TRUE CRIME ETHICS
I t’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment when audiences first became fascinated by true crime content, although the genre has been around in some form or another for centuries. It was popularised with Truman Capote’s 1966 novel In Cold Blood , a non- fiction account of the 1959 Clutter family murders in the small farming community of Holcomb, Kansas, which was in turn adapted into a feature film of the same name in 1967. But within the last decade, true crime has exploded in popularity. Shows such as Mindhunter , based on the 1995 book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by John E Douglas and Mark Olshaker, Making a Murderer and The People v OJ Simpson: American Crime Story have helped fuel audience interest. MASS CONSUMPTION According to Netflix, its third-most- watched show of all time – with 115.6 million views globally – is Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story . The show unravels Dahmer’s life, exploring how he became one of the most notorious serial killers in US history. Upon its release, some critics were unhappy with its glorification of events, while the victims’ families not being informed proved controversial. Rita Isbell, sister of Errol Lindsey, one of Dahmer’s victims, spoke out against the series in an essay for Insider , targeting the industry for its ‘commercialisation of tragedy’. A relative of another victim accused the limited series of ‘retraumatising’ their family. Despite this, Netflix viewers still flocked to watch it. In fact, it was streamed for 196.2 million hours in the first week after its initial release in 2022. A number of issues arise for filmmakers when making true crime content, but one of the overarching dilemmas they face is whether or not the content is ethical. This comes down to a number of factors, including the choice to give serial killers and criminals a narrative platform, getting consent from the victims’ families to tell their stories, distortion of facts and evidence
KILLER CONTENT Mindhunter (left), Dahmer (this image), In Cold Blood (below left) and Making a Murderer (below right) have all proved popular
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