Crime media as cinematic “freak show”: Ableism and speciesism in retelling Dahmer

Abstract

Grounded in an analysis of the Netflix series Dahmer-Monster, this article offers a theory concerning mass consumption of crime drama. Refracted by scholarship on ableism and speciesism, I argue that Dahmer-Monster (and comparable shows) can be understood as mediated “freak show.” Crime drama offers images of “abnormality” that provide a surface upon which conceptions of normalcy can be (re)inscribed. Audiences are assured of their normality via this process. The article speaks to critical criminologists and critical disability studies scholarship. Consistent with nascent “crip criminology,” it suggests that there is much scope for further dialogue across these areas. As a cultural site, crime media is saturated by ableism, yet it has not been subject to much scrutiny by critical disabilities studies scholarship. And, while much criminological attention is devoted to cultural portrayals of crime, ableism and speciesism have not been central categories to such analyses. This article contributes to efforts to connect critical criminologies with scholarly interest in ableism and speciesism.

Introduction

Dahmer-Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (Murphy and Brennan, 2022) is a Netflix series focused on Jeffrey Dahmer, a serial killer in Milwaukee, WI who murdered 17 people between 1978 and 1991. The show is an example of widespread interest in crimes that appear to defy explanation. It was one of the most watched programs on Netflix when initially screened, clocking 200 million hours of viewing in its first week (Winter, 2022). This article theorizes the social and cultural investment in such a TV series and, by extension, criminalized behaviors that are typically perceived as extreme. It is worth adding a sensitivity warning here: Dahmer’s crimes were gruesome, some involving the consumption of human flesh. While this article focuses on the TV series as a cultural text, the show (mis)portrays historical events. Some of the content referred to and some of the arguments that follow may be unsettling.

Criminological theories have sought to explain mass consumption of crime media. It has been argued that crime dramas kindle anxiety but then provide reassurance that order will be re-established (Sparks, 1992); displace anxieties aroused by late-modern social conditions (Cheliotis, 2010; Hollway and Jefferson, 1997); promote irrational fears that underpin ideologies of “law and order” (Gerbner, 1970); and offer images of “sadistic form” that allow hegemonic groups to disavow their own investments in, and dependence on, sadism (McCann, 2022). Theories along these lines are correct to focus on what crime drama does for (or to) its audiences. I develop this area of criminological theory by bringing it close to “crip theory” (McRuer, 2006), a perspective within disability studies that has recently been used to craft a “crip criminology” (Thorneycroft and Asquith, 2021), and scholarly concern with speciesism.

“Crip theory” offers a nuanced way to read the types of crime media of which Dahmer-Monster is an example. In this case, it leads to advancing three closely related arguments. First, Dahmer-Monster performs for its audience the functions that Rosemary Garland-Thomson (1997) discerned in the American “freak shows” of the 19th and 20th centuries. It provides audiences with assurances of their “normality,” their distance from abject bodies, by establishing “difference” and putting it on display. Second, the series invests “normality”—the thing to be desired and emulated—with particular meanings. Scholars posit that the normate is non-disabled, white, male, upper-class, heteronormative (Mitchell and Snyder, 2015). To this list of attributes that secure social privileges for some I want to add speciesist, and argue that Dahmer-Monster is a manifestation of the cultural work necessary to construe the normal subject as one that accepts a hierarchical divide between “human” and “animal.” This allows the normate to subjugate non-human animals, but it also rationalizes the subjugation of anything construed as “animal.” Third, as a site of representation that constructs and delimits the “normate,” Dahmer-Monster helps reproduce some important contours of socio-cultural order. Specifically, it reinscribes particular responses to disability as appropriate, such as “pity,” and the view that some lives are “not worth living.” Conceptual framings along these lines underpin discriminatory practices toward disabled people.

These arguments are advanced by considering the complete TV series and some of its most pivotal scenes. The analysis is grounded in what I consider radical constructivist epistemology, which is well articulated in writings by Nicolas Carrier and colleagues (Carrier, 2008, 2011; Carrier and Walby, 2014). Bacchi (2009; see also Bacchi and Eveline, 2010; Spivakovsky and Seear, 2017) provides a compelling list of analytical concerns that are central to the interrogation of (cultural) representation. First, how does representation normalize some ways of thinking while disqualifying others? Second, what kinds of subject positions are produced via representation? Third, what are the material consequences of representation? One might summarize this by saying that radical constructivist epistemology focuses on how representation has effects upon our conceptual understandings, the production of desirable (and undesirable) subject positions, and practices. Those with an interest in crip theory, crip criminology, and animal rights may find some value in the analysis and interpretations that follow. The piece may also be of interest to those who identify as critical and/or cultural criminologists, especially those who focus on crime in the media and its ideological or performative effects (Werth, 2019).

It is not unusual for disability studies scholars and crip theorists to declare their positionality. The politics of such declarations are open to debate, but as Thorneycroft and Asquith (2021: 188) note, “position ourselves we must, lest those with the power to decide upon labels question our authority to speak on such matters.” I am an autistic person who has been through a professional diagnostic process and a vegetarian striving to eliminate dependence on animal products. Both locations inform my politics and the following academic work.

