American Crime Story: Versace Is A Much-Needed Lesson In Empathy

On Wednesday night (March 21), the Season 2 finale of Ryan Murphy's American Crime Story placed the final puzzle piece in the jigsaw of Andrew Cunanan's story.


The twisted narrative that spanned his 27 years and pushed further back in time with each new episode ultimately led us right back to where we began in the premiere: to the days immediately after Gianni Versace's murder. Nevertheless the feelings toward Cunanan (Darren Criss) that we were left with as he took the life of his final victim — himself — are markedly different than those we felt as we watched him approach the gates of Versace's (Édgar Ramírez) mansion and murder the celebrated style designer in cold blood.


Yet contrary to our common feelings toward a central character, it's not sympathy that we're feeling. It's empathy.


"When people mention, ‘How can you humanize somebody like this?’ I mention because he’s a human being. Each person is human. Nevertheless, unfortunately, he’s well known for horrible things that I am not exonerating him for – they are deplorable and also a tragedy and unforgivable," Darren Criss told MTV News. "I'm not playing a killer; I’m playing a person."


Beginning with the one point of familiarity in Cunanan's story — Versace's murder — it felt like the only way forward was to go backwards, making a visual of the spree killer's history with each episode and introducing us to him as a gay man in the throes of unrequited love, and before that as an escort for older gentlemen, and before that because the prized son of an immigrant who tangos with federal law and ultimately flees the nation, leaving his family member behind.


all of the while, we have a constant reminder of who he ultimately becomes as we watch him pick off his five known victims: Jeff Trail, David Madson, Lee Miglin, William Reese, and Gianni Versace.


"We begin with him as this absolute monster who is doing the worst crimes, and thus up front we’re saying, 'This is who he is.' And then we’re saying, 'How'd he become like that?'" Writer and executive producer Tom Rob Smith mentioned. "One of the benefits of the backwards narrative is you’re very clearly telling the audience, 'This is someone who's done these absolutely terrible things,' so as soon as you get into that stuff, you're not attempting to mention that forgives him. That’s just to mention where he comes from."


Executive producer Brad Simpson agreed, "It doesn't excuse what Andrew has done, nevertheless it explains it."


This ability to understand a person, without consideration of whether they were right or wrong, is empathy in its most pure, unaffected form, and being able to empathize with someone who confidently and routinely makes bad decisions accommodates us identify those turning points in which they start to lose their sense of morality. In watching Cunanan's early missteps, one can't help however feel that this spiral was "preventable," mentioned Simpson.


as soon as you go back to his childhood, you visualize that this is a kid who wasn't place on Earth to be a murderer. He's somebody who might've been a little bit unstable, yet he was talented. He was somebody you and I might've been companions with in high school because he was extroverted and interesting, and something went wrong," Simpson added. "Here's a kid who was the product some group kind of bad childhood situation and at some point, somebody could've helped him and so they didn't."


Interwoven in that dialogue is an exploration of LGBTQ culture in the '90s, a time whenever Don't Ask Don't Tell seemed more like a blanket rule than a military creed and the AIDS epidemic incited fear and prejudice toward the gay community. Versace navigated that feeling of shame that often comes with rampant homophobia and the lingering effects of it, as told via dual narratives of Versace and Cunanan, two charismatic males who took drastically different paths.


"It was such a lonely period of time," described Max Greenfield, who played Ronnie, a struggling HIV positive gay man in Miami and the closest Cunanan had to a friend in the two months before he murdered Versace.


In the finale, Ronnie poignantly stands up for his marginalized sect of society while being questioned by the FBI, asserting that the authorities failed to locate Cunanan because they "were disgusted by him long before he became disgusting." He evokes the empathy that was built upon while in the season, adding that Cunanan was never hiding; "he was attempting to be seen."


"One of the things that we've discussed about is how dangerous it is ... Any time as soon as you tell people that their voices don't matter," Greenfield mentioned.


whenever you do it from such an early age, once you're sending that message to a young person who then thinks without even being told that their voice doesn’t matter or that they should be ashamed of who they are and ashamed of what they think and what they believe and their voice – it's heartbreaking, and, really, the result of it could go in any different sort of way. That's what the story is. It may result in aesthetics in Gianni Versace's case, and yes it could result in real chaos and terror in Cunanan's case."