Netflix series based on murderer Jeffrey Dahmer, has sparked a conversation around our obsession with true crime.
Netflix released its new true crime drama DAHMER – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story earlier this month.
The 10-part series stars Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer, pedophile, necrophiliac, and cannibal who murdered and dismembered 17 people over 13 years.
The screening of this series has sparked a conversation around our obsession with true crime.
According to a leading psychiatrist, our evolutionary need to recognise predators are one reason why there's such an interest in serial killers.
Brendan Kelly is a professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin.
He says self preservation and a desire to look at the darker side of life, is why we can't look away from these gruesome shows:
"There is an evolutionary need to learn about predators and to understand how danger works so therefore, we can recognise it better.
"I think a more likely reason is that we are a bit obsessed with the darker side of humanity, the bad things other people can do and the extent of which we could do these things too if we had different circumstances or if life had been different."
The show has also been subject to criticism and backlash due to its approach to the families of Dahmer's victims and the production's apparent failure to approach them.
Family members of one of Dahmer's victims have spoken out about Netflix's production, publicly stating that they were not consulted about the series and questioning the need for yet more entertainment media digging up their trauma.