I am often disappointed with how autism is portrayed, especially in cultures that claim to be striving for greater acceptance of human variation. When lead characters with autism appear on screen (or when audiences are led to believe a character is autistic), their “autistic traits” are often over-emphasized in initial scenes. However, such traits often recede from view as the show proceeds and as the character becomes more “normal.” Variation is not acceptable within these forms of representation. Rather, social inclusion hinges on the repression of difference. In shows along these lines, autism is tolerated only insofar as it can be contained and made functional within a professional domain of work (e.g., The Good Doctor, Extraordinary Attorney Woo). This is about as good as it gets for autism representation. Alongside this trend, autism is frequently equated with exceptional skills in one area, but insurmountable failure or inability more generally. This pattern is especially evident in shows where a detective is autistic or has traits associated with autism. Autism may make a person an incredibly savvy detective, but it also assures they are very bad at, say for instance, parenting (e.g., The Killing, Bordertown). To these two patterns a third can be added. Autism, or “being on the spectrum,” is increasingly woven into shows about rare, unusual forms of crime. In my view, the recent (re)fascination with figures like Ted Kaczynski and Jeffrey Dahmer are examples of this trend, where attention is drawn to something that “makes them different” and may help “us” understand their crimes. While popular culture has long paired disability with crime, I suspect that how the two are drawn into association is changing, especially considering contemporary ideologies of inclusion or the welcoming of difference.

Identifying as an autistic person and a vegetarian is hard to dissociate from my interest in Dahmer-Monster. Autism (and/or disability) and the consumption of flesh are themes that resonate throughout the show. While Dahmer-Monster does not explicitly state that Dahmer is autistic or disabled, I would argue that the show deploys codes that would lead much of the audience to position him as such. Such coding is perhaps most manifest in the second and third episodes of the series. The show’s preoccupation with flesh consumption is much more explicit. This discrepancy is worth accenting. The show would expose itself to very strong critique were it to openly position “disability” as a factor that explains Dahmer’s crimes. The consumption of flesh needs to be treated with some caution, but there is more room to be explicit in these respects because the show is produced in a cultural, socio-political context governed by speciesism. Ultimately, I am interested in Dahmer-Monster as a cultural text that is available to audiences for consumption, one that speaks to the problems of ableism and speciesism in a particular way and rationalizes specific imaginaries or ways of understanding the world and our place in it. What follows, then, is not intended as a defense of Dahmer or his actions. Nor is it about assessing the veracity of the text by juxtaposing it with “reality.” Rather, it is an argument about how Dahmer-Monster (a culturally available text) appropriates aspects of Dahmer’s life as a foil to convey specific images of normality and abnormality. In short, I am interested in the show as a manifestation of boundary maintenance and, perhaps, boundary creation.

Crip theory, crip criminology, speciesism

The arguments concerning Dahmer-Monster that follow are indebted to crip theory and recent attempts to reconcile disability scholarship with animal rights discourses. Efforts to bring crip theory into criminology, thereby opening space for a crip criminology, have also been influential. Given the problems that criminal justice systems pose for disabled people, the development of a crip criminology is long overdue.

“Crip theory” derives from scholars such as McRuer (2006), Kafer (2013), Mitchell and Snyder (2015), and Garland-Thomson (1997). Much of this work focuses on cultural sites where “disability” and “normalcy” appear. Cultural representations are important to crip theory because they construct a collective sense of disability and normalcy, but also because discrete representations are understood as articulations of a much deeper, underlying cultural framework—what one might refer to as ableism. According to Campbell (2001: 44), ableism can be understood as “a network of beliefs, processes and practices that produces a particular kind of self and body (the corporeal standard) that is projected as the perfect, species-typical and therefore essential and fully human.” Ableism amounts to a form of “discrimination in favour of able-bodied people” (Campbell, 2008: 153). Within this imaginary, impairments are construed as “inherently negative” and, where possible, should be “cured or indeed eliminated” (Campbell, 2009a: 23). Given the dominance of ableism, crip theory interrogates how cultural and material forces arrange normalcy and disability into a hierarchical relationship. For McRuer, it is impossible to sever notions of normalcy from compulsion. It follows that normalcy is not simply constructed as desirable but actively enforced as a cultural logic and material practice, hence McRuer’s (2006, p. 7) notion of “compulsory able-bodiedness.”

Crip theory explores how disability is central to cultural representation—even if implicit—because it functions as the surface upon which images of normality can be produced (Darke, 1998; Mitchell and Snyder, 2015; Snyder and Mitchell, 2010). Disability is often the counterpoint against which constructions of normality crystalize. Garland-Thomson’s (1997) Extraordinary Bodies, for example, offers a critical reading of the “freak show,” arguing that this form of “entertainment” appeals to audiences insofar as it assures them of their normality. By putting disabled bodies on display, the audience feels relief in seeing what it is not. In Garland-Thomson’s terminology, the freak show uses disability to articulate the “normate”—the type of embodiment that ableist culture valorizes.

