Is Today's True Crime Fascination Really About Justice?
Robert Durst. Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong. Adnan Syed. Michael Peterson. Brendan Dassey. Steven Avery. Any self-professed true crime fan worth their weight in luminol is undoubtedly familiar with not just these names but with the minute details of the crimes of which those individuals have been accused (wrongly or otherwise). While the genre is not new—its roots in pop culture can be traced to writer Edmund Pearson's 1924 Lizzie Borden book Studies in Murder—there's no denying that true crime is having a major moment, one fueled by streaming services and all-crime-all-the-time networks that feed an ever-growing audience hungry for whodunit docs.
Related Stories
"I have been working in nonfiction film and television for a very long time, and there's never been a better time to be a nonfiction storyteller," says Joe Berlinger, the director and executive producer of Oxygen's Unspeakable Crime: The Killing of Jessica Chambers. This golden age of true crime probably dates back to Errol Morris' The Thin Blue Line in 1988 and his own 1996 documentary Paradise Lost, which played a part in seeing Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, Jr., aka the West Memphis Three, released from prison. But the true tipping point, Berlinger notes, didn't come until 2014 with the arrival of the Serial podcast, which unpacked Syed's case in fascinating detail and even led to a new trial for its subject. It was quickly followed by HBO's Durst doc The Jinx and the first season of Netflix's series about Avery's trial, Making a Murderer, in 2015. Soon, the public's fascination with the genre—and interest with finding true justice for its subjects—was hitting a peak.
Netflix, of course, is leading the surge—and with good reason. Its deep pockets, access to eyeballs, and binge-ready format make the streaming service the ideal place for documentarians to set up shop. "Traditional models, while they can be very powerful, don't always work for every film. You might read a review about an incredible documentary on Tuesday, but come Friday, maybe you just want to go see a rom-com, right?" Lisa Nishimura—Netflix’s vice president of original documentary and comedy programming, who has shepherded such projects as Wild Wild Country and Making a Murderer—told The Hollywood Reporter in 2016. "If we make it available across every single device that connects to the internet, with what I believe is one of the best, if not the best, personalization algorithms out there, do you engage in it? Overwhelmingly we have found that the answer is yes."
True Crime or Social Justice?
But why crime? And why now? Documentarians have been looking under every rock on Earth for decades, and have found success—and audiences—chronicling everything from basketball to Enron, why are viewers so tuned in to stories about old murder cases?
"I think this explosion is due in part to the aesthetics of true crime storytelling: Crime stories, especially ones that involve a trial, have perfect dramatic structure—there is a clear beginning, middle, and end to the story," Berlinger says. "Something horrific occurs, there is a search for the guilty person, a conclusion to the legal proceeding, and then hopefully justice is served."
Unspeakable Crime: The Killing of Jessica Chambers director Joe Berlinger
"Hopefully" being the operative word. While audiences were divided over Steven Avery's guilt following the first season of Making a Murderer, most agreed that the evidence presented in the documentary and at his trial—at least what they saw—made a strong argument for it to be reexamined. Making is less about a case being closed and more about how Avery was prosecuted, which is why series co-directors Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos prefer to call it a "social justice" series, rather than a true crime one.
"I think what scares me about [the true crime label] is often people think it's fetishizing death or somehow exploiting someone's tragedy, and that's certainly not at all what we were about," Ricciardi told Deadline. "We also never set out to investigate the crime. So it was never a whodunit for us either. It really was about taking this opportunity to look at the American criminal justice system and to see whether it's living up to its founding principles."
Turning Audiences to Activists
In some cases, the most successful documentaries have transformed viewers into activists. In 2016, following the release of Making a Murderer, more than 130,000 people signed a White House petition asking President Obama to issue full pardons to both Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey, who were both convicted in the murder of Teresa Halbach. Given that they were tried and convicted by the state of Wisconsin, Obama explained that he was in no position to pardon them. But that doesn't mean that documentaries don't have the power to enact real change—much of it fueled by grassroots online efforts where viewers from around the globe can connect in large numbers.
"Documentary films have gotten the wrongfully convicted out of prison, advocated for victims' rights, and have shined a light on problems within the criminal justice system," Berlinger says. "I think viewers find that aspect to true crime to be very satisfying."
Two-time Oscar-winner Barbara Kopple has made a career out of highlighting individuals who are fighting for social justice and standing up for themselves with documentaries like Harlan County U.S.A., American Dream, and Shut Up & Sing. On November 17, she'll debut A Murder in Mansfield, which chronicles the 1989 murder of Noreen Boyle and her son's ongoing quest to find out exactly what happened, on Investigation Discovery.
Documentarian Barbara Kopple
"When a crime is committed, the emotions of all involved—the victim and the accused, their families, the representatives of the system seeking justice, etc.—are at their most raw," Kopple says. "No matter how the situation is eventually reconciled, these experiences are so intense they reverberate for many years to come. I'm drawn to stories like these, as are we all—they're a chance to observe the human drama play out in front of our eyes, and offer us a chance to formulate our perspectives on how we might act if we were ever faced with a situation like this."
Psychiatrists, too, have cited the "this could happen to you" factor as one reason for our current obsession with true crime stories. Couple that with the binge-ability of Netflix and you have the makings of a massive television marathon. "You want to see what happens next in a crime story, so the advent of streaming and the move toward more and more unscripted series really makes this a golden age for nonfiction content," Berlinger says. "It has been a boon to true crime, allowing it to move beyond just tabloid fare and to actually showcase social justice."
Though Netflix doesn't share its viewership data with the public, Nishimura recently told Vanity Fair that 75 percent of its subscribers have watched at least one documentary from Netflix's library. But even just that "one" documentary could encompass 628 minutes of the viewer's time, as is the case with Jean-Xavier de Lestrade's The Staircase, or nearly 21 hours with Making a Murderer, now that the second season has dropped. Still, viewers seem anxious for more.
And streaming advantages and social activism aside, Kopple believes there's just one thing that keeps those audiences so invested. "The overarching draw of any good drama—whether it be documentary, true crime, western, horror, etc.—is the chance to witness human emotions at play," she says. "Any additional layers—such as social critique—comes secondary. Yes, the storyteller might be using the emotions to draw the viewer in, and then challenge their perspectives on some other larger issue, but it always starts with raw human emotion."