Ryan Murphy Responds to Erik Menendez’s Criticism of Monsters
Monster mastermind Ryan Murphy is responding to backlash he’s received direct from one of the subjects of his Netflix docudrama.
On Friday, one day after the release of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, Erik — who, along with his brother Lyle, was convicted of killing their parents in a sensational trial that sparked a mid-’90s media frenzy — issued a blistering statement wherein he condemned Murphy for being “na?ve and inaccurate about the facts.” He added that “it is sad for me to know that Netflix’s dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime have taken the painful truths several steps backward — back through time to an era when the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experienced rape trauma differently than women.”
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In turn, Murphy addressed Erik’s criticisms in an interview with Entertainment Tonight.
“I think it’s interesting that he’s issued a statement without having seen the show,” Murphy began. “It’s really, really hard — if it’s your life — to see your life up on screen.
“The thing that I find interesting, that he doesn’t mention in his quote, is if you watch the show, I would say 60-65 percent of our show, in the scripts and in the film form, center around the abuse and what they claim happened to them,” the EP pointed out. “And we do it very carefully, and we give them their day in court, and they talk openly about it.
“In this age where people can really talk about sexual abuse, talking about it and writing about it and writing about all points of view can be controversial,” Murphy continued. “It’s a ‘Rashomon’ kind of approach [in Monsters], where there were four people involved in that — two of them are dead. What about the parents? We had an obligation as storytellers to also try and put in their perspective based on our research, which we did.”
Murphy also defends the show against criticism for suggesting that Erik and Lyle’s bond grew incestuous: “If you watch the show, what the show is doing is presenting the points of view and theories from so many people who were involved in the case. [Vanity Fair journalist] Dominick Dunne wrote several articles talking about that theory. We are presenting his point of view, just as we present [criminal defense attorney] Leslie Abramson’s point of view… and we had an obligation to show all of that and we did.”
Monsters — the second installment of Netflix’s Monster true-crime anthology, following the Evan Peters-starring Dahmer — debuted Sept. 19 on the streamer, with Nicholas Chavez and Cooper Koch starring as Lyle and Erik, respectively. Oscar winner Javier Bardem co-stars as their father José, with Chloe Sevigny as their mother Kitty. Murphy serves as co-creator and showrunner along with Ian Brennan.
The Menendez Brothers, a Netflix documentary from Lyle and Erik’s point of view, will follow on Monday, Oct. 7.
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