The imposition of normality has many consequences for bodyminds that cannot (or refuse to) appease its benchmarks, but this is not to say that resistance is absent. Alongside many forms of disability activism, crip theory can readily be understood as a mode of intervention, an attempt to disrupt hegemonic social order and its imposition of the normate. For many, crip theory is a development comparable to queer theory, postcolonial theory, feminist theory, critical race theory, and so on (Kafer, 2013; McRuer, 2006; Taylor, 2017). Oftentimes, disability, sexuality, race, sex/gender, and so on, are understood as interlocking modes of oppression, which necessitates an emphasis on intersectionality (Annamma et al., 2013). Akin to these developments in thought, crip theory elaborates, centers and “speaks from” a “critical disability consciousness” (McRuer, 2006: 80) while recognizing the importance of intersectionality.

Some criminologists draw from this work to develop a “crip criminology.” Central to this emergent perspective is a focus on how disabled people are treated within criminal justice systems and criminological scholarship, but the project need not be restricted to these concerns. Thorneycroft and Asquith (2021: 12) suggest that a crip criminology should be open to exploring: (1) the crimes and victimization of disabled people, (2) disability that follows from criminal behaviors, (3) how criminal justice systems create disability, (4) how criminal justice systems are ableist, and (5) ableist criminological theory.

An array of scholarship that could be considered consistent with a cripping of criminology exists. In 2014, the third volume of Griffith Law Review included articles that focused on criminal justice issues from critical disability perspectives. The third volume of Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies from 2017 has a comparable focus. As these issues reveal, crip criminology covers a range of problems: criminal responsibility and insanity defenses (Minkowitz, 2014); criminal law as a mechanism that “manages” disabled people (Baldry, 2014; Dowse, 2017; Spivakovsky and Seear, 2017); how ableism rationalizes state violence and the violence of criminal law (Spivakovsky, 2014; Steele, 2014; Wadiwel, 2017); disablist hate crime (Thorneycroft and Asquith, 2017). By no means does this constitute an exhaustive list.

The elaboration of a crip criminology is important and the work here is impressive. It certainly cuts a new path for those interested in the core themes of criminology. However, crip criminology’s current horizon line can already be pushed further out because of scholarship that considers ableism and speciesism as inevitably entangled. As noted, crip theory (and crip criminology) is sensitive to the intersectional nature of oppression, often focusing on how ableism suffuses sexism and racism—and how racism and sexism saturate ableism (see Steele, 2014). The emphasis on speciesism further expands the notion of intersectionality and elaborates how modes of oppression are mutually reinforcing.

Disability scholars interested in ableism and those interested in speciesism have often been at odds with one another. This is a product of the ableism that informs some animal rights discourses, and the speciesism that informs some disability movements. The problem of ableism in critiques of speciesism is perhaps most evident in Peter Singer’s work. Singer argues that if a living being can experience suffering it ought to be extended moral consideration. This leads him to posit that some animals have more capacity to suffer than some humans. Disabled people often figure as examples of the latter (Singer, 1990, 2004). According to Vehmas (1999), Singer’s work relies on the arbitrary criterion of “intelligence” to draw normative boundaries around living beings and leads Singer to see some forms of human existence as not “fully human.” This generates a profound contradiction in Singer’s effort to critique speciesism: it is “essentially anthropocentric. That is, human beings are, in bioutilitarianism, the paradigm case of beings with moral standing” (Vehmas, 1999: 45). One might consider some of Harriet McBryde Johnson’s views as indicative of how speciesism can underpin analyses of ableism. McBryde posits that interest in animal rights is peculiar given the problems that disabled people encounter (for a detailed discussion, see Taylor, 2017: 123–148). Rejecting the tendency to pit animals and disabled people against one another, a handful of scholars argue that antagonism is not necessary and has adverse consequences for both movements (Saloman, 2010; Taylor, 2017). Taylor (2017) provides a compelling account of how ableism and speciesism are conceptually distinct, but invariably intertwined.

Following Campbell (2009b), Taylor (2017: 5) writes that ableism “breeds discrimination and oppression, but it also informs how we define which embodiments are normal, which are valuable.” Ableism establishes and maintains hierarchical order, one that positions “disability” below “normal.” The practices that follow—disablism—are significant. They include exclusion from economic and social life, unethical medical intervention, eugenics, and other efforts to eradicate disabled people.

Much like ableism, speciesism can also be understood as a cultural framework that insists upon drawing boundaries. Here, a line is drawn between “humans” and “animals.” Taylor (2017) puts it well:

Speciesism is a belief that human beings are superior to all other animals, condoning human use and domination over animals because we humans rank above them—either spiritually or biologically. Speciesism is manifested when a drug or household product is tested on an animal . . . when we destroy an animal’s habitat to benefit ourselves, and when we send an animal to slaughter or we commodify her body for our own benefit. (p. 84)

While ableism and speciesism can be conceptualized as discrete entities, Taylor’s project is to show how they are mutually informative. Disabled people are often construed as “animal,” and this pairing facilitates their subjugation (because speciesism normalizes the horrendous, exploitative treatment of animals). Likewise, animals are often construed as lacking some quality—typically “reason”—that is thought to make one “fully human” (the idea of the “fully human” is central to ableist discourses). Many ways to illustrate the entangled nature of ableism and speciesism are available: our treatment of animals often disables them; we are inclined to exterminate injured animals out of “sympathy” (especially after our exploitation of them has produced disability); large sectors of the medical field focus on “curing” disability—or moving disabled people into what is thought to constitute the “fully human,” “normal” domain (Clare, 2017).

