Brutal court cases in the courtroom are turned into a movie set, solely focused on pleasing the audience. Even though Hollywood appears to be an authentic method of exposing audiences to the reality of true crime, it actually tends to get people invested in the wrong idea. The dramatic appearance of these true crime stories onscreen draws attention away from the tragedy of the crime, and this is an issue because Hollywood twists actual tragedies and turns them into entertainment.
“Monsters” is a TV show franchise created by Ryan Murphy that goes deep into the stories of famous murderers and serial killers that have a public following due to their attractiveness. In season two of “Monsters,” they focused on the Menendez Brothers Erik and Lyle Menendez, who are siblings sentenced to life in prison due to the gruesome killing of their parents in 1989. Brian Andersen Jr. is José Menendez’s nephew continued, and he said “their father’s abuse was overlooked, their trauma ignored, and their truth mocked. Today, we recognize that trauma can lead to actions that, although difficult to comprehend, are driven by the instinct to survive.” The Menendez brothers and their family had their emotions ignored, and that is disturbing to me. TikTok was overflowing with edits of the brothers, which glorified their physical appearance and concentrated on attracting more viewers.
TikTok is one of the most used social-media platforms, and people are using it to help add to the “Monsters” show noise. Over time, women have been more interested in true crime and that is why the goal is to make the characters attractive. Evidently, the public simply did not care about the tragedy of the crime committed due the way Hollywood summed their actions into a nail-biting thriller, rather than a lesson on the reality of true crime.
Once a case starts to gain media traction, people that work in the film industry use that to their advantage to gain views. One audience that Hollywood specifically targets is young adults, because of their numerous ties to social media. According to SSRS, “84% of the U.S. population age 13+ are True Crime consumers, meaning they watch or listen to True Crime through any medium.” Hollywood guarantees that viewers are witnessing true crime stories with action rather than concrete proceedings of the cases. As a teenager, I see firsthand how these choices determine how people react to true crime shows, and how audiences obsess over murderers rather than trying to understand the suffering the victims went through.
The misrepresentation of true crime also negatively impacts the families of victims. The Hollywood Reporter interviewed some families of the victims of Jeffery Dahmer, who is a serial killer notorious for having cannibalistic tendencies. One of those family members is Rita Isabell, whose brother Errol Lindsay was 19 when he was murdered by Jeffery Dahmer. “I feel like Netflix should’ve asked if we mind or how we felt about making it. They didn’t ask me anything. They just did it,” Isabell said.
The show was mainly focused on making money, which was seen as greed by many. Hollywood disregards the stories of victims and their families by only focusing on the concerns of fame and entertainment. Families are being neglected, and it turns trauma into a form of entertainment, ignoring their respect and privacy.
Other people might argue that Hollywood accurately exposes audiences to law-related issues and successfully gets more people involved in the justice system. However, what these people don’t realize is that Hollywood doesn’t do a good job in educating people about the why factor. Why is this case important? Why should we know about it? It mainly focuses on the visual and entertainment aspects, instead of the questions that matter. According to idsnews.com, “The show depicts Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment complex neighbors as overly suspicious of him. But his neighbors didn’t suspect anything malicious, believing his room simply smelled unhygienic, they say in the 2012 documentary, “The Jeffrey Dahmer Files.” “Monsters” didn’t show the full picture, which spread false information about the case itself.
It is essential for people to ask these questions because it helps prevent the facts of the case from getting drowned out by the entertainment aspect, and gives people the opportunity to focus their attention on what goes on in the courtroom.
Hollywood has taken true crime and changed it into a new fascination for the wrong reasons. Murderers have become an obsession by a number of people across the country, which shifts the focus to entertainment instead of the truth. It doesn’t correctly portray the victims and their families, and how their feelings aren’t cared for as much. That in itself is inhumane.
True crime shows in Hollywood should shift their focus to the victims and their families because the bottom line is: the way the characters look and how entertaining a story appears are not as important compared to the actual facts, the lessons and the victims. If we keep treating true crime like it’s a script, then the real crime is our own lack of research.
