The Menendez Brothers’ Story premiered on Netflix on Sept.19 and gained immediate popularity. The nine-episode season details the day of the murders up to the end of Menendez’s trial and has been in Netflix’s top ten since the day it premiered. It depicts everyone involved in many different ways throughout the episodes and has brought much attention back to the case that may potentially be reopened.
The cast and producer have been quoted saying they wanted the viewers to get the chance to act as the jury so, they attempted to show all different theories. Even though, many, including me, found aspects of the portrayal distasteful. The Menendez brothers are still alive and in prison. I can’t imagine seeing yourself being played as a character in ways you consider inaccurate, reenacting the worst moments of your life.
The brothers were depicted as sharing kisses and showers, doing drugs, and being money-hungry in many scenes, which is the cause for much of the public’s uproar and anger with producer Ryan Murphy. Many criticisms are similar to the ones he received after the first season of “Monsters,” about Jeffrey Dahmer. However, they did want to show all different kinds of theories about them, which is why, in other scenes, you see Erik and Lyle portrayed as the broken boys dealing with the effects of years of their parents’ abuse and tormented by their actions in response.
In terms of actors, I genuinely enjoyed the casting for this season. Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny, who play Kitty and Jose Menendez, were arguably perfectly casted and encompass an extremely chilling pair. I thought that Cooper Koch’s performance playing Erik was one of the most brilliant I have seen in anything this year. In a scene with Ari Graynor, whom I also loved as Leslie Abraham, they perform a 40 minute uncut scene where Erik details to Abraham some of the disgusting abuse he experienced. This scene is horrifically sad and his performance will have you sitting there with your jaw dropped.
Overall, I very much enjoyed watching “Monsters.” However, I hate that I enjoyed it. This project brings up a lot of interesting conversations about the romanticization of traumatic events in TV, whose lives are appropriate to dramatize, and of course, the case itself. It is very jarring how much we, as viewers, cannot look away from media with dramatized abuse and violence, and this series made me think about that. It also made me wonder how many people will take something so dramatized at face value. All that to say, I finished it in a day because it was so enthralling, and the fact that I did put me in a personal moral war. I am sure many viewers felt similarly to me, and the one good I believe that could come from the series is that it brought the case more awareness and may cause more young people to look into the true events that led to this show’s creation.