Viewers of Netflix hit Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story are urging fellow fans, and fans of lead actor Evan Peters, not to romanticise the serial killer. Viewers have taken to social media to call out others who sympathise with the murderer.
Dahmer, who murdered 17 young men and boys in the United States between 1978 and 1991, is the focus of Netflix's latest true crime hit. The 10-part programme has been viewed for more than 205 million hours across the world and remains at the top of Netflix's most-watched TV for the third week running.
The show's creators and stars, including lead actor Evan Peters, have said that their intentions with the show were to pay respect to the victims and their families by telling the story. However, some fans have expressed concern over the way others have discussed the show's antagonist, his attractiveness.
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Comments have already appeared on social media appearing to romanticise the serial killer. One viewer Tweeted: "If Jeffrey Dahmer wasn't so hot, I would be disgusted right now".
Another said: "IDK but the real Jeffrey Dahmer is kinda hot, I'm obsessed with him." And a third added: "Jeffrey Dahmer was so hot, I would've let him eat me."
In response, many Netflix fans have issued pleas for people to distinguish the actor from the role. One said: "Let’s not romanticise Jeffrey Dahmer just because he is played by Evan Peters. Remember the victims."
Another said: "I’m a huge true crime fan but let’s remember Evan Peters is an attractive man playing a role. Let’s not forget the real Jeffrey Dahmer was an evil evil man. So tired of seeing people simp over these serial killers played by attractive actors."
The backlash is similar to the response to other dramatisations of serial killers. Productions of My Friend Dahmer starring Ross Lynch , and Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, which starred Zac Efron as Ted Bundy, both received backlash.
Ultimately Netflix tried to nip the hype over Efron's Bundy by issuing a Tweet. They said: "I've seen a lot of talk about Ted Bundy’s alleged hotness and would like to gently remind everyone that there are literally THOUSANDS of hot men on the service — almost all of whom are not convicted serial murderers."
Speaking about taking on the role of Dahmer, actor Evan Peters said: "I was very scared about all of the things that Dahmer did, and diving into that and trying to commit to [playing this character] was absolutely going to be one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life because I wanted it to be very authentic."
"But in order to do that, I was going to have to go to really dark places and stay there for an extended period of time. It felt important to be respectful to the victims and to the victims' families to try to tell the story as authentically as we could."
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