Ryan Murphy is a recognizable name to those who often indulge in Netflix show marathons with popular shows like “Glee,” “American Horror Story” and most recently “Monster.” Both season one (“The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”) and season two (“The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story”) of “Monster” portray a multi-perspective of popular murderers. The common thread among these two seasons is Murphy’s evident need to explore and explain the dark potential of the human psyche. The show has been a massive success for Netflix and Murphy but has left watchers and the victim’s families reeling from inaccuracies and exploitation, accusing Murphy of crossing the line.
Co-creators Murphy and Ian Brennan began the project after witnessing the rise in popularity of the Menendez Brothers case on TikTok and Instagram. They aimed to incorporate multiple points of views, including those from the brothers, the parents and the lawyers, and theories of the case, into the writing of the script to allow viewers to be led to their own conclusion to the twisted possibilities of human behavior. But inside of these perspectives are odd sexual innuendos and dramaticized shock values. This show does the opposite of diving into what made the killers finally pull the trigger and kill their parents; it instead glamorizes the brothers.
As Murphy had done in season one, the Menendez Brothers were painted as victims of their upbringings. And while the abuse they faced at the hands of their father makes the case less black and white, Murphy had the opportunity to make a difficult and nuanced show that simply demonstrates the lives of the killers and their evils rather than choosing to fetishize them. The show depicts a scene in which the two brothers share a kiss and another in which their mother discovers them showering together, leading viewers to infer the two brothers had an incestual relationship, which in part led to them killing their parents. There is no real indication that this happened or that this claim holds any ground, according to Forbes Magazine. This plotline takes away from the abuse victim narrative that was presented earlier.
Murphy also depicts Erik Menendez as closeted despite an interview with Barbara Walters where Erik explained that he is not gay, but felt confused for a long time because of his father’s abuse. Murphy chose to ignore this perspective and stick with his made up objective in the construction of his script. Murphy seemingly forgets that the characters he is portraying in this show are real people and not just a story to paint and fabricate.
The Menendez family released an official statement with word from Erik who is still in prison, in which they described the show as, “a phobic, gross, anachronistic, serial episodic nightmare. Perhaps, after all, ‘Monsters’ is all about Ryan Murphy.”
Murphy responded to the statement: “I feel like that’s faux outrage. Because if you look at what we do, we give those boys so much airtime to talk about what they claim as their physical abuse.”
Ultimately, Murphy seems to have allocated so much time in the show to the portrayal of the abuse to appease the popular belief that the brothers do not belong in jail rather than in an attempt to accurately depict the events that transpired.
