Are True Crime Shows Moral?

Dahmer, Netflix’s dramatized biographical thriller about serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who murdered, sexually assaulted, and sometimes cannibalized seventeen men between the years of 1978 and 1991, logged over one billion hours of viewing time in the first 60 days of its release in 2022. The second most-viewed Netflix show of all time, Dahmer is the leader in a wave of true crime shows that continue to captivate audiences and garner huge profits for producers and streaming services. Critics of true crime shows like Dahmer, however, argue that Netflix is unjustly capitalizing on horrible events which continue to hurt victims’ families. To some viewers, the series’ stylistic and narrative choices, such as the way the camera lingers over Dahmer’s apartment and focuses on the character of Dahmer himself, romanticizes Dahmer’s life and crimes without analysis or respect for the victims.

The families of Dahmer’s victims have expressed disapproval of the show’s harshness and carelessness in handling their trauma, and they claim that Netflix never received their consent or consulted them during the show’s production. Furthermore, dramatizing Dahmer’s crimes on a popular streaming platform can bring unwanted attention and memories back to the victims’ communities. In contrast, fans of true crime argue that the flaws of Dahmer need not inherently apply to all true crime media. Dramatised shows with fictionalised elements may be more exploitative and insensitive than for example, investigative news articles. The distinction may lie in whether the primary purpose of the series or publication is to entertain via dramatized narratives or to inform via factual assessments and reporting. Supporters observe that the genre of true crime can humanise victims and restore their identity in popular consciousness outside of victimhood and may also shed light on shortcomings of law enforcement in investigating these crimes in the first place.

Questions

1. Are true crime shows inherently morally suspect because they treat the harm and suffering of real human beings as a form of entertainment?

2.Should true crime shows be required to seek the consent of victims?

3.Do true crime shows inevitably romanticise or glamorise the killers they portray?

Defining

True crime media, particularly dramatized biographical thrillers like Netflix’s Dahmer, involves the recreation and commercialization of real-world murders, assaults, and tragedies for public consumption. The ethical conflict centers on the tension between a media company’s right to artistic expression and profit, and the moral rights of the victims and their families whose real-world trauma is being depicted.

Main Stance

POV: True crime shows are morally acceptable and represent a legitimate exercise of corporate and artistic liberty, but only on the strict condition that creators obtain informed consent from the victims or their surviving families. Without consent, the production crosses the line from free expression into unethical exploitation.¹记得consent

When we examine the morality of true crime production from a libertarian perspective, media companies possess the right to free expression, artistic creation, and freedom of contract. Producing a television show and offering it to a willing audience on a streaming platform is a voluntary market transaction. The events depicted—murders and criminal trials—are often matters of historical and public record. In a free society, a company has the liberty to interpret, dramatize, and monetize historical events, and viewers have the liberty to consume them.

Objection: To publish a true crime show is to use the victim merely as a means to an end.

Response: the word ‘merely’. The shopkeeper analogy, a mutual relationship with consent.

Q1. Are true crime shows inherently morally suspect because they treat the harm and suffering of real human beings as a form of entertainment?

POV: No, they are not inherently morally suspect, provided that consent is achieved. As argued in the Main Stance, producing entertainment is a valid exercise of corporate liberty and free expression. If the victims or their families consent to the production, the ethical hazard of objectification is resolved. In fact, consensual true crime can empower victims by allowing them to reclaim their narrative, bring awareness to systemic failures in law enforcement, and honor the deceased. It is only when the suffering is treated as an unconsented commodity that the practice becomes morally suspect.

Q2. Should true crime shows be required to seek the consent of victims?

POV: Yes, absolutely. Under a deontological framework, human beings must never be used merely as tools for another's benefit. When a network creates a show like Dahmer without consulting the victims' families, they are harvesting the families' real-world pain solely to generate subscriptions and profit. Requiring consent ensures that the moral personhood of the victims is respected and that their trauma is not forcibly commodified against their will. Not merely as a tool, but a mutual relationship with consent. Both of them gain profit from negotiation. To justify it, we need consent. Emphasize the need of consent. 

Q3. Do true crime shows inevitably romanticise or glamorise the killers they portray?

POV: No, not inevitably, though the risk is highly dependent on stylistic choices and whether the victims were given a voice. When a studio fails to seek the consent or input of the victims, they often default to centering the narrative heavily on the killer's psychology and aesthetic, which naturally risks glamorization and romanticization. However, if a production company respects moral boundaries by working with the victims' families, the resulting media is far more likely to center the humanity of the victims and the tragic reality of the crime, effectively mitigating the risk of glamorizing the perpetrator.