Netflix’s newest hit, “Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez,” brings up a tough question: Are we capable of pitying a murderer and rationalizing his behaviors? The docuseries hypothesizes the reasons as to why the former New England Patriots player murdered innocent men in the Boston area.
With so much focus on Hernandez’s psyche, there is a noticeable neglect for the victims and the court cases as a whole. Nevertheless, the documentary tries to take a stab at a myriad of societal issues such as childhood abuse, traumatic brain injuries, sexual repression, and more. Viewers are left questioning Hernandez’s internal motives even more so than before they started watching. The events in Hernandez’s life are outlined as the perfect storm in order to create the psyche of a murderer, yet this approach shifts guilt off of Hernandez at the expense of the victims and their families.
Despite the negative messages perpetuated in the documentary, there are a few positive aspects worth mentioning. The documentarians were effective in using football to juxtapose Hernandez’s flashy NFL lifestyle with the semi-professional football life of one of the victims, Odin Lloyd. One of Lloyd’s teammates, Mike Massey, gave wholesome insight into Lloyd’s life and spoke about how football to them was a sense of family as well as something that kept them away from drugs. Following Lloyd’s death, his team had a commemorative game in his honor. This scene was touching as it brought together Lloyd’s family of Cape Verde immigrants and all of the hardworking teammates. The viewer’s heart goes out to the victim’s loved ones, seeing so much heart and so little resources. This is shown amongst television clips of Aaron Hernandez playing in the NFL, which are portrayed as cold, impersonal, and in a money-making lens. Massey emphasizes that in semi-professional, they pay to play, but they are richer than Hernandez because there is so much love.
Another important message that the documentary showcased was raising awareness to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), which is a brain disease resulting from repeated head injuries. Viewers are reminded that the NFL is a profitable business that does not necessarily care about the long-term health of their employees, because in reality players are just expendable assets. Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, is shown telling mothers to put their sons into football as soon as possible. A former NFL player discusses that he quit his career for brain health reasons, which puts the NFL business in jeopardy. This was a great topic to shed light on. However, the documentary takes it one step too far in the connections they make between CTE and Aaron Hernandez’s violent actions.
The documentary makes inferences that Aaron Hernandez’s CTE could have played a part in his homicides. It is disrespectful to the victims and their families to start making excuses and rationalizing why a man committed murder. Thousands of athletes are known to be living with CTE, yet none of them are murderers. It comes across as illogical and simpleminded for the documentary to advance this kind of thinking. This plays into the larger format of the documentary, which took an unconventional approach to shedding light onto Hernandez’s upbringing and professional football career.
Viewers quickly catch on that the series is not afraid to make big assumptions or get deep into Hernandez’s personal life. This is seen as Aaron’s Hernandez’s sexuality is brought up. Instead of mentioning that Hernandez may have been a gay or bisexual man, the documentary ran with it as an assumption and decided to interview a man who claims to have had sexual relations with Hernandez during high school. Overall, this was done in poor taste for two reasons. First, it is quite insensitive to talk about someone else’s sexuality, especially when they have passed away and can’t speak for themselves. Hernandez’s daughter and fiancée have to pick up the pieces of all this tabloid-like gossip. Furthermore, the documentary made inferences that Aaron’s repressive sexuality in a hypermasculine environment could have been a factor in him murdering innocent people. This narrative is truly unacceptable and offensive as it puts the LGBT community in a bad light.
During the murder trials as well as following the release of the documentary, there has been a noticeable fascination and attraction to Aaron Hernandez. One of the clips in the series shows Patriots fans yelling, “Innocent! Innocent! Innocent! We love you Aaron!” as he is being transported from prison to the courtroom. Posts about Aaron Hernandez still being extremely attractive, despite being a convicted murderer, have gone viral on Instagram and Twitter.
Why is it that people are so blatantly supportive and willing to rationalize Hernandez’s behaviors? At the end of the day, a viral fascination with serial killers is nothing out of character for American culture. The infamous Ted Bundy fascination has been booming since the trials in the 1970s and still is being made into successful Netflix series. The documentary incites a true fascination with Aaron Hernandez’s psyche, yet does so at the expense of his family and his victims.