Glorifying Monsters: The Moral Problems of True Crime media

True Crime media focuses on telling an audience about a real crime that has occurred and can be anything from a film about a serial killer to a podcast depicting strange True Crime events, and as a genre, it is not new. However, in the past decade or so, there has been a boom in its production. Now, there is a gluttony of podcasts, movies, and shows in recent years focused on True Crime, such as Serial, Killers of the Flower Moon and Tiger King respectively, and just in the last few months, the third season of Monster focusing on Ed Gein, was released and is currently No. 1 in Netflix’s Top Ten shows globally. So, there is obviously an audience for it, and arguably an innate often dark fascination with people who do horrible things and now, more than ever, True Crime content is easily digestible through free to listen podcasts, the internet and the age of streaming. However, I believe there is something wrong with True Crime and its popularity.

In the summer of 2023, I took a trip to London with my mum and was very excited at the prospect of going to Madame Tussauds. Once inside, it was a lot of fun, however at a certain point you come to a crossroads where you can enter the aptly named Chamber of Horrors, which focuses on waxworks of real killers, or take a path which avoids it. Before I could really voice my discomfort, we wound up in a pub where bangs and screams accompanied the waxworks of famous gangsters, The Krays. Through this path designed for scares, there were real items of famous killers displayed which was deeply troubling as I would argue preserving killers’ items and displaying them as part of an attraction glorifies them. The worst part of this Chamber, however, was the waxwork of The Acid Bath Murderer, depicted standing in front of vats of acid with body parts sticking out of them. This is my main issue with true crime, Madame Tussauds, wanting to shock and entertain, forgets that the waxwork limbs jutting out of the acid were real victims, and they don’t deserve this kind of shallow treatment, merely being used as pieces of wax to shock whilst their killer gets the limelight.

It is this problem which is a concurrent theme in True Crime Media. For example, all three seasons of Monster on Netflix are focused on a real killer and it is their name which sells the show to viewers, with the recent season called Monster: The Ed Gein Story, and thus each season, before you have even watched it puts the spotlight onto the killer. They are also casting actors far more charismatic and good-looking than who they portray (such as Zac Efron who starred as Ted Bundy in the 2019 film, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile). Famous actors are often put on a pedestal in the media and in culture, and so their choice to play true crime killers does not sit right with me. Whilst it could be argued their status would bring more attention to victims, True Crime cases aren’t the sort of thing that should be immortalised and actors are cast to bring an audience to a film or show. However, giving it a bigger audience is not fair on the victims.

Another reason True Crime is problematic is that it keeps victims and their families in a cycle. Every now and then, another director will attempt to stage their version of events, or another podcast will argue they have a fresh perspective on things. Every time this is done, the victim is put through the wringer again, as if being attacked or killed was not enough. It is also true that the perspective of the victim is rarely shown, in favour of the killer, and shows victims as little else but a screaming machine. Some recent media has attempted to correct this, such as the 2023 film, Woman of the Hour, which showed the experiences of a woman who was attacked, however this is rarer than it should be.

I do understand the allure of True Crime, and the idea that something so wicked could have happened in your area. I can speak to this as a Glaswegian, as I often heard of Bible John, a serial killer who operated in Glasgow during the late 1960s and killed three women who were dancing at the Barrowlands and was never officially caught. The only True Crime documentary I have been able to finish was the BBC Documentary on this, The Hunt for Bible John. As someone who does not like True Crime, I was interested in the picture it depicted of Glasgow at the time, the cultural element such as the Barrowlands but also the deprivation people were living in. However, it was deeply chilling, and the detail of the victims running to escape their killer has stuck with me. It was my fault for watching it, as there are other ways to learn of my city’s history instead of having to hear about its darker past. The media around Bible John still focuses on whether they knew who he was or not, again the focus, even after all this time, is still on the killer.

My final point is if people are clamouring for dark stories, there should be a focus on creating fictional crime stories, which rely on great writers to come up with something new. Rather than recycling the tragedies and traumas for easy cash in the hands of studios, time and time again, these new stories should put the victim at the centre, not the killer.