There are several cinematic/tv accounts of Dahmer's life and all are dogged by the 'director down the rabbit hole' syndrome this story seems to bring.
Though they have moments of clarity generally they then plod mechanically through the telling of a now well known story lacking fresh insight or perspective and already subject to wide exposure via documentary, books and news accounts.
There is this repeat failure to get inside the head of Dahmer. Confrontation with such a formidable obsticle causes alot of narrative shuffling and substituting which in the end fails the work as a whole with defeat often acknowldged via a cap donning to a percieved exceptionalism directors in the end attribute to Dahmer himself.
Dahmer Monster - initially tries to avoid this scenario but almost immediatly shows the tell tale signs of having completely failed in much the same way as previous works have.
The compulsion to tell Dahmer's story still exists because his story has still not been fully understood nor fully layed bare. It's this inticement which will ensure he remains subject matter for future story telling.
So how should a director tackle what still needs to be told in this story ? There are a couple of key methodologies required.
First, do not make up parts of the story which simply did not happen. Dahmer Monster does this endlessely and it's the reason the director/s have blocked their own way into Dahmer's mind creating for the most part a voyeuristic meditiation on the impenitrable. The Dahmer story is like theatrcial classics in this respect. When doing plays like Shakespeare or any number of operas you never cut or alter the story. You bring to the story new information and resonance and you find ways to weave it in so as to amplify what is already there. Dahmer Monster strays so far from this rule it's no wonder it's being percieved as exploitative.
Dahmer's story has many key sensationalist, indeed infamous moments which successive directors are both initially drawn to and then repelled by as increasingly entangled in this dychotomy, they end up creating pieces which are more about the neccessity of a visual moral ettiquette rather than Dahmer the subject. This is again detectable in Dahmer Monster.
It needs to be noted that Dahmer himself invented and directed his own narrative and emphasis of detail when he fully confessed his crimes. Dahmer's control of his exceptionalism as sensational curio remains dominant in tellings of his story to date. The benefit of the doubt remains entirely in tact. The surviving police, detectives, journalists and authors are relient on the same because their reputations and life's work is invested so absolutly in it.
But look more closely at the repeat absences, gaps, jumps, and skips which occur in the repeat telling of Dahmer's story and you begin to see what Dahmer chose not to promote in his own myth making.
There lies a chain of unexamined key events and it is these which will finally enable entry into Dahmer's mind. Listed below are some of those details which if re-arranged so as to consitute the main part of his early story at least, tell a different story, of slow, natural, agonising, morose, mundane, ugly , calculating corruption and failure which speaks far less of exceptionalism and more of similarity to others like him.
1. An established acute alcoholism, dependant on spirits like vodka by the age of 14 maintained by chronic bouts drinking secretly both in and out of school remains highly anomalous and entirely unexplored as the sensational visual drama it actually is.
2. The comorbidity of deviant masturbation coupled with an increasingly evident indication of being highly skilled in the killing of animals where both are associated with his hyper private world of animal disection. The latter is a classic symptom of pre homicidality and links hime to the assured confidence by which he assumes the postition of assailant to a local jogger. All together these suggest the ferment of a homicidal, necrophile mindset fulled by alcohol misuse and even intoxification by chemicals used to preserve animal parts to the extent that murder and disection were very much part of the sexually contempleative minde set at the point of his first murder. I.e. Dahmer didn't stumble a nieve innocent into murder, he slowely developed and nurtured a precocious necrophile intent from his early teens and therefore cunning and calculation formed much of his creating situations in which harm or murder might occur. This is really important to establish because it alters his own versions of future murders to come all of which he sees himself simply as a passive anassuming protagonist subject to impulses he remains unaware of.
3. There are repeats of gaps Dahmer himself set in his own story. The gaps of no mention of his relationship to sexual exhibitionism / flashing, a chronic activity for which he was prosecuted once but which he engaged with on numerous occassions, particually when stationed in the army in Germany. Dahmer Monster clumbsily attempts to 'interpret' this as a recall of his first victim Wicks. But actually it's much more likley that Dahmer's exhibitionism is constituted of a kind of display of exceptionalism and sense of being other worldly and able to access rules outside the norm. In short he's sticking 2 fingers at the world whilst at the same time presenting himself as a product of their society. There's alot to be teased out here and it's telling Dahmer makes no mention of it as part of his conffession.
4. New information arrives all the time as time passes. Today we know he sexually raped and abused his room mates in Germany over a period of time whilst consuming huge quantities of alcohol and engaging in sexual exhibitionism in the local town, partoicually towards mothers and children. We know one night he inexplicably returned to a party with blood spots after storming off in a rage. We also know that his discharge was in many respects a cover up. All of this is repeatedly absent from Dahmers myth. Why ? Because it again presents Dahmer as a methodical abuser, seeking pleasure in any kind of subversive abuse he was able to access.
