‘Blonde,’ ‘Dahmer’ and turning true crime into entertainment

I’ll watch almost anything. As someone who loves pop culture and is in desperate need of time to recharge, I’ve spent many nights after work sprawled on my tiny gray couch and binge-watching Netflix.

I look at things for comfort. I see things to laugh at. I even look at things to cry on, on days I need a good cry.

I also like to look at things to learn about people, even when they reduce me to a bundle of sleepless paranoia for more than one night. True crime was always on my radar, I indulged in a few crime podcasts in the past, and found myself both fascinated and scared by it.

When “Blonde” came out last year and “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” came out soon after, my interest was piqued. But after reading reviews and reactions, it became clear that these works were nothing more than pretty pictures of real people suffering, boxed up and called entertainment.

So while I’ll watch almost anything, I won’t watch it willingly.

The ethics of these fictional true crime stories are beyond murky. How did we get here? And how, in the efforts that the filmmakers claim were made to honor the victims, did these stories manage to erase the integrity their victims had in the first place?

The impact of true intellectual crime

The true crime boom over the past decade is generally attributed to the hit “Serial” podcast. It was true crime like we’ve never seen before: intimate, thoughtful, deep and…