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Netflix's new drama has a bad reputation because many people don't realize that they are the demon.
Text: Yuan Yue
The following contains spoilers, so please read with caution
On September 19, 2024, Netflix launched a new drama "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story" (Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story), which jumped to the top of the Netflix ratings list with 97.5 million watch hours four days later. In the second week, the show continued to rank first, earning a total of 154 million hours of viewing. However, the show's reviews are not very good, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of only 4.9 points.
The show is a sequel to Netflix's 2022 release of "Monster·: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story," which is the third series in Netflix's history to surpass 1 billion hours watched, but it also has poor reviews and a rating of only 6.3 on Rotten Tomatoes.
A still from "Monster: The Story of Jeffrey · Dahmer".
Why is this happening? The answer is simple: both dramas are based on real people and real events, both of which are filmed in the United States of high-profile murders, and ·producer Ryan Murphy and screenwriter Ian Brennan · tried to expose the dark side of United States society through this "monster" series, and for this reason did not hesitate to include some controversial content, which inevitably offended many people.
For example, the film "Damo" was about an ogre who killed 17 people, but because the killer only targeted homosexuals and he lived in a dirty and messy neighborhood that no one cared about, he continued to commit crimes many times for more than ten years, but he was still able to escape the police. But many viewers accused the choreographer of glorifying murderers and scandalizing homosexuality, and even the fact that the leading actor won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor was criticized by many people.
The controversy caused by "The Menendez Brothers" was even greater, with many critics accusing the play of a loose plot, lack of focus, and biased portrayal of the Menendez brothers. The first of these does make some sense, but that's because the murder process is so simple that even the police scene can be deleted, which is certainly not satisfying for viewers who want to watch a cat-and-mouse game between police and criminals.
However, the second reason is not valid, because the core of the play is to expose a deception orchestrated by the brothers. This scam deceived not only the jury, but also many onlookers. The director tried to restore the truth of this matter with the help of this play, and took the opportunity to satirize the judicial process and jury system in United States.
To understand this, we have to start with the case itself.
The murder took place on August 20, 1989, when United States entertainment mogul ·Jose Menendez and ·his wife, Kitty Menendez, were shot and killed in their Beverly Hills mansion on August 20, 1989, and were shot 16 times with powerful shotguns, and the skeletons of their bodies were almost all scattered.
At first, the police suspected that the crime was committed by a gang, but later a psychiatrist named Jerome Oziel (Jero·me Oziel) broke the news that the killers were the two sons of the victim couple. The eldest son, Lyle, 21, was a student at Princeton University but was forced to take a year off school for cheating on exams, interning at his father's company Jose. The youngest son, Eric, is 19 years old and an amateur tennis player in high school, ranking 44th in the same age group in the United States.
The brothers flatly denied it, but the police soon proved that the alibi provided by them was forged. On 8 March 1990, the police arrested Lyle. On March 11 of the same year, Eric, who was participating in a tennis tournament in Israel, flew back to Los Angeles to surrender to the police after being persuaded by lawyer Robert · Shapiro.
The case was tried twice. The first trial began on July 20, 1993, when the Los Angeles court decided that the brothers would try together, but with two separate juries for each of them. The brothers quickly confessed to the murder of their parents, but denied that it was a premeditated murder, but rather a self-defense in the belief that their father, José, was about to kill them. Defense lawyers then spent a lot of time trying to prove that José not only routinely abused the brothers, but also began sexually assaulting them at a very young age, including the sexual assault of his youngest son, Eric, until shortly before the crime.
The first trial was annulled because the jury did not reach a unanimous opinion. The second trial began in August 1995 with the brothers joined together and after more than five months of trial, the brothers were convicted of first-degree murder. At the time of conviction, the death penalty was not imposed due to disagreement among the jurors, and the two were sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
There are three main reasons why this case has attracted attention.
First of all, the victim was a Hollywood bigwig, and his personal property was worth tens of millions of dollars. The murder took place in an extremely secluded upscale home in Beverly Hills, where former owners included celebrities such as Michael Jackson ·· Elton John and Elton John, satisfying everyone's imagination of the life of the rich. The two murderers are typical rich second generations, and they are good-looking, especially the youngest son Eric can be called a handsome guy, and he has attracted the attention of many women.
Second, the judge of the first trial allowed cameras to be placed in the courtroom, and the entire process of the trial was broadcast live across the United States, satisfying the needs of the onlookers who wanted to see celebrity gossip. At the trial, the brothers publicly accused their father José of sexual assault and revealed a lot of details, including how they were sexually assaulted, the tools they used, and how the brothers really felt about their father's sexual assault.
Third, the Menendez family wanted to hire Shapiro as a defense lawyer, but later spent a lot of money ($750,000, equivalent to $1.63 million today) to hire a female lawyer Leslie Abramson who is very good at exonerating felons· The flamboyant female lawyer boldly adopted the "Extreme Emotional Disturbance" (EED) defense strategy, arguing that the defendant killed someone on the spur of the moment because of the emotional instability caused by years of abuse and sexual assault. In similar situations, defense lawyers have generally tried to prove that the defendant is mentally ill, but the EED strategy does not need to prove this at all (which is almost impossible for the brothers to succeed), only to prove that their father, José, has sexually assaulted them, and there is no proof of death anyway. Most ordinary United States must find it fresh to see the defense use this defense strategy for the first time, and to use abuse and sexual assault as a justification for emotional disturbance.
This drama completely restores the process of this case, allowing a new generation of United States audiences to relive the whole process like their parents. First of all, the choreographer only used two episodes to finish the process of murder and the arrest of the murderer, and the process of solving this case back then was equally simple. After that, the director spent 6 episodes detailing the brothers' allegations of abuse and sexual assault against their parents, which was not at all unfair to the brothers as it was said on the Internet. The difference is that the onlookers back then could only listen to the brothers' descriptions, and today's audience can also see live performances, and the effect is much stronger than back then.
Jose and Kitty are played by famous Hollywood actors Javier ·Bardem and Chloë Sevigny · respectively, and Baden is recognized as the most suