2024-09-25 02:21:24
Brothers Erik and Lyle Menendez murdered their parents in cold blood in 1989. A nine-part telenovela with elements of black comedy and psychodrama has now been created based on the real crime, which is also currently leading the ratings of the Netflix video library in the Czech Republic.
“It’s really about white privilege, systemic racism and homophobia,” explained writer-director Ryan Murphy two years ago why he created the anthology called Monster. Her first series delved with unhealthy fascination into the story of serial killer, cannibal and necrophiliac Jeffrey Dahmer.
The ten episodes detailing his crimes were produced without the consent of the survivors and stirred up a debate over the ethics of the true crime genre. Is it okay to make a suspenseful spectacle out of the murder of 17 young men and give so much media space to the criminal?
Murphy defended himself by saying that the main theme of Monster lies elsewhere. But in the list, he forgot the most important motivation why Netflix and other streaming platforms almost every week have a new story dedicated to how someone raped, kidnapped or murdered someone: money. Murders arouse morbid curiosity and increase viewership and therefore brand value. Despite the noble words about educating the audience, it’s still primarily business at heart. Trauma becomes entertainment, serial killers become commercially just as grateful figures as superheroes.
The miniseries about Dahmer also had a record response. In 60 days, it crossed the mark of one billion watched hours. Naturally, it spawned a sequel that Netflix released late last week. In it, Ryan Murphy and a team of screenwriters rather loosely unravel the case of brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were convicted in 1996 of the brutal murders of their parents, multi-millionaire José Menendez and his wife Mary Louise. The creators leave us in no doubt about their guilt. The first of nine episodes captures the murder with sadistic vividness.
On the wrong track
Shotgun-wielding siblings enter a lavish mansion in Beverly Hills, California. Their father and mother are sitting in the living room watching TV. The ensuing carnage, in which pieces of bodies literally fly through the air, is shot from every conceivable angle, with no hint of respect for the dead.
Instead of mourning, the brothers enjoy the inheritance. Pictured are Cooper Koch as Erik Menendez and Nicholas Chavez as Lyle Menendez. | Photo: Miles Crist
The answer to the question of whether it was necessary for the story to see José’s head explode across the room is not easy to find. Similarly, dubious authorial choices, balancing between self-serving provocation and deliberate stylistic excess, will gradually increase.
The execution of the murders is so brutal that the police initially suspect the mafia. The brothers are too rich, privileged and handsome for anyone to see them as murderers. No one is surprised that instead of grieving, they are fully enjoying their inheritance. Expensive cars, clothes, hotels and branded sparkling water, because they definitely won’t drink the tap anymore. American 20-somethings Cooper Koch and Nicholas Alexander Chavez play Erik and Lyle as smug, self-pitying weaklings who can’t show any authentic emotion. Even if they face the death penalty, all they care about is whether they have a good enough tan. The series gives us no reason to sympathize with them, which is only good.
The theatricality of the first episodes also discourages identification with the protagonists. Despite the central carnage, the second season of Monster feels somewhere between a soap opera, a family sitcom and a satire à la Oliver Stone’s Such Normal Killers.
The Los Angeles sun gives the shots a golden tinge, the interiors are full of rich colors, and numerous editing sequences are underlined by relaxing period music. Everything associates well-being or the desire to live to the fullest. And also zero empathy. A similar distortion of reality would have made more sense if the narrative had stuck to the perspective of the sociopathic brothers.
But the series constantly jumps in time and changes the point of view. We see the events leading up to the crime as well as the subsequent investigation and trial from the perspective of police officers, a defense attorney, a journalist or a psychotherapist, to whom Erik unexpectedly confides what he and Lyle have done.
Later, the creators devote considerable space to parents. José, played by Javier Bardem, is a monstrous bully who tries to mask his rage with convulsive smiles. But he still can’t resist the tendency to humiliate his sons and his wife, played by Chloë Sevigny.
The second season of the series Monstrum – The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez can be seen on Netflix with Czech dubbing and subtitles. | Video: Netflix
Like a clock
When investigators finally figure out who did the killing, Erik and Lyle base their defense on abuse. They are said to have been sexually, physically and emotionally abused by their parents throughout their lives. The series wisely treats their claims as nothing more than a hypothesis.
When Erik describes in the intense fifth episode what he had to face from his father, the camera only takes tens of minutes of the young man’s face, which he slowly approaches. No images confirm the truth of his words this time. He is mainly justified by the unbelievably repulsive Javier Bardem.
Despite the support in the evocative acting performances, the mosaic of voices and points of view does not create a comprehensive portrait of the controversial case, let alone a picture of the social mood of the time, as Ryan Murphy managed to do in the excellent series The People vs. OJ Simpson from 2016. This time it was just a chaotic jumble of tonally disparate fragments that they repeat previously communicated information.
The brothers went through two trials lasting a total of seven years. The scenes from the courtroom, where the witnesses, whose point of view we already know, are among the most tiresome.
The narrative expands in breadth, new characters are added all the time, and at the same time it remains on the surface. The brothers continue to be caricatures with either a vague or inconsistent psychological side. We only see more examples of how easily he can lie.
The schizophrenic effort to understand Erik and Lyle’s trauma, at the same time not to make them victims and not to be unfair to José and Mary Louise, leads to the fact that the series does not have a solid moral center or a clearly defined goal. It offers a little of each and forgets the main thing – the reason why we should devote eight hours of our lives to it.
The first series about Dahmer, despite all the caveats, was valuable in at least one respect. She pointed to police blind spots in the investigation of murders involving gay men and African-Americans. The story of Lyle and Erik Menendez does not go beyond the banal statement that a person is not born a monster, but becomes one as a result of upbringing and various forms of abuse of power. But we will find out relatively soon. The remaining few hours resemble a jammed record that, like the murderous brothers, repeats the same song over and over again.
But when we go back to the motivation behind such shows, the disproportionate number of episodes makes sense. More episodes means more hours on Netflix. The company will thus be able to once again boast of dizzying viewing figures, which do not say anything about quality, but will please the shareholders.
It is already known that Ed Gein will be the protagonist of the third season of Monsters, which was a suitable choice from a platform that makes money from killers. A man nicknamed the Butcher of Plainfield was infamous for digging up corpses from graves and making them into souvenirs.
Serial
Monster – The story of Lyle and Erik Menendez
Creator: Ryan Murphy
The series can be seen on Netflix.