DAHMER BY RYAN MURPHY LINKS QUEERNESS TO MONSTROSITY

What happens when a true crime story about Jeffrey Dahmer is combined with the style of Murphy's brand and his straight-up pandering? I was sixteen years old and having issues with my sexuality when Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested in 1991.

I was isolated and afraid to go outside, growing up in a small town in southwest Virginia and attending an all-boys prep school in central Virginia. Contrary to the present, gay historical figures were not taught in schools, and there were no positive examples of gay men like Pete Buttigie, Dan Levy, or RuPaul in the media.

Instead, I had Dahmer, whose criminality had been clumsily and maliciously mixed with his sexuality in the media, giving the impression that the two had some sort of connection.

My stomach turned and my interest peaked when I learned that Ryan Murphy, the writer, director, and producer best known for the TV series Glee and American Horror Story, was collaborating with longtime friend Ian Brennan to produce Dahmer, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story for Netflix.

It was, in fact, a dual and, perhaps, paradoxical response: a genuine interest in how the series would approach the subject matter artistically as well as a physical revolt at the thought of bringing up Dahmer's atrocities for financial gain.

Would Murphy and Brennan challenge the way the media initially covered the story and provide a more accurate and fair depiction of the nightmare? The extensive international media coverage of the Dahmer case in the 1990s suggested a connection between his homosexuality and his psychopathy, from Donahue to Dateline.

Lesbian and gay activists in Milwaukee fiercely objected when media and public figures referred to his crimes as "homosexual overkill" shortly after his arrest. The phrase quickly disappeared from everyday speech, along with any attempts to separate homophobic prejudice from the moral outrage over the crimes.

Teenage me increased her level of self-hatred as a result and slid another bolt across the closet door. So, when I learned about Murphy's project, I was curious to see what angle his creative team would take on it. They have made significant contributions to increasing LGBTQ+ visibility in mainstream entertainment.

Would Murphy produce a cathartic work or would he prefer to indulge in the usual serial killer sensationalism? What kind of narrative would appeal to younger audiences who may be only dimly aware of the "Milwaukee cannibal," especially in light of the growing prejudice against LGBTQ+ people in our nation and around the globe?

Dahmer was watched 856.2 million hours in its first few days, making it Netflix's third most watched show ever as of mid-November, according to CNET's analysis based on Netflix's metrics. It is a huge success, which is not surprising given that two in three Americans enjoy serial killer content, according to Morning Consult.

It has a significant cultural impact, without a doubt. It has also provoked an understandable backlash since its September release. Many articles have already been written about how the show, despite attempting to represent the perspectives of the victims in later episodes, disregards their memories and the trauma experienced by their families by making money off of their heinous losses.

But rather than reiterating these valid concerns, I want to make the case that the sensitivity that material like this necessitates for ethically responsible storytelling is at odds with Murphy's brand and the aesthetic decisions that support it.

The aesthetic of the Murphy brand is primarily about spectacle, from the exuberant and frenzied colour splash of Glee to the salacious and frenzied blood splatter of American Horror Story.

In addition to calling his aesthetic "baroque" and "maximalist," I would also describe it as fervently superficial. Many haters have referred to it as "camp."

He embellishes convoluted stories with arresting imagery and flat characters with compelling performances from his plethora of gifted actors. He addresses significant issues like misogyny, racism, homophobia, and transphobia in broad strokes that allude to a deeper moral concern, but he rarely does so in detail enough to give a plot or character a sense of full realisation.

It can be challenging to understand what the story is trying to say when flashy images and plot twists fly at you so quickly. He frequently combines kink with horror tropes in his popular American Horror Story anthology series, which he and Brad Falchuk co-created. The Rubber Man, a murderous ghost dressed in a rubber fetish suit, stalks the occupants of a haunted house in the first season of Murder House. The homeowners are preppy white gay men who bought the outfit to "spice up" their sex lives. He dons the suit and kills them.