The preceding discussion of crip theory, crip criminology, ableism, and speciesism is an attempt to outline the theoretical prism that refracts my reading of Dahmer-Monster and, insofar as one can go beyond this example, the consumption of crime media. Consistent with Thorneycroft and Asquith (2021; see also Thorneycroft, 2020), there is a need to “crip” criminological theory. Any such cripping project, however, need not focus solely on disability and/or ableism, and any such project would be enhanced by recognizing that ableism and speciesism are co-constitutive cultural forces. Further, it is important that those who examine the interlocking nature of oppressive regimes make some room for ableism and speciesism if they are not already doing so. Hopefully, what follows will demonstrate the value of analyzing problems through a “criminology—ableism—speciesism” lens.

The abject on display: Dahmer-Monster as “freak show,” now streaming

Dahmer-Monster attracted a sizeable audience or, in the lexicon of streaming, many viewing hours. Although popular, the show was not well received by professional critics. They construe it as exploiting victims and their families; trading in gruesome details that appeal to those with a questionable interest in the macabre; and transforming Dahmer into an icon (Chaney, 2022; Feinberg, 2022; Framke, 2022; Gray, 2022; Lawson, 2022; Power, 2022).

Interspersed among such critiques, reviewers typically note that the show has some redeeming features. The sixth episode has been lauded for centering Tony Hughes, a Black, Deaf man who was murdered by Dahmer (Chaney, 2022; Feinberg, 2022; Framke, 2022). Reviewers also recognize the show for drawing attention to the racism, classism, and homophobia—especially within the Milwaukee police department—that allowed Dahmer to offend for many years with impunity (Almeida, 2022; Cobb, 2022; Turner, 2022; Winter, 2022). However, for most critics these elements of the show do not outweigh its troubling aspects.

In my reading, the space and time that Dahmer-Monster gives to racism, classism, and homophobia cannot be dismissed so readily. Narratives are often structured by an antagonism between “good” and “evil,” and the show positions institutional racism and neglect of marginalized communities as an “evil” that is not so far removed from that of Dahmer. It is incredibly difficult for audiences to miss this message. However, while racism, classism, and homophobia are subject to interrogation, the same critical skepticism is not extended to ableism and speciesism. If the show exploits anything it is ableism and speciesism. Without its ableist and speciesist underpinnings, the show would lose much of its momentum. It is surprising, but not incidental, that these problems have eluded commentary. Animals, carcasses, meat, and flesh are recurrent themes and signs in Dahmer-Monster. So too is disability, although it is typically encoded as “mental illness,” “psychopathy,” “brain injury.”

The first episode focuses on Dahmer’s capture by police and the revelation of his crimes. It ends with a police detective posing the question that most people probably want to ask: “why”? Given the widespread assumption that someone like Dahmer defies explanation it is an odd question. Nonetheless, the second and third episodes proceed to focus on Dahmer’s upbringing, portraying his childhood, teen years, and early adulthood. Much of this attempt to explain Dahmer relies on the ableist imaginary. The show suggests that Dahmer was neglected by his parents, thereby deprived of developing social skills; emotionally “stunted”; that he may have suffered a brain injury due to a hernia operation as a child; that he may have been affected by prescribed medicines his mother took during pregnancy. I would argue that such narrativization leads the audience to construe Dahmer as “disabled.”

Much of what Dahmer is shown doing in episodes two and three (and others) could be described as “normal.” However, once the audience has been made aware of his criminal activity and abject status, subsequent scenes are interpreted through that awareness. The things that Dahmer does are now exceptional, tinged with idiosyncratic meaning. Dahmer does what most audience members routinely do or have done: he cuts up meat, cooks meat, eats meat; handles carcasses and bones; dissects an animal in science class, and so on. All of this, however, is accompanied by a “but”: Dahmer cuts, cooks, and eats meat, but he also kills and eats people; Dahmer engages in taxidermy (which some people do, or hire people to do), but he also kills and eats people. The audience sees something of themselves in much of this, but they are also guaranteed not to see themselves reflected.

This partial reflection and what it represses is important. It is the play of overlap and difference that ensures the audience will not read Dahmer’s relationship to animals as “abnormal” because it is cruel and murderous—features that characterize most of the audience’s treatment of animals—but because Dahmer is positioned as abnormal. Put otherwise, Dahmer is “abnormal” and so his relationship to animals and meat consumption is abnormal; the audience is situated as not abnormal and so its relationship to animals and meat consumption need not be questioned—even though both treat animals in the same way.

