Reporter Who Broke Jeffrey Dahmer's Story Criticizes Inaccuracies in Netflix Series: 'Not a Useful Representation'

Netflix's "Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story" is a ratings juggernaut for the streaming service, but the Ryan Murphy series has been plagued with ethical complaints since its inception. Some have questioned the effects that dramatizing such horrific events could have on the families of the victims, while others are fed up with real crime shows and find the genre incredibly unnecessary.

The latest voice to weigh in on the show is Anne Schwartz, a reporter who broke the story of the Dahmer murders while working as a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal in 1991. In a new interview with , Schwartz criticized the show on different grounds: she thinks it takes too much artistic license and said the show "doesn't look much like the facts of the case".

Schwartz pointed out that Glenda Cleveland, played by Niecy Nash on the show, wasn't literally Dahmer's neighbor, a detail that immediately distracted her from the show and caused her to question its accuracy .

Related Related

“Within the first five minutes of the first episode, Glenda Cleveland knocks on her door. None of that ever happened,” Schwartz said. “I had issues with the buy-in, because I knew that was not correct. But people don't watch it that way, they watch it for entertainment. »

Schwartz also disagrees with the show's decision to portray the officers investigating the case as homophobic and racist, dismissing the choice as unfair treatment of people she spent significant time with.

"I spent a lot of time with them, interviewing people who were at the scene," she said. "Again, this is a dramatization, but in a time when it's not really easy for law enforcement to gain community trust and buy-in, this is not not a very useful representation."

While Schwartz understands that Murphy's series is a television show designed for entertainment purposes, she worries that viewers will take the show at face value and come away with a misunderstanding of the case.

"When people watch Ryan Murphy's Netflix series and say, 'Oh my God, that's terrible'. I want to tell them that it didn't necessarily happen that way," she said .

'Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story' is now streaming on Netflix.

Sign Up: Stay up to date with the latest film and TV news! Sign up for our email newsletters here.