I Need To Talk About The Knife
Today’s episode sent me into a tailspin, and I need to know if my reaction is valid. I want to start by saying a few weeks ago, someone was in here somewhat complaining about how The Knife doesn’t platform, what really is, the “perfect” victim. They have some nuance that isn’t so black and white, and their victims have faults. I defended the show because nuance can be important, and victims don’t have to be perfect. Little miss devils advocate over here.
That being said, today’s episode was about two men. One man, Dusty, brought a girl, Jennifer Evans, to his car outside a bar. He knew his friend, Billy, was drunk and had a history of violence. Billy entered the car, and pretty much immediately choked and murdered the victim. The litigation was ongoing, judicially unfair towards Dusty, and the sentencing was bananas and Dusty ended up getting more time than Billy.
Here’s the thing. Dusty drove Jennifer’s body an hour away to bury her. Dusty went to the car to look for a shovel. He returned and Billy was committing necrophilia against Jennifer’s body. He never stopped the line. He *allegedly* tried to stop him once he began choking Jennifer, but that’s where it ended. Dusty engaged in the committing of gruesome and horrific acts.
The show platformed a woman who saw Dusty on the news and began to form an obsessive relationship with him. She was the narrator. She admitted to writing him, then emailing. Talking once a week, to once a day, to many times a day and he is her “best friend”. WHY ARE WE ACTING LIKE THIS IS NORMAL. Why is she our trusted narrator and source of information? Half of what she said was pure conjecture about what she thinks happened in the moment or how she thinks Dusty felt about the scenario at a given time.
Next week, Dusty himself will be on the show as he was just released in paraole. Dusty is, yes, an absolutely imperfect victim of a poor judicial system that fails daily. But why are we platforming his obsessive jailhouse romance girlfriend and then him?! Why are we not sharing a story from a more nonbiased yet thoroughly researched source?
ERM had a foundation of being victim-centered. Am I insane for thinking this is in horribly poor taste for the most important victim in the story?