With that in mind, it is worth returning to Garland-Thomson’s theorization of the “freak show.” According to her, freak shows performed “crucial cultural work” for audiences by exhibiting “to the American masses what they imagined themselves not to be. Such shows choreographed human variation into a spectacle of bodily otherness that united their audiences in opposition to the freaks’ aberrance and assured the onlookers that they were indeed ‘normal’” (Garland-Thomson, 1997: 16–17). Yet, the force of this cultural work does not hinge on establishing total difference between the normate and the freak. Rather, “fascination for audiences depends not upon . . . absolute otherness, but rather upon the conflicting presence of radical differences and familiar traits” (p. 74). In a formulation offered by Hughes (2000: 558; see also Hughes, 2009: 405), the “mainstream cannot identify itself or confirm the exalted—at worst ‘normal’—nature of its existence without reference to the margin.” Without some degree of familiarity or incorporation of that which is marginalized, audiences would lose the sense that the spectacle has bearing upon their existence.

Like the freak show, Dahmer-Monster plays on the establishment of difference and intimations of familiarity. This implies that it is not pandering to some perverse obsession with the macabre or an unusual interest in the morbid. Such readings are too simplistic, and they hardly explain why such shows attract large audiences. The appeal resides in proffering an image of extreme difference that appears as such because it is underpinned by an image of normality—and ensuring that audiences will sense their reflection solely in the latter (Darke, 2004). That the distinction between these images is crude and implausibly dichotomous is largely irrelevant. Reassurance of one’s normality is preferable to its destabilization and questioning.

The normate is speciesist

The normate is often conceptualized as stable yet adaptable. It secures power for the non-disabled, white, heterosexual, male, but it does not necessarily rely on simple repression or disqualification of difference to do so. According to Mitchell and Snyder (2015: 4), in neoliberal contexts the normate has come to rely on the (superficial) incorporation of difference, which they refer to as inclusionism. Difference will be tolerated provided it abides by terms set by the normate (Darke, 2004). This goes some way toward explaining why Dahmer-Monster can critique blatant institutional racism, classism and homophobia (these are not the currently preferred strategies of domination) without necessarily disturbing hegemonic culture. As intimated above, though, Dahmer-Monster is an ableist and speciesist text. Insofar as this is the case, I would argue the show constructs the normate as speciesist. Aligning speciesism and normal subjectivity is important because it constitutes a strategy (among others) that allows the latter to dominate non-human animals and social groups or individuals construed as “animal.”

Paradoxically, Dahmer is and is not a speciesist. He is because he dominates and harms animals, both human and non-human. He is not a speciesist insofar as he does not necessarily recognize the boundary that speciesism draws between “humans” and “animals.” Of course, this is an “inverse” or “incidental” rejection of speciesism and is not to be taken as a defense of Dahmer. I think it highly unlikely that Dahmer had any intention of problematizing speciesism. While ethical arguments assert that exploiting and inflicting harms upon animals is unnecessary and based on privileging some arbitrarily selected quality (Francione, 2004; MacKinnon, 2004), Dahmer’s actions presume that if nothing renders human animals “special” then they can be treated how non-human animals are treated. This is the problem posed by his cannibalism and it is not a comfortable idea for many: if you are going to eat animal flesh, you may as well eat human flesh. It is only speciesism that asserts any difference.

Dahmer’s refusal of the line that speciesism draws is something the show needs to explain away. Ableism comes to the rescue. Dahmer is portrayed as transgressing the line due to psychopathy, possible brain injury, a lack of “social skills” (hinting at autism), exposure to toxins during pregnancy, and so on. If Dahmer is not rendered exceptional, the likelihood of audiences sensing what might constitute “abnormality” on their part increases. Much effort is made to repress this latter possibility and the discomfort it may generate. Dahmer-Monster includes all kinds of grim scenes involving flesh, imagery that will make most people’s skin crawl, but it dares not say that the audience, or much of the mainstream society that it appeals to, lives according to a line that is drawn arbitrarily. In fact, the show repeatedly aligns speciesism with normalcy.

This is perhaps most evident in episode one, where Dahmer diverts suspicion by telling his neighbor and a victim that the “bad smell” emanating from his apartment is due to a faulty freezer that has led meat to rot. The audience hears Dahmer’s “faulty freezer” diversion at least three times in the first episode. The very first scene of the series involves the following exchange between Dahmer and his neighbor:

Neighbor:

Jeff, I gotta say, that smell is worse than ever

Dahmer:

Is it? Well, y’know, I had that meat that went bad in that little freezer I got

Neighbor:

No, you said that last week, and I saw you go out to the dumpster and throw out a whole bunch of bad meat, so the smell should be gone by now

(Episode 1, 2:50–3:45)

In a later episode, Dahmer explains to his father and grandmother that the foul smell coming from the basement of grandma’s house is due to taxidermy work. These strategies of diversion are effective. Neighbors, parents, grandparents, and police officers are all deceived by Dahmer’s insistence that what they are smelling is non-human animal decay. Dahmer’s deceit works because the rotting of non-human animals, and the stench this can cause (e.g., dumpsters do not smell very pleasant), is perfectly consistent with speciesism.

