‘The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story’ is an irresponsible retelling of the murder

Since their first trials in the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents, Lyle and Erik Menendez have consistently argued that their father, José Menendez, sexually abused them with the full knowledge of their mother, Kitty Menendez. Since their first-degree murder convictions in 1996, several TV movies, documentaries and “Law & Order” episodes have been made about the brothers and their motivations. Now, 35 years later, there’s a new, irresponsible take on Ryan Murphy, who uses “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” to reference an incestuous relationship between Lyle and Erik.

Now, 35 years later, there’s a new, irresponsible take on Ryan Murphy, who uses “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” to reference an incestuous relationship between Lyle and Erik.

Although Lyle testified at his trial that he never had an intimate relationship with Erik, Murphy’s show features the brothers kissing and showering, indicating that their brother-sister relationship developed into something romantic.

Although Murphy’s show shot to the top of Netflix’s top 10 list, it also led to immediate backlash. Among the critics is Erik Menendez, who, like his brother, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. “It is sad for me to know that Netflix’s unfair portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime has taken the painful truths several steps backwards – back in time to an era when the prosecution built a narrative based on a belief system that men were not sexually abused. and that men experienced rape trauma differently than women,” he said in a statement on X through his wife, Tammi Menendez.

Murphy disagrees, telling “Entertainment Tonight” that his show aims to adequately capture multiple points of view, including those of the brothers. “We had an obligation as storytellers to also try to portray their perspective based on our research, and we did that,” he said. He justified E!’s inclusion of an incest storyline. News: “In each episode you get a new theory, based on people who were involved or handled the case.”

The incest storyline is based on a series of stories that the late journalist Dominick Dunne reported for Vanity Fair in the 1990s. Murphy claims it was the show’s duty to provide that perspective. “We’re presenting (Dunne’s) point of view, just as we’re presenting Leslie Abramson’s (the Menendez brothers’ therapist) point of view,” Murphy explained. “We had an obligation to show all that, and we did that.”

But Dunne’s theories are presented in the show as fact and not possibility, even though there is no actual evidence that the brothers had an incestuous relationship. Instead, the episodes specifically devoted to Lyle and Erik’s perspectives also portray incest as if it unambiguously happened, without noting the very real possibility that it hasn’t. Instead, the incest story is used to portray the brothers as deviants who, if able to conceal a relationship, are able to premeditate the murder of their parents and then fictionalize child abuse to justify their crime. justify.

“I don’t believe Erik and Lyle Menendez were ever lovers,” Menendez biographer Robert Rand told The Hollywood Reporter, though he says Lyle testified that at age 8 he took Erik into the woods and played with him sexually with a toothbrush, something he testified José had done to him. “And so I certainly wouldn’t call that a sexual relationship,” Rand said. “It’s a response to trauma.”

To be clear, prosecutors said the brothers fictionalized their father’s abuse and their mother’s indifference, and that the state was ultimately able to convince a jury (and much of the American public) that Lyle and Erik were their parents had murdered to gain access to their great inheritance. During the trial, prosecutors presented evidence that the brothers embarked on an extensive spending spree for six months before they were arrested. While inheritance could be a motive, there is more evidence that the brothers were sexually abused than there is evidence that they were, as Murphy’s show suggests, intimately involved with each other.

Their cousin Brian Andersen testified that José forced his sons to shower with him after every tennis practice. “As soon as José brought one of the boys to their room, the door was locked behind them and Kitty made it clear that you were not going down the hall,” Andersen testified. Another cousin, Andres Cano, testified that an 8-year-old Erik asked him if it was normal for a father to give his son genital “massages” and said that “he wanted them to stop.”

In addition to building an incest storyline, the show sensationalizes the sexual abuse that the Menendez brothers allege took place for our entertainment.

In addition to building an incest storyline on a shaky foundation, the show sensationalizes the sexual abuse that the Menendez brothers allege took place for our entertainment. It’s a sin that plagues many true crime recreations. Instead of increasing understanding of the impact of sexual violence on children, especially male children, “Monsters” instead, it fuels our cultural impulse to stare at a heinous crime without interrogating what many signs point to is the real cause: childhood sexual abuse.

Erik and Lyle Menendez aren’t the only ones who have accused José of sexual assault. In the 2023 Peacock docuseries “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” Roy Rosselló, a former member of the ’80s pop band Menudo, told José, an executive at RCA Records, when he was murdered, drugged and raped.

It’s disturbing that “Monster” sensationalizes the Menendez brothers’ case and puts it back in the spotlight without raising awareness of the consequences of childhood sexual abuse. If it is important to relitigate the case against the Menendez brothers more than thirty years later, as Murphy clearly believes is the case, then it must be done with the knowledge we now have about how sexual violence changes those who experience it . It doesn’t matter if “Monsters” is fictional; inserting incest into an already traumatic story is cruel and unnecessary.

Rand, who believes Jose repeatedly attacked his sons, said they should have been convicted of manslaughter, not murder, and sentenced to much less than life in prison. I’m inclined to agree.

Our cultural understanding of sexual violence has evolved tremendously since the 1990s. We understand that sexual violence knows no gender, which means that boys and men are vulnerable to sexual assault just like any other person of any gender. We know that sexual violence is about power, and when people are repeatedly violated by those in authority who are supposed to protect them, it often has lifelong traumatic consequences. We know that, far more often than in the 1990s, the courts consider long-term childhood trauma, including sexual violence, as a mitigating factor when convicting people of violent crimes.

Had Murphy fully considered these elements, he would have removed the incest storyline, especially given the likelihood that many viewers would first learn about the Menendez case through his show. But he seems to have given in to the desire to entertain at the expense of those who were likely victimized, an impulse that has seemingly replaced the humanity necessary to tell this story with the nuance it deserves.

We understand that sexual violence knows no gender, which means that boys and men are vulnerable to sexual assault just like any other person of any gender.

Murphy tells “Entertainment Tonight” that “60 to 65% of our show in the scripts and in the film format is about the abuse and what they believe happened to them.” Although the show carefully tries to deal with the childhood sexual abuse the brothers say they experienced, when they are sexually abused, their trauma is repackaged as entertainment.

Where is the concern for the impact another show about their childhood trauma might have on them psychologically and emotionally? Apparently that level of care and attention has been sacrificed in the name of making television, a claim other survivors have made against Murphy for previous true crime shows he has created. If that’s what will continue to happen as we tell the Menendez family story, maybe it’s time to stop retreading the ground and give Erik and Lyle something their stories of abuse suggest they may never have known : peace.