Artistic license or sensationalist schlock?Whether presenting itself as an accurate retelling or merely “inspired by true events” – there is always going to be some artistic license when transforming a complex true crime story into a movie or TV series.
While changes from real life to screen are often relatively minor, such as having multiple police officers represented by one fictionalised detective, others can significantly misrepresent events.
Anne Schwartz, the journalist who broke the original Dahmer story, has called the recent Dahmer Netflix series “not a helpful representation”. In an interview with the Independent, Schwartz criticised the caricatured depiction of law enforcement in the series. She also took aim at key plot elements, such as having key witness Glenda Cleveland (played by Niecy Nash) live next door to Dahmer, rather than in the building next door (as in real life).
Other dramatisations of real-life crimes have gone much further, adding sensationalist – and even downright supernatural – elements to true events.Victims of crime and their loved ones are frequently angered and re-traumatised when their real-life stories become fodder for public consumption.
The families of homicide victims are particularly disadvantaged when encountering inaccurate or insulting depictions of their loved ones, given legal protections of reputation, such as claims in defamation, don’t apply if the person defamed is deceased.
Some of the families of Dahmer’s victims have expressed outrage at the Netflix series, noting that they were never approached about the show’s release. Rital Isbell, whose brother was murdered by Dahmer, had her heart-breaking victim impact statement dramatised in the series without her knowledge or consent. She called the series “harsh and careless” in a piece in Insider expressing that “It’s sad that they’re just making money off of this tragedy”.
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