Entertainment

Netflix Is Making a True-Crime Parody About Dick Graffiti

Netflix has already proven itself as a heavy hitter in the true crime game with shows like Making a Murderer and The Keepers. But as serious as those shows are, the streaming service still has a sense of humor.

On Tuesday, Netflix dropped a trailer for a new show, American Vandal, a mockumentary parodying the wave of true-crime projects like The Jinx that have inspired legions of armchair detectives. Except instead of some gristly murders and a fidgety, hiccupy suspect, this fake docuseries will get to the bottom of a more mundane, if not equally important, mystery: Which one of you sophomore punks drew dicks on the cars in this high school parking lot?

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The trailer hits all the true crime tropes right off the bat: There are local news snippits, some sad “look how happy we were before it all went wrong” home video clips, and a suspect pleading his innocence over some sinister piano keys. But then things take a turn when you realize, Oh, this whole thing is just about dicks.

The show follows the fictional story of a high school kid named Dylan Maxwell—a “known dick drawer”—who gets pinched after an unknown vandal spray-painted dicks on 26 cars in the faculty parking lot.

“I’ll never understand what’s so amusing about penises,” one schoolteacher solemnly says.

The whole thing looks like a smart send-up of the true-crime trend that doesn’t get lost in over-reliance to structure, like that It’s Always Sunny parody of Making a Murderer. All eight, half-hour episodes of American Vandal hit Netflix on September 15.

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