Netflix’s DAHMER — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, a show about a white serial killer who targeted Black and brown men, reportedly no longer has an LGBTQ tag to its name. Why did it ever? Well, the Ryan Murphy show, which stars Murphy-verse go-to Evan Peters, follows Jeffrey Dahmer’s gruesome crimes while also not exploiting his victims (so says Netflix), who were primarily gay men. It’s unclear how anyone’s immediate thought was “This seems like a good idea to put next to Heartstopper,†but maybe Netflix just doesn’t understand what its viewers want; for example, Derry Girls, which has an out lesbian character, is not tagged as LGBTQ. The tag appears to have been taken off in large part due to the social-media response, which has been fueled by relatives of Dahmer’s real victims coming forward to condemn the series. “Imagine clicking on the ‘LGBTQ’ category and this is what you get,†said one tweeter. The tag also provoked TikTok parodies of the DAHMER team thinking this show is an ally to the LGBTQ community.
Fascinatingly, however, if one were to actually search up “LGBTQ†on the Netflix website without clicking a tag (which we did), DAHMER would still come up! For me, it falls right next to the adorable and informative Sex Education, a show about teenagers exploring their sexuality. So, while it doesn’t show up under the LGBTQ shows, the algorithm is still eager to say “Hi, Gay!†to burying its gays.
