Number One on Netflix is a weekly spotlight on whatever is currently the most popular thing on the world’s most popular streaming service. Sometimes it’ll be a movie. Sometimes it’ll be a TV show. Whatever it is, a lot of people are clearly watching, and we’ll try to understand why with a quick review. Today, we’re looking at the new docu-series American Murder: Gabby Petito.
American Murder: Gabby Petito is not here to revolutionize the true crime format. Premiering on Netflix February 17th, the three-part docu-series dives into the story of the 22-year-old aspiring travel vlogger who disappeared in the summer of 2021, the search for her becoming national news until her body was discovered. News of Petito’s followed by the reveal that her fiance Brian Laundrie had been responsible for her murder, prior to his own death by suicide.
The series uses a wide swath of archival material, including raw video shot by Petito and Laundrie as they attempted to get their #VanLife video channel started and the body-cam footage from when officers interviewed the couple following a domestic violence report. It’s a pretty comprehensive look at the events that took place, enhanced by interviews with Petito’s family and friends that flesh out the full scope of Petito and Laundrie’s relationship.
Petito’s story is certainly a tragic one, but it takes until the final few minutes of the last episode for it to acknowledge another tragic truth: There are so many stories of missing people that don’t get nearly the same level of media attention, because the victims are people of color. Says an emotional FBI Special Agent Loretta Bush in an interview, “There are so many other people out there missing, and they are important too. My work is important. Victims’ lives are important.”
A clip from a CNN broadcast features Run Tell This podcast host Mara Schiavocampo, who brings up the number of Indigenous people who have gone missing in the last ten years in a news clip. “This isn’t saying that Gabby Petito is not important. What it is saying is that there’s an over-representation in when white women go missing, and an under-representation in media when Black, Brown, and Indigenous people go missing,” she tells anchors.
In an interview, Petito’s father Joe says that his initial reaction to that point being made by critics “wasn’t a positive one… Saying Gabby’s color was the reason that… You know, I was taken aback by that.” However, he admits that once he did the research into this issue, he understood the validity of the point. “Over 600,000 people go missing in the US each year, and nearly half of them are Black or people of color. So why don’t you see those stories in the mainstream media? You always see women like Gabby, Natalee Holloway, or Elizabeth Smart. They all tend to look the same,” he told Netflix’s Tudum in a recent piece.
It leads to the ultimate coda of American Murder, in which directors Julia Willoughby Nason and Michael Gasparro explore the aftermath of Petito’s death, including the creation of the Gabby Petito Foundation, the website for which includes multiple links to resources for those experiencing domestic violence. “Gabby gave us this platform, and we want others to be able to use it. If the light is shining on us, we want to shine it on other victims and other families that deserve it just as much as she did,” Gabby’s stepmother Tara Petito said to Tudum.
True crime, in general, is loaded with ethical issues, from concerns over exploiting victims and their families to criticism over the way some stories can be distorted or sensationalized. American Murder also invokes the ongoing debate over using AI in these kinds of projects, as the series recreates Gabby Petito’s voice using “voice recreation technology.”
Yet if people are going to watch true crime (a genre that isn’t losing steam anytime soon), at least they’re watching something that acknowledges how Gabby’s story isn’t an isolated one, and that there are many, many other people out there who might be helped as a result of her legacy. The only good thing about televising tragedies, in the end, is that they can be used to prevent future ones.
American Murder: Gabby Petito is streaming now on Netflix.