Especially noteworthy here is that speciesism, which conceals a murderous career, is never problematized. This becomes clear when its treatment is juxtaposed with the show’s emphasis on how institutional racism, classism, and homophobia allowed Dahmer to elude capture. Institutional racism and disdain for marginalized communities is invariably portrayed as “evil.” It is hard to imagine the audience not recognizing that the show casts racism and homophobia as major “villains.” By way of contrast, those who make the homologous investment in speciesism—which also works to Dahmer’s advantage—are cast as “heroes.” Dahmer’s neighbor is the standout hero of the series. She frequently reports strange noises and smells coming from Dahmer’s apartment to police, follows up with police to see if any action has been taken, and refuses to live in fear of Dahmer. Dahmer’s father is made heroic by his tortuous self-reflections and inner turmoil concerning his parenting. Grandma is incredibly sweet and innocent. She goes to church every Sunday. Yet, all accept that rotting meat is a “normal” part of human existence.

The noticeable difference in the portrayal of racism-classism-homophobia relative to speciesism is not the only way in which Dahmer-Monster constructs the normate as a speciesist. There are several other moments in the series that also hinge on this pairing.

In the science class scene from episode three, Dahmer is partnered with a young woman and tasked with dissecting a pig. The young woman objects on conscientious grounds: she is vegetarian and sees the task as cruel and unnecessary. Classmates, the teacher, and Dahmer openly ridicule her. After the class, Dahmer asks the teacher for a second pig because he would like to perform another dissection at home. The teacher finds it out of the ordinary but obliges. Dahmer then invites a classmate to his house to help dissect the pig. The classmate, a young, white man on the sports team, is incredulous at this request. He refuses and now perceives Dahmer as “abnormal.” Taken together, this sequence presents the audience with three relationships to animals and flesh. How the young woman and how Dahmer relate to animals are disqualified (“vegetarianism-animal rights” and “all flesh as exploitable,” respectively). This propels the classmates and the teacher into the normate position. In this space, non-human animals are exploitable but there are some rules: cutting into their flesh is acceptable in science class but one does not do this for pleasure at home; presumably, though, animals are eaten at home and this form of consumption can be experienced as pleasurable. Arguably consistent with Douglas’s (1984) work concerning “dirt” and “matter out of place,” it is not the inherent qualities of a practice that render it acceptable (or unacceptable), but a question of whether any given practice obeys cultural understandings of “decorum.”

There is another scene that merits attention on this point. In episode seven, Dahmer offers his neighbor a sandwich, assuring her that it is “pulled pork.” The audience is fully aware of Dahmer’s cannibalism and so they are to assume that he is trying to deceive the neighbor into eating human flesh. This is to be experienced as repulsive, and one can easily imagine the following words playing over and over in the minds of most audience members: do not eat that sandwich, whatever you do, do not eat that sandwich. The audience, however, is not being pushed to the edge of their seats because the sandwich might contain pig. The inducement to eat pigs, and the actual ingesting of pigs, are routine events for most people. It is uncertainty that creates tension—and that uncertainty hinges on situating the neighbor in a space where the authority of speciesism has been suspended, if not replaced by the possibility of cannibalism.

The normate subject, social relations, cultural order

In this final section, some of the effects that Dahmer-Monster has concerning larger social relations and cultural frameworks are explored. It is organized by two conceptual concerns. First, the role of police in marginalized communities and, via this, the limits to how the show approaches intersectionality. Second, the reproduction of ableist tropes, especially concerning “pity” and the notion that disability renders one “better off dead.”

Racism, classism, and homophobia are recurrent themes in Dahmer-Monster. These forms of discrimination often appear as bound together, indicating that some concern with intersectionality informs the show’s production. The overarching message is that marginalized communities should not be neglected by police and criminal justice agencies, that all communities should have their needs met by the state. Given the historical events being portrayed, one can readily understand why this theme is so prominent and it is reasonable to assume that the creators of Dahmer-Monster are pushing for a police presence that works with and for communities.

While this may not appear problematic at first glance, it does raise some questions around what it means to call for greater police presence in marginalized communities. Calls for greater police sensitivity only work on the assumption that such criminal justice agencies can be anti-racist, classist, homophobic. However, it seems hard to imagine how that would be possible in a society that is structured by racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, and so on. For many marginalized communities, police presence is the problem that needs addressing. Recent “Black Lives Matter” movements and calls to “defund police” would attest to this view. It may be that this is the type of critique the show hopes to offer. But, by keeping the focus on some of society’s institutional layers, larger structural and cultural dynamics recede from view.

Whatever critique that Dahmer-Monster does offer of neglectful policing is undercut by its dependence on ableist and speciesist cultural frameworks. Critiques of racism, classism, and homophobia that presuppose ableism and speciesism are limited insofar as these modes of domination provide mutual support for each other. Racism often functions via ableism and speciesism (and vice versa). That is, processes of dehumanization—rendering some social groups as “animal” and “less than”—are central to racist thinking and practice (Annamma et al., 2013; Bailey and Mobley, 2019; Nakata, 1998, 2007). This issue requires a sustained discussion that is not possible here. It is, however, worth drawing attention to the dilemma of the show and the problem posed: can a critique of racism, classism, homophobia—and other modes of domination that one may list—promote ableism and speciesism yet remain compelling?

