Why are we so fascinated by the true crime genre? It seems morbid curiosity is, to some degree, responsible for its soaring popularity, raising uneasy questions about the ethics of perceiving such subject matter as entertainment. On the flip side, there's the psychological complexity of it all, which also highlights how vulnerable we truly are. The fact that anyone can be exposed to such extreme criminality is a sobering realization, as well as something that's been leveraged by streamers such as Netflix to churn out all kinds of sensationalized projects.

Turning real-life trauma into semi-fictionalized stories will always be a slippery slope, but I guess there is some value in bringing awareness to toxic attitudes responsible for certain crimes. A good example of this measured approach is Netflix's "Adolescence," which uses real-life crime statistics to examine misogyny among a certain demographic within a fictional setting.

The roots of true crime...