Nick Cave admits ‘Dahmer’ docu-series was “unhealthy”
Nick Cave has admitted the Netflix docu-series about serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was “unhealthy”. Along with Warren Ellis, Cave produced the soundtrack for Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.
The series, which stars Evan Peters, received criticism from victims’ families and was accused of trivialising Dahmer’s crimes. Shirley Hughes, whose deaf son was the serial killer’s 12th victim, told TMZ in January: “There’s a lot of sick people around the world, and people winning acting roles from playing killers keeps the obsession going, and this makes sick people thrive on the fame”.
While the series has won many awards, and been streamed for over a billion hours on Netflix, Cave believes the programme may have got it wrong. The musician was speaking on The Louis Theroux Podcast and defended the Andrew Dominik film Blonde, which he labelled a “masterpiece” but didn’t feel the same way toward Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.
“I did the soundtrack and Blonde came under scathing,” Cave told Theroux. “It’s about Marilyn Monroe. It’s an extraordinary film, it’s a masterpiece and actually many filmmakers, people who actually know about film and who actually make films and can see things beyond an ideological point of view, see it as a technological masterpiece.”
However, on the other hand, Cave says about Dahmer: “For me, I’m more sympathetic towards the criticisms about Dahmer because it was family members of the victims that were coming out and it showed some perverse interest in this character that may have been unhealthy.”
In the same interview, Cave supported the Welsh Rugby Union for no longer playing the Tom Jones murder ballad ‘Delilah’ before matches. “I can’t get too riled up in these situations because the thing they are banning is just bad and it is kind of offensive. Even for someone who’s written a lot of murder ballads themselves,” he explained.
Cave continued: “As a murder ballad, it’s just bad. So I’m quite happy with that and I’m also kind of happy that music has that capacity to outrage.”
Listen to the full podcast below.
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