More than 30 years after their case, the Menendez Brothers are still being spoken about. Do they deserve to still be in jail? Was their crime justifiable considering the psychological, physical, and sexual abuse they experienced at the hands of their parents? Ryan Murphy’s new Netflix series, Monsters, retells their story in a way that many people are finding to be extremely controversial and unfair to the brothers. Murphy, however, claims he tried his best to provide the perspectives of every character, living or dead, based on his research. After watching the series myself, I can understand both sides to this debate. My advice to anyone who has already or plans on watching it is to keep an open mind and formulate your own opinion, dependent on reliable sources.
From false portrayals and accusations to amplifying rumors, Ryan Murphy has received extreme backlash on his writing of the lives of Erik and Lyle Menendez. There is a consistent theme of aggression specifically from older brother, Lyle, which many are confused as to why Murphy has this impression of him. His hostile personality in the show creates the notion that Lyle is a violent, evil person when that may not be the case. Another arguable factor is the implication of an incestual relationship between Lyle and Erik.
In an article for Out Magazine, Mey Rude wrote, “Many viewers are mad that the show has taken two real-life victims of traumatic and abusive incest and portrayed them as willingly entering into an incestuous relationship with each other.” The only confirmed physical contact between the two is what Lyle testified, that when he was 8 years old he took Erik into the woods and did what his father was doing to him, as a response to his trauma. Therefore it is inaccurate to have included that in the storyline.
I believe the most frowned upon aspect of the show is the downplaying of the abuse the Menendez’s endured. This is unfortunate because all these years and the progress that’s been made in shedding light on men being sexually assaulted has digressed by this false representation of their story. The psychological perspective of their murder conviction was not touched on or the developmental disruption that occurs as a result from being abused from a young age.
Murphy counters this claim by responding, “…if you watch the show, I’d say 60 to 65% of our show, in the scripts and in the film form, center around the abuse, and what they claim happened to them. We do it very carefully, we give them their day in court, and they talk openly about it,” he said. “We present the facts from their point of view, largely. We spent three years researching it; all that is true.” He feels that as a writer he did his duty to tell the story from various perspectives so that the viewer could formulate their own opinion on the situation.
People have been going back and forth on this tragic case for many years. Could the brothers have found alternatives to get themselves out of this awful living condition? Absolutely. But were they aware of the options that were available to them? Did they have the mental capacity to act in a reasonable and non-violent manner? When you think about it, people in abusive environments, especially children, are not exposed to healthy behaviors or the knowledge to find help. They were scared, desperate, and at a point that they could not live like that anymore. They even believed that their parents were going to murder them. So what’s your take? Are they…. Monsters?