Why? because they have decided not to have children. They suffer the consequences for defying nuclear family expectations. In the eleventh and most recent season of NYC, a large leather man wearing a hood stalks gay men in New York City in the early 1980s and kills them all, but especially those who leave their homes and go to nightclubs and Central Park after dark. In the series, moral decay is frequently equated with sexual curiosity or interest.

The show warns that if you enjoy kink, you might unleash your inner boogeyman and turn into a psychopath—or be killed by one. A trope with roots in Victorian ideas about sexual purity that has been extensively critiqued, most notably (and gloriously) in Wes Craven's Scream, will ensure that you are the last girl standing if you continue to be uncomplicated and vanilla in your sexual preferences (1996). Murphy and his allies imply that kink is a gateway to murder and mayhem by demonising it.

Therefore, it implies that those who deviate from these norms are less deserving of acceptance by mainstream straight culture than wealthy, cis-gender gay men who have "respectable" vanilla sex. The key to Murphy's success, in my opinion, is his awareness of the predominance of straight viewers, whom he titillates by revealing a voyeuristic glimpse into the "dangerous" world of gay sex.

All of this has much more to do with homophobic people's unconscious preferences for viewing gay men's sexual lives than it does with the nuanced reality of those lives. We are given a horror story that relies on clichés and stereotypes rather than presenting a complex depiction of gay sex. Basically, Murphy uses overtly queer storytelling techniques to appeal to a straight audience and make money, which he has done.

With a $300 million, five-year contract with Netflix, he was able to secure the largest deal in television history in 2018 thanks to his success. Be aware that Billy Eichner's rom-com Bros, which takes a frank, hilarious, and absurdly human look at modern gay relationships, bombed at the box office when it opened in September.

It only brought in $4.8 million, far short of the eight to ten million dollars expected. Eichner has attributed its failure to the lack of attendance by straight people in the theatres.

They were all watching the Dahmer series at home, in fact. So what happens when you combine Murphy's brand aesthetics with his unapologetic pandering to a true crime tale about Jeffrey Dahmer?

To be fair, Dahmer's production team is aware that they need to tell the story in a more mature manner. The victims, their families, and the community at large receive some narrative time and attention. The sixth episode, "The Silenced," centres on Tony Hughes (Rodney Burford), an aspiring model, before Dahmer murders him.

It depicts his happy times spent with family and friends as well as the difficulties he faces navigating the Milwaukee gay scene while being deaf and black. The series demonstrates how systemic homophobia and racism in the police protected Dahmer in the second episode,

"Please Don't Go," in which Dahmer's neighbour Glenda Cleveland (Niecy Nash) repeatedly warns the police about him to no avail. In a scene that will make you angry, she tries to stop Konerak Sinthasomphone (Kieran Tamondong) from escaping from Dahmer. When she dials 911, the police dismiss her worries and return the wounded, semi-conscious 14-year-old Laotian immigrant boy to the murderer's apartment. Following the incident, one of the officers makes a joke to the dispatcher about how his partner needs to be "deloused" after speaking with gay men.

In the eighth episode, "Lionel," Dahmer's family is depicted in great detail as they deal with their pain and guilt, especially his father (Richard Jenkins). Even Dahmer, who is expertly portrayed by Evan Peters, is nuanced and complex at times, almost undermining the "monster" designation in the series' name.

The main criticism levelled at Dahmer is that, with the exception of a few episodes, the entire series focuses on the serial killer, his motivations and methods, rather than how they affected his victims. Even the title contains two references to his name.

But the Murphy name that permeates the season is just as problematic. After Hughes has been brutally murdered, the focus of the episode shifts back to Dahmer, who treats Hughes like a piece of meat on his dinner plate. A sensationalised and, to be honest, tasteless conclusion to a genuinely kind episode The camera frequently invites us to consider Dahmer's fascination with attractive male corpses and his propensity for handling lustrous animal viscera, heightening the kind of attraction-repulsion squeamishness usually reserved for horror movies.

