happened

and tracing things back, and going, '...ah. well. there we go'

hmm. that reminds me of Ann Rules's book a stranger beside me, which is about ted bundy. she'd already been assigned to write about murders before the case was solved, and when bundy was arrested, well. she knew him! they'd volunteered together at a suicide hotline! they were sort of kind of friends!

so the book is bother a chronology of bundy's crimes and a clearly therapeutic exercise for Ann as she struggled to come to terms with it all

Yeah, I'd say similar to that vibe

and you had best believe she had some things to say about the fucking groupies

yep not a thing I am gonna watch, thank yuo for confirming XD

Backderf doesn't chart Dahmer's future (to the novel's) crimes, and only covers the first one as it happened within the timeframe or close to when he knew him, and I don't think he's interested in it. But that same trying to untangle and sort out events leading up that, and how this person he regarded as a friend, albeit a deeply weird and troubled one

ended up.... being Jeffrey Dahmer

there's a fair amount of 'where the FUCK' were the adults

that is such a good question

it also all reminds me of a book I have about the victims of Jack the Ripper

The Five, by Hallie Rubenhold

that book is AMAZING. it doesn't give a fuck about Jack the Ripper. doesn't care who he was or why he murdered those women

YES

it doesn't even go into what he did TO the women

I love that book

Did you know she did a podcast

alllll it cares about are those five women and who they were. so good

remindmeofthe: oooh no i did not!!

I gotta get to bed, but yeah. That book is a real eye opener

it is my gold standard now for "do you care about the victims"

cacopheny i missed your comment yesterday, but yex, very much not Gail-friendly tv. you'd be better off watching fresh, lol. at least it's fictional and has Seb Stan

I'm so not into murder shows...

and i respect that

(though I do plan to make you watch a... supernatural horror? miniseries when you get here)

ooh, fun

ever heard of Kingdom Hospital?

heard of, yes. seen, no

welp you get to! I have it on DVD. it's kind of dumb but also fun

nice

"kind of dumb but also fun" is one of my favorite genres

and hey, random fun fact: the dude who played Dahmer also played fake Pietro in WandaVision

oh yeah? he's also the dude who played Quicksilver in the X-Men movies

he's a cool dude

I feel bad that he had to play that guy in that show

Dahmer, I mean, not WV

lol. like he chose to, he's one of the executive producers and it wasn't his first fucked up role. apparently he takes time off between them to like recover himself

aw