Ryan Murphy is tackling Jeffrey Dahmer’s story: The good and the bad

Ryan Murphy has decided that we need yet another Jeffrey Dahmer series. Do we need one? We’re digging into the potential advantages and disadvantages of a project like this.

Ryan Murphy has his next Netflix project lined up after the success of Ratched. According to Deadline, Ryan Murphy is teaming up with frequent collaborator Ian Brennan to chronicle the sinister tale of Jeffrey Dahmer and his many victims in a series aptly titled Monster.

Aside from Murphy and Brennan, the series will co-star Richard Jenkins with Carl Franklin (The Leftovers, Mindhunter) and Janet Mock (Pose, Hollywood) sharing directing duties. Mock will also write the script. As of now, production is slated to begin in January.

The bad: We don’t need another Jeffrey Dahmer series, especially from Ryan Murphy.

More from Netflix

• Snap your fingers, Mattel to release Wednesday dolls and collector sets in 2024!
• Show Snob’s Premiere Review: Watch, Pass, Wait and See (December 4, 2023)
• Show Snob’s Premiere Review: Watch, Pass, Wait and See (November 27, 2023)
• 5 TV Show Advent Calendars you’ll want this holiday season (2023)!
• Miss Face Off? 2 seasons are available to watch on Netflix!

Let me preface this by saying: I’m a hypocrite. I have a deep, profound love-hate relationship with Ryan Murphy. Regardless of whether or not I believe Monster is a good idea, you can bet I’ll still be tuning in, if only for the ludicrous plots and gorgeous production design. I just hope he doesn’t cast Evan Peters in the titular role (no offense to Peters, I just want to see something different for once).

That said, do we need another show about Dahmer? To be fair, I don’t think there’s ever been a full-fledged fictionalized series recounting his story, but we’ve seen multiple films, docuseries, documentary films and Dahmer even appeared in Season 5 of American Horror Story. At what point are we just glamorizing this horrific man?

Even worse, there are still pockets of the true crime community that deeply idolize and worship men like Dahmer and Ted Bundy. It feels like Monster might just give them a sounding board for their distasteful fantasies.

Beyond that, Murphy has a tendency to add salacious elements to his stories to spice things up. I enjoyed Ratched, but the character wasn’t really the Nurse Ratched we knew from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Did he turn the monstrous nurse from the classic film into a…beloved gay hero? I mean I love Sarah Paulson and I love gay content in my TV shows, but it’s a weird decision, to say the least. Hopefully, since Murphy is only credited as a co-creator and doesn’t seem to be writing Monster, we won’t see Dahmer participating in a Pride parade.

The good: Why Monster might not be a bad idea.

On the other hand, I’m a fan of Janet Mock. Her involvement and the description of the series gives me a little more hope for its potential storytelling direction.

Deadline states the series will be “largely told from the point of view of Dahmer’s victims and dives deeply into the police incompetence and apathy that allowed the Wisconsin native to go on a multiyear killing spree.”

The series will dramatize at least ten instances where Dahmer was apprehended but ultimately released. Dahmer was a good-looking, white man who largely benefited from his white privilege. With the ongoing police brutality protests, news recently resurfaced regarding the police officer  — John Balcerzak — who returned a 14-year-old Laotian immigrant named Konerak Sinthasomphone to Dahmer after he managed to escape.

As reported by Too Fab, rather than arresting Dahmer, they returned the boy to his custody, where he later died — despite two different bystanders (who both happened to be Black women — Sandra Smith and Nicole Childress) pleading with the officer not to. According to a lawsuit filed by the Sinthasomphone family, the two women had actually called the police and when Bolzerack and three other officers arrived, they refused to listen to their account of events.

Dahmer told Balcerzak that the boy was his lover and that was all it took to sign the kid’s death sentence. Even more appalling is that Balcerzak was fired, but then appealed his firing three years later. Not only was he reinstated, but he went on to become the president of the Milwaukee Police Association.

The story of Sinthasomphone is just one of many incidents related to Dahmer. If Monster can tap into the current zeitgeist through the lens of this case and its examination of racist and corrupt practices within law enforcement and our society at large, then it really could be something special. Let’s just hope Murphy borrows more from American Crime Story than AHS, in this instance.

What do you think about Ryan Murphy creating a miniseries about Jeffrey Dahmer? Do you plan to give Monster a chance? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!