To turn to the second conceptual focus, Dahmer-Monster reproduces two notions that are fundamental to ableism: “pity” for the disabled and the view that disabled people are “better off dead.” Disability scholars have had much to say about pity and why it is objectionable. The road from pity to “cure” is a very short one (Clare, 2017; Haller, 2010; Kafer, 2013). It is often assumed that medicine and technology ought to intervene to “correct” disability. As self-evident as this medical narrative may appear, it assumes that all bodyminds should adhere to a standardized template (Hughes, 2000). It also normalizes the idea that disability is inherently problematic and something that needs to be transcended, if not eradicated. Such assumptions are often held irrespective of what disabled people might have to say about their modes of embodiment (Campbell, 2008).

The pity theme is especially evident in the sixth episode that focuses on Tony Hughes. It would be hard for anyone concerned with ableism to not say something about this episode. It is tricky territory. Reviewers laud the episode for centering one of Dahmer’s victims (rather than Dahmer) and for its sustained character development. There is something to this reading. The episode accents sign language and makes interesting use of muted sound to draw the viewer into how Deaf communities might experience life.

One way to pry open the episode for its ableist presuppositions is to ask why Tony Hughes? Hughes is the only person murdered by Dahmer that receives sustained treatment in a ten-episode series. Given that Dahmer killed 17 people, it seems implausible that Hughes was randomly selected. I suspect it would be much harder to generate sympathy for individuals that audiences may reduce to being Black, poor, and gay. Those qualities do not generate sympathy so readily; they are not attributes of “ideal victims.” And so, disability becomes the focus to downplay these aspects of Hughes’ identity (and Dahmer’s other victims). Rather than progressive portrayal, this amounts to exploitation of stereotypes concerning disability.

There is also a question of how Hughes is portrayed as a Deaf individual. In these respects, Hughes is constructed as a “good” disabled person. I do not want to be mistaken here. I am not interested in evaluating Hughes’ personality in real-life. In discussing representations of disability, Darke (2004: 101) posits that audiences encounter “two quite distinct classes of disabled (impaired) people; the normalized and the un-normalizable (. . .) the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ cripple.” “Good” disabled people are those who are physically competent, educated, and strive to achieve a “normal” lifestyle. Those who do not strive to approximate a cultural image of normality constitute the “bad” flipside. The former are—or can be—valued; the latter not so much (Darke, 2004: 103).

The episode makes assumptions about the traits of a “good person” and related to this, who can be positioned as a “victim.” Hughes is portrayed as making every effort to embody the normate position endorsed by hegemonic society. The audience sees him apply for multiple jobs, being rejected by many, but persisting nonetheless. He celebrates when offered a job. He is not looking for simple sexual gratification (a prevalent stereotype about gay communities), but a meaningful relationship modeled on the heterosexual nuclear family. As Hughes pens to a flirtatious photographer, “I’m looking for love. Does it live here?” (Episode six, 15:30). When invited by Dahmer to his apartment, Hughes writes “earn me” (22:45). Even though he experiences social exclusion, Hughes insists that the burden is on him to create a meaningful, happy life (26:45). He must work to defeat the odds that are stacked against him. He does not seem to “complain” about anything. In Mitchell and Snyder’s (2015) terminology, Hughes plays by the rules set by “inclusionism.”

It is these aspects of Hughes that are used to generate sympathy amongst audiences. They are supposed to feel pity because Hughes was a “good” disabled person who sought to transcend the difficulties he experienced living in an ableist society. Furthermore, and never far from the surface, the episode manipulates the sentiment that preying upon disabled people is indisputable evidence of an assailant’s depravity. Constructing or using disability to evoke pity and sympathy positions disabled people as a social burden, a problem that needs to be “fixed.” It is a paternalistic approach to disability that allows non-disabled individuals to feel good about themselves for purportedly helping the “other.” Such paternalism refuses to interrogate the ableism, disablism, and inequalities that render life difficult for many disabled people, thereby reinforcing ableist social order. Dahmer-Monster offers yet another endorsement of this paternalistic, ableist framework. Somewhat ironically, the sixth episode may center a disabled person, yet fails to dislodge the cultural authority of ableism.

The “better off dead” trope is perhaps most evident in Dahmer’s sentencing and death in prison. Another major plank of ableist logic, the idea that disabled people are “better off dead” almost speaks for itself. It refers to the view that disability renders life so miserable that it is not worth living. The notion assumes that social conditions cannot be changed to address disability. The “better off dead” view typically follows from how non-disabled individuals imagine what disabled lives are like (Albrecht and Devlieger, 1999; Haller, 2010; Hughes, 2000; Titchkosky, 2007). Rarely, if ever, does it consult or bother to understand life from a disability-centered consciousness (Taylor, 2017: 139). The trope often underpins advocacy of “assisted suicide,” genetic screening, discouraging disabled people’s expression of sexuality, and so on.

At numerous points in Dahmer-Monster, Dahmer expresses the sentiment that he needed to be stopped and that the death penalty would be an appropriate sentence for him. His desire for the death penalty is especially pronounced in episodes eight and nine. This is not incidental and sets the tone for Dahmer’s murder whilst in prison, portrayed in the 10th and last episode. In the scene that re-enacts Dahmer’s murder, the audience is led to believe that he was passive in the face of death, accepting what he knew was to come and understanding the murderer’s reasons. We do not typically see Dahmer committing his murders, but his death in prison is portrayed in graphic detail. To recreate the murders committed by Dahmer would be troubling for audiences, but to show the murder of Dahmer does not generate comparable dilemmas. Dahmer’s murder scene comes across as a form of “poetic justice.” Orchestrated by a vigilante rather than the state, it can be read as an informal death penalty that seems easy to justify. It is worth noting that, other than Dahmer, very few characters refer to the death penalty. Having Dahmer call for his own death sentence, and then embrace it, allows for a troubling sentiment to be openly articulated yet repressed at the very moment of its articulation: “difference” rationalizes extermination.

