I find myself conflicted and confused when ingesting media that resurrects serial killers’ likenesses – going so far as to glamorize and inevitably further immortalize their lives. Any scripted project based on a killer worth his weight in dead people will follow intense news media coverage of actual events. So what is the purpose of tv or movie-fication of a serial killer’s life? Hollywood doesn’t seem to share my doubts of the treatment of true crimes in tv and movies, and continues to rehash tragic events that happened at the hands of murderers in buzz-worthy projects, often casting attractive actors and going into salacious detail – heavy on the sex, light on the moral ambiguity.
Ryan Murphy’s casting of the man meat buffet Darren Criss as serial killer Andrew Cunanan on American Crime Story: Assassination of Gianni Versace is an obvious example of a Killers Gone Wild! project. The Gay Internet was drooling over Criss’ behind-the-scenes shirtless bikini teases all throughout 2017, and when he finally bared his buns in the season’s first episode, gays everywhere were murdering… their underwear! But Cunanan was a killer who destroyed people’s lives. So, how do reconcile that with tuning in each week to see what zany shenanigans our dashingly disturbed Cunanan is going to get into? I literally don’t know.
Is Sexualizing ‘My Friend Dahmer’ Nude Twink Scene Wrong?
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