My Friend Dahmer

    Back in 2000, actor Noah Taylor caused a a stir by playing the young Adolf Hitler. Nobody complained about the performance; everyone agreed that he nailed it perfectly. What bothered the audience was the subject matter, and that it made the monster look, for lack of a better term, less monstrous. I remember watching the film and saying “you know, I almost feel sorry for the poor bastard,” which is essentially what the character is – a lonely man with no family and no friends – wandering a world he doesn’t recognize. Maybe the problem is that we’re used to stories about monsters, but they’re easy to recognize. Human monsters, the kind that inhabit the prisons, aren’t like the trolls and dragons in fairy tales. They aren’t born with fangs, claws, and a terrible appetite. We know that at some point they were just kids, and we wonder what those kids were like.

    Backderf’s memoir of his friend (more like acquaintance) Jeffrey Dahmer is not a horror show, but a dark comedy. I wonder if Todd Solondz – creator of dark comedies set in America’s suburbs – would’ve been better suited to direct the film version? The author draws and writes of Dahmer as a freakish outcast in a 1970’s suburban school, not fitting in with any of the cliques. He’s fascinated by dead animals, but he’s not part of the group that loves science. He’s built like a football player, but has no attraction to sports. He’s weird, but doesn’t hang out with the weird kids. Dahmer spends his time alone, drinking too much, in his shed with dead specimens. Then the awkward teen starts making bizarre noises and gestures in the hallway, amusing and puzzling everyone at the same time. Backderf doesn’t draw much of the dead animal collection because he didn’t see much of it. The problem is that Dahmer kept so much hidden from everyone; the dead animals, the drinking, the problems with his family. When Dahmer’s father Lionel wrote his own memoir to try and make sense of it all, he claimed 100% ignorance. The author of this graphic memoir agrees, there was extreme ignorance on part of the adults.

    In terms of Backderf’s drawing style, I can only say that it’s perfect. His realistic drawing is necessary in the story, because the facial features, clothes, and period décor are an essential influence on the characters. Art Spiegelman’s mouthless mice wouldn’t have worked, neither would Marjane Satrapi’s block figures. The author gives us a full-on frontal assault of the 1970’s – the sterility of the school, the kitschy home décor, the foliage of the woods – and how it all influences the events. A recurring character in the story is Lloyd Figg (the school’s emotionally disturbed kid) and he’s drawn as fat and curly-haired, which helps establish the boy’s awkwardness. In fact the awkwardness is a recurring theme in My Friend Dahmer, not just social, but physical as well. Dahmer’s posture is drawn as stiff, his walk is stiff, and he doesn’t seem sure of what to do with his arms. As for his face, he’s portrayed as a wall-faced kid hiding behind long hair and glasses.

   There is no lesson to be learned from My Friend Dahmer. Like the Vegas Shooter, Dahmer showed few obvious signs that he was going to go on a killing spree. In the epilogue, the author hears that a former classmate was arrested for mass murder, and he’s certain it was Lloyd Figg. He figures is has to be, Lloyd Figg is well known to the local police. Then he hears it was Dahmer, and stares in disbelief. How could it be Jeffrey Dahmer, he wonders, if that boy showed no signs? When it comes to spotting a future serial killer, the fact is that very often you can’t.