The opening kill scene of episode ten, "God of Forgiveness, God of Vengeance," which contrasts Dahmer's claimed desire to spare his victim's pain with John Wayne Gacy's sadism, is as indulgent and graphic as anything from American Horror Story.

There is no proof that Gacy actually tortured his victim while dressed as a clown, though. In the third episode, "Doin' a Dahmer," Dahmer picks up his first victim, hitchhiker Steven Hicks (Cameron Cowperthwaite), and drives him home. He tries to kiss Straight Hicks after they work out together. When Hicks rejects him, Dahmer sobs.

Hicks calls him a "faggot," turns to leave, and is beaten by Dahmer. We are given the opportunity to temporarily side with Dahmer when Hicks calls him a "fag," but this exchange leaves us uncertain about Dahmer's motivations. According to his own admission, he killed not because he was rejected for his sexuality but rather out of a need to control his victims, whose violence satisfied his sexual urges. This false association between Dahmer's urge to kill and his attraction to men—between the immorality of a serial killer and a gay man's sexual expression—is dangerous and problematic. Dahmer dismembers Hick after stroking his exquisitely lit and toned body, but the pieces are difficult to remove.

In a scene that goes beyond realism and fits squarely within Murphy's brand, he burns them, smashes the bones, and scatters them from the roof of his house. In the end, it's unclear whether we're watching a show about a glamourized gay serial killer or a serial killer who just so happened to be gay. In keeping with the initial media coverage of the crimes, the programme fails to explicitly state that Dahmer's sexual orientation had no bearing on why he killed men.

Instead, it's a muddled and harmful amalgamation of well-intended marketing and multi-million dollar branding meant to appeal to a mass market made up primarily of straight people who are unaware of their unconscious bias against gay men. The series originally had an LGBTQ search tag when it was listed on Netflix; however, after receiving a lot of criticism for encouraging unfavourable queer representation, the tag was removed.

Murphy defended the label, saying that not all stories of gay men must be happy and that his programme also highlights the victims. Although my novels are filled with complex queer characters, I agree that not all stories about gay people need to be happy or upbeat.

Nevertheless, those stories need to be told carefully because they do matter, especially when you have a large audience. Even if doing so means changing your brand and alienating your audience, you have an ethical obligation to confront unconscious bias rather than reinforce it.

Similar to American Horror Story, Murphy has agreed to create another television series based on Dahmer. The anthology's working title is "American Monster Story," and of course, Gacy will be the subject of Murphy's upcoming project. No, please. When I was sixteen, in my most depressing and anxious thoughts, I questioned whether having sexual inclinations made me a monster.

After all, Dahmer was offered to me at a time when I was desperate for good role models, and my social environment didn't stop me from thinking otherwise. I now understand that the morally repugnant behaviour is homophobia and transphobia. I also understand that in order to challenge and complicate that equation, stories about queerness and monstrosity must be told in our culture. Rolin Jones, the show's creator, showrunner, and author, accomplishes this with AMC's Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire by making Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson), the main character, black, obviously gay, and the focal point of the story.

A chosen family of vampires, each flawed, traumatised, and in some cases struggling with conventional morality in a world that despises and fears them, is the focus of the story rather than pitting vampires against humans or vice versa.

The monsters in this story are queer, complex, and profoundly human; they are no longer grotesque abstractions to be gawked at by a straight audience, but rather easily recognisable, fully realised human beings. But most importantly, their acts of violence are motivated more by a desire for agency and freedom than by shame or sexual repression.

Although Jeffrey Dahmer is an interesting subject and his influence on his community and the wider world cannot be ignored, how we tell stories about him and other "monstrous" queer figures like him requires consideration for all parties, a dedication to sober narrative realism, and the ability to resist the urge to indulge in the sensationalism that is deeply ingrained in Murphy's aesthetic. When a brand manipulates the narrative rather than the other way around, the result is Dahmer, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.  (Ryan Murphy’s Dahmer Equates Queerness With Monstrosity, 2023)