5. We also now know after the shame of being discharged from the army he delayed return home to his father and Wick's body, by spending time in Miami living with an english girl he led into a discussion about marrying. She was to join him once he returned home. But he omits any detail about Miami what so ever. So there's alot to consider about what he's really up to and going through while he's in some sense hiding in the light of this woman's innocents of his true nature.
6. Crucially a key symbols is repeatedly misunderstood. The existance of Wick's stashed whole skeletal remains at his father's home during the entire time in the army and Miami. Wick's body was decapitated as part of an essentially immeidiate and precoious need to deviginise his necrophile sensabilites. After his near capture, the body has to have been presereved for a deeper reason. It's preservation has to have acted as both a deterrant and mutually a draw. The body drew him back because it punctuates the narrative of homicidal Dahmer. It haunts his time in the army and Miami. It dominates his persona when he returns home to his father, completely incapable of making personal choices to an exagerated degree. The final destrcution of Wick's bones is an important moment because it simultaneously marks a desire to erase his deeds whilst also expressing yet more of the creative potential for absolute power inherent in the experience of necrophillia.
What we have here are neccessary re-examinations of parts already presented. Sadly Dahmer: Monster fails to bring the focus and integrity required to animate these calcualtingly ommited parts. It's noted that all this has occured by the time Dahmer is only 21 years old. He hasn't even began his killing career.
When it comes to his preented 2nd killing, in Dahmer's version the precise moment his serial killing career begins, at the Ambassador hotel the excepted narrative has to change. Dahmer presents as a highly proficient serial drug rapist who without knowing it 'accidentally' beat Tuomi to death. However if you alter the historical narrative by filling in gaps, Dahmer is transformed into a repeat perfecting and rehursing homicidal necrophile who has to some degree planned for the moment of murder. From that point on Dahmer's precocious proffessionalism is maintained as a central aspect of his decent into lustful oblivion. But the mess of rising frenzy isn't reflective of that fallacy. The penultimate frenzy arisies from the conflict which arises in the face of an absolute degree of satation of desire not in a dissacoated amateur and unaware mindset.
It's this absolute control of the accepted narrative Dahmer still has over the way he is presented as a protagonist in his own story which needs to be challenged and which remains frustratingly intact given the arrival of Dahmer Monster. Somebody must bring him down. The exceptionalism here lies not in Dahmer but in Society's capacity to examine an emerging, common understanding of taboo desires as they exist across those who have them.
Though they have moments of clarity generally they then plod mechanically through the telling of a now well known story lacking fresh insight or perspective and already subject to wide exposure via documentary, books and news accounts.
There is this repeat failure to get inside the head of Dahmer. Confrontation with such a formidable obsticle causes alot of narrative shuffling and substituting which in the end fails the work as a whole with defeat often acknowldged via a cap donning to a percieved exceptionalism directors in the end attribute to Dahmer himself.
Dahmer Monster - initially tries to avoid this scenario but almost immediatly shows the tell tale signs of having completely failed in much the same way as previous works have.
The compulsion to tell Dahmer's story still exists because his story has still not been fully understood nor fully layed bare. It's this inticement which will ensure he remains subject matter for future story telling.
So how should a director tackle what still needs to be told in this story ? There are a couple of key methodologies required.
First, do not make up parts of the story which simply did not happen. Dahmer Monster does this endlessely and it's the reason the director/s have blocked their own way into Dahmer's mind creating for the most part a voyeuristic meditiation on the impenitrable. The Dahmer story is like theatrcial classics in this respect. When doing plays like Shakespeare or any number of operas you never cut or alter the story. You bring to the story new information and resonance and you find ways to weave it in so as to amplify what is already there. Dahmer Monster strays so far from this rule it's no wonder it's being percieved as exploitative.
Dahmer's story has many key sensationalist, indeed infamous moments which successive directors are both initially drawn to and then repelled by as increasingly entangled in this dychotomy, they end up creating pieces which are more about the neccessity of a visual moral ettiquette rather than Dahmer the subject. This is again detectable in Dahmer Monster.
It needs to be noted that Dahmer himself invented and directed his own narrative and emphasis of detail when he fully confessed his crimes. Dahmer's control of his exceptionalism as sensational curio remains dominant in tellings of his story to date. The benefit of the doubt remains entirely in tact. The surviving police, detectives, journalists and authors are relient on the same because their reputations and life's work is invested so absolutly in it.
But look more closely at the repeat absences, gaps, jumps, and skips which occur in the repeat telling of Dahmer's story and you begin to see what Dahmer chose not to promote in his own myth making.
There lies a chain of unexamined key events and it is these which will finally enable entry into Dahmer's mind. Listed below are some of those details which if re-arranged so as to consitute the main part of his early story at least, tell a different story, of slow, natural, agonising, morose, mundane, ugly , calculating corruption and failure which speaks far less of exceptionalism and more of similarity to others like him.
1. An established acute alcoholism, dependant on spirits like vodka by the age of 14 maintained by chronic bouts drinking secretly both in and out of school remains highly anomalous and entirely unexplored as the sensational visual drama it actually is.
2. The comorbidity of deviant masturbation coupled with an increasingly evident indication of being highly skilled in the killing of animals where both are associated with his hyper private world of animal disection. The latter is a classic symptom of pre homicidality and links hime to the assured confidence by which he assumes the postition of assailant to a local jogger. All together these suggest the ferment of a homicidal, necrophile mindset fulled by alcohol misuse and even intoxification by chemicals used to preserve animal parts to the extent that murder and disection were very much part of the sexually contempleative minde set at the point of his first murder. I.e. Dahmer didn't stumble a nieve innocent into murder, he slowely developed and nurtured a precocious necrophile intent from his early teens and therefore cunning and calculation formed much of his creating situations in which harm or murder might occur. This is really important to establish because it alters his own versions of future murders to come all of which he sees himself simply as a passive anassuming protagonist subject to impulses he remains unaware of.
3. There are repeats of gaps Dahmer himself set in his own story. The gaps of no mention of his relationship to sexual exhibitionism / flashing, a chronic activity for which he was prosecuted once but which he engaged with on numerous occassions, particually when stationed in the army in Germany. Dahmer Monster clumbsily attempts to 'interpret' this as a recall of his first victim Wicks. But actually it's much more likley that Dahmer's exhibitionism is constituted of a kind of display of exceptionalism and sense of being other worldly and able to access rules outside the norm. In short he's sticking 2 fingers at the world whilst at the same time presenting himself as a product of their society. There's alot to be teased out here and it's telling Dahmer makes no mention of it as part of his conffession.
4. New information arrives all the time as time passes. Today we know he sexually raped and abused his room mates in Germany over a period of time whilst consuming huge quantities of alcohol and engaging in sexual exhibitionism in the local town, partoicually towards mothers and children. We know one night he inexplicably returned to a party with blood spots after storming off in a rage. We also know that his discharge was in many respects a cover up. All of this is repeatedly absent from Dahmers myth. Why ? Because it again presents Dahmer as a methodical abuser, seeking pleasure in any kind of subversive abuse he was able to access.
5. We also now know after the shame of being discharged from the army he delayed return home to his father and Wick's body, by spending time in Miami living with an english girl he led into a discussion about marrying. She was to join him once he returned home. But he omits any detail about Miami what so ever. So there's alot to consider about what he's really up to and going through while he's in some sense hiding in the light of this woman's innocents of his true nature.
6. Crucially a key symbols is repeatedly misunderstood. The existance of Wick's stashed whole skeletal remains at his father's home during the entire time in the army and Miami. Wick's body was decapitated as part of an essentially immeidiate and precoious need to deviginise his necrophile sensabilites. After his near capture, the body has to have been presereved for a deeper reason. It's preservation has to have acted as both a deterrant and mutually a draw. The body drew him back because it punctuates the narrative of homicidal Dahmer. It haunts his time in the army and Miami. It dominates his persona when he returns home to his father, completely incapable of making personal choices to an exagerated degree. The final destrcution of Wick's bones is an important moment because it simultaneously marks a desire to erase his deeds whilst also expressing yet more of the creative potential for absolute power inherent in the experience of necrophillia.
What we have here are neccessary re-examinations of parts already presented. Sadly Dahmer: Monster fails to bring the focus and integrity required to animate these calcualtingly ommited parts. It's noted that all this has occured by the time Dahmer is only 21 years old. He hasn't even began his killing career.
When it comes to his preented 2nd killing, in Dahmer's version the precise moment his serial killing career begins, at the Ambassador hotel the excepted narrative has to change. Dahmer presents as a highly proficient serial drug rapist who without knowing it 'accidentally' beat Tuomi to death. However if you alter the historical narrative by filling in gaps, Dahmer is transformed into a repeat perfecting and rehursing homicidal necrophile who has to some degree planned for the moment of murder. From that point on Dahmer's precocious proffessionalism is maintained as a central aspect of his decent into lustful oblivion. But the mess of rising frenzy isn't reflective of that fallacy. The penultimate frenzy arisies from the conflict which arises in the face of an absolute degree of satation of desire not in a dissacoated amateur and unaware mindset.
It's this absolute control of the accepted narrative Dahmer still has over the way he is presented as a protagonist in his own story which needs to be challenged and which remains frustratingly intact given the arrival of Dahmer Monster. Somebody must bring him down. The exceptionalism here lies not in Dahmer but in Society's capacity to examine an emerging, common understanding of taboo desires as they exist across those who have them.