True crime is at the center of many American households. The genre is available on
every media platform that comes to mind. Half of Americans express that they enjoy watching true crime TV and one out of three people watch these TV programs at least once a week.
With the plethora of information available to a huge audience, how much consumption is too much? With this easy access comes raised concerns about whether the making and consumption of these acts is ethical.
While some enjoyers of true crime argue that these programs can help one become more
empathetic to victims, there is a very fine line to how much one should consume. Being exposed to too much of this media can cause someone to become overly wary of others. This can cause feelings of unease and constant feelings of fear. A sense of anxiety caused by over-consumption can lead people to constantly double-check doors, wondering if the man next door is hiding his true identity and checking the spaces behind them. If the media someone consumes starts to take up the rest of one’s life, it might be time to cut back on the time spent on these programs.
As Evan Peters and other popular actors receive awards for portraying serial killers on the screen, it puts a bad taste in a lot of people´s mouths. This paints an interesting narrative. On one end, charming actors are getting paid for harming people with plastic weapons and the other is a real person’s life getting taken from them. Fan accounts on social media have been made for the actors in these specific roles, idolizing them because they are conventionally attractive and famous. This causes people to focus on the actors and screenplay of the story, rather than focusing on the real-life victims of the crimes. When society starts praising companies for making serial killer films while disregarding the actual families the crimes affected, it is disturbing. It causes people to become desensitized to crimes and lessens sympathy.
Debates about the morality of the police force and true crime are very important in the
conversation about ethics. True crime media, more often than not, provides a viewpoint of praising the cops in these cases. This is highly unethical because the unjust acts of many cops could get drowned out by the praise. This pushes victims’ stories under the rug and causes them to get less attention, drawing away from the focus of these crime stories. This also creates a racial divide. In most popular true crime TV programs, white cops have been portrayed working cases of people from ethnic backgrounds. This shows a white-savior-like narrative, putting a white person in power over a minority creating a sense of superiority.
The biggest argument on whether true crime is ethical or not lies in its name, that these stories are true. These are depictions of real people who experienced these crimes. In a lot of cases, these families are still alive and are still experiencing the trickle of grief through the family line. The survivors of these crimes face an even worse fate, with newspaper headings, TV show premieres and books being written about the extreme trauma that they experienced, sometimes without their consent. The creators of this media get to profit and gain fame from stories that are not theirs to tell. Telling these stories without consent from the victims violates their right to privacy. Many critics of true crime argue that profits from the media should be given back to families and should not be kept by the makers and actors. This sounds like a good idea because this could help the families get therapy and some kind of financial support after tragic events.
This is not to say that true crime should be wiped off screens. true crime can
give a perspective on things most do not think about. It raises questions about class, race and the law. As someone who watches and enjoys true crime, I try to stay on top of who I watch and pay attention to the way these stories are portrayed. The next time the TV is on a true crime special, it might do some good to look deeper into the ethics behind it.