None of this should be taken as an effort to generate sympathy for Dahmer. Nor is it intended as a critique or defense of the death penalty. Rather, I am drawing attention to how the show erodes any boundary between difference—or what Hughes (2000: 563) might refer to as the “anomalous”—and eradication. In this context, it is important to recall that Dahmer is coded throughout the series in ways that would lead much of the audience to position him as “disabled.” It is intimated throughout that he is psychotic, mentally ill, possibly brain injured, perhaps autistic. It is hard to dissociate his criminal activity from how his identity has been constructed over the course of the show. The series attributes his murderous criminal career to such differences. Insofar as Dahmer-Monster suggests that extermination provides a solution to “difference,” it is indebted to one of the fundamental planks of ableist thought. The sentiment may be made more palatable by inscribing it in a retelling of Dahmer’s crimes—and by suggesting that Dahmer had internalized and often expressed it—but this does not render the sentiment non-problematic. A focus on “outliers”—no matter how gruesome their acts may be—can easily veil eugenical thinking, but it does not transcend it.

Conclusion

This article treats Dahmer-Monster as a cultural site that is worth analyzing and interpreting for various reasons. The text is significant in-itself given its widespread consumption. It also merits analysis as a manifestation of a larger genre of crime media—that of “true crime.” I have argued that Dahmer-Monster—and, by extension, comparable texts—can be understood as a cinematic form of the “freak show” (Garland-Thomson, 1997). The freak show puts difference and familiarity on display to assure audiences of their normality, their belonging to a particular social order (Darke, 2004). Constructions of normality are historically specific and arbitrary. For a long time, white, male, heterosexual, middle-class, non-disabled has populated the normate. Dahmer-Monster reveals and defends another dimension of the normate that has been subject to less scrutiny and interest: its speciesism. Such a construction of normal subjectivity has some important implications for the reproduction of social and cultural order at a more abstract or distant level. Somewhat obviously, if the normate is speciesist then cruel, exploitative treatment of non-human animals is rationalized. But, the domination of any being construed as “animal” or “not fully human” is also justified via the normalization of speciesism. To put this otherwise, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism—this list could be extended—are also reproduced. This follows insofar as the logic of speciesism permeates racism, classism, ableism (and so on), and vice versa.

A variety of criminological theories have been developed concerning the consumption of crime media. I do not see the arguments advanced above as a refutation of those theories. There is much in crime drama that assures audiences that order will be restored, especially via the use of force (Sparks, 1992). This could be said of Dahmer-Monster. His murder in prison provides the audience with “closure,” a sense of relief that some “system” is in place to regulate threats. A displacement of rational anxieties that accompany life in a late-modern world as Hollway and Jefferson (1997) suggest? Certainly. Does Dahmer-Monster distance the audience from its own dependence upon “sadistic form” as McCann (2022) would have it? The similarities between Dahmer and everyday activities are transparent, but difference is also rhetorically established, rendering some forms of sadism acceptable while delegitimizing others.

Rather than assume one reading is true and correct while others are false, I hope to add another layer (or two) of interpretation to the tapestry of deciphering the appeal of crime drama. Ableism and speciesism are important elements for making sense of crime drama, yet they have not commanded the attention of many criminologists. It is not only criminology, though, that minimizes its interest in the problems posed by ableism and speciesism. Disability studies and crip theory (and possibly crip criminology—although this is an emergent body of thought) also appear to neglect cultural representations of crime. It might be that crip theories are hesitant to explore such cultural sites because doing so runs the risk of linking disability and criminality. Further, symbolically linking the two undermines the production of counter-hegemonic narratives wherein disability is understood as a valued way of being in the world. That is, associating disability with crime hampers “speaking otherwise about the lived body with impairments” (Campbell, 2008: 154).

However, I am claiming that Dahmer-Monster cues its audience to read Dahmer as disabled, and then links his criminality to disability. It is precisely these forms of representation that undermine counter-hegemonic narratives concerning disability; they repress possibilities to “speak otherwise.” As such, they demand critical scrutiny. The cultural mediation of crime is a major site for the articulation of ableist (and speciesist) logic. Ableism is thriving in cultural representations of crime. This is especially discernible in the true crime genre, but I suspect the point will hold for much crime media. Crime dramas often use disability to signal the evilness of a character—that is well known—but there is no shortage of neurodivergent detectives, lawyers, criminal investigators, and so on in contemporary cultural offerings. Many a TV detective may now be autistic, thereby moving “disability” from its conventional location in the “good-evil” binary, yet this simple move does not ensure anti-ableist narratives. All of this amounts to very fertile ground for a “crip criminology” attuned to the cultural dimensions of social order.