Sick or Evil or Both: “My Friend Dahmer” and the Coverage of White Killers
This HBO mini-series asks why a young white man turned to violence and finds no easy answers. But why do we only ask questions about certain kinds of killers?

Against the backdrop of a decaying cityscape, Rick Miner, an off-the-books insurance investigator, is tasked with examining the suspicious death of an ex-con involving a million-dollar life insurance claim. While retracing the victim’s steps, Rick grows increasingly unsettled by the unfolding timeline of events and the uncertainty of his own sanity.
This HBO mini-series asks why a young white man turned to violence and finds no easy answers. But why do we only ask questions about certain kinds of killers?
In a Whisper is a coming out narrative, but it’s also a story about multiple mother-daughter relationships and the necessity of family.
What seems like such a simple story of survival is so much more than that—it’s a story of family, and of war, and of destruction. It’s painful to watch, but not in a bad way. It makes its audience reflect on their own actions, and in how they are complicit in the sufferings of others as the adults in this film are. Grave of the Fireflies does not hold back from being heartbreaking, and it shouldn’t. It tells a message that needs to be heard decades after the war, and a story that cannot be forgotten by history.
Even now, the well-established Snyder has yet to learn this as he continues to allow misguided decisions to convince him that his projects hold the same kind of intelligent and emotional weight. Army of the Dead is a tonal mess, one that never decides what it’s trying to be, and, for all we know, doesn’t want to decide.
If the message here is that without a support system, grieving people turn into monsters, it’s not really well-delivered and may be flawed as a message itself.
Based on a true story, this sports movie is centered around a college football player.