After Ryan Murphy’s Dahmer was released on Netflix on September 21, the series received widespread criticism from the global audience and families of Dahmer’s victims.
And now a production assistant who worked on the show is sharing her bad experience on set.
A month ago, Kim Alsup shared on Twitter that she was “treated horribly” while filming Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, starring Evan Peters as the serial killer who killed 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. Furthermore, according to her, she was always mistaken for another crew member.
“I worked on this project, and I was 1 of 2 Black people on the crew, and they kept calling me her name,” she said.
“We both had braids. She was dark skin[ned] and 5’10. I’m 5’5. Working on this took everything I had as I was treated horribly. I look at the Black female lead differently now too.” (Since then, Alsup has made her Twitter handle private.)
Recently, Alsup said she hasn’t seen the show due to the horrible memories she has of it.
“I don’t want to have these PTSD types of situations,” she said in a new interview with Los Angeles Times. “The trailer itself gave me PTSD, which is why I ended up writing that tweet, and I didn’t think that anybody was going to read.”
Alsup slammed the show as “one of the worst shows” she’s ever been on as a person of color, saying the show didn’t hire any mental health coordinators and there were none on set.
“I was always being called someone else’s name, the only other Black girl who looked nothing like me, and I learned the names for 300 background extras,” she added.
Read also: Netflix Removes LGBTQ Tag on ‘Dahmer’ After Viewers Criticism
Alsup Reveals Treatment
Alsup emphasized that the workplace environment improved while shooting the show’s sixth episode, which had Janet Mock as writer and Paris Barclay as director, who are people of color.
But, according to Alsup, in general, she found the work “exhausting.”
When asked for comments, Alsup and Netflix representatives did not respond.
Alsup is not the first person to slam the adaptation. In an essay for Insider, the sister of Errol Lindsey – one of Dahmer’s victims – Rita Isbell said she was “never contacted about the show” ahead of its release, despite the production using her emotional 1992 victim impact statement to Dahmer as inspiration for one episode.
Audiences have also slammed the streaming platform’s move to tag Dahmer as an LGBTQ series on its service. One fan said it was “not the representation we’re looking for.”
Following the massive backlash, Netflix has since pulled out the tag.
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Photo: NME
