Netflix has given Ryan Murphy the green light to turn his Monster series into a franchise off the back of his wildly successful series Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. You know, because re-traumatising just one serial killer’s victim’s families isn’t enough.
The streaming giant announced two additional instalments of the Monster anthology will “tell the stories of other monstrous figures who have impacted society”. Netflix hasn’t revealed which killers will get the Dahmer glow-up next season, but rest assured, it’ll be someone heinous. Who is also played by someone hot, for seemingly no reason.
I mean, Netflix already yassified Ted Bundy by casting him as Zac Efron to play him, and now Dahmer by casting him as Evan Peters. Maybe we’ll get Milat — Monster: The Ivan Milat Story, starring Henry Cavill.
The renewal of Murphy’s series probably doesn’t come as a surprise given Dahmer was wildly successful and is on track to hit 1 billion hours streamed.
Following the record-breaking success of DAHMER – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Ryan Murphy & Ian Brennan will create two more installments that will focus on other monstrous figures who have impacted society.
A second season of The Watcher has also been greenlit! pic.twitter.com/NmFdj6soJj
— Netflix (@netflix) November 7, 2022
Ryan Murphy is the guy who gave us American Horror Story, American Crime Story and American Love Story, so yet another series (American Monster Story?) makes sense, and chances are it’ll be just as good.
The news will be disappointing for critics of Netflix though, who expressed concerns about the effect its true crime fixation has on the families of murder victims.
Shirly Hughes — the mother of Tony Hughes, a young man murdered by Jeffrey Dahmer — slammed the streaming giant for exploiting and commodifying the death of her son earlier this year.
She told TMZ she and other families had been retraumatised, and she’d even seen Halloween costumes of her son’s killer online which just made her feel more alienated and “hurt”.
Because the stories of Dahmer’s victims are in the public record, Netflix doesn’t need anyone’s permission to turn them into TV shows. It’s completely within its rights to appropriate these stories, without having to communicate or involve those affected by them.
What happens instead is serial killers will continue to be turned into mysterious, mythologic icons while those who lost loved ones to them will have their losses consumed for entertainment, without seeing a dollar to compensate them either.
It’s a messy issue that seems to be gaining traction (the victims of the shooting investigated in Kim Kardashian‘s true crime podcast have also spoken out about celebrities cashing in on their story) but it doesn’t look like there’s a solution in sight yet. Or even a dialogue with creators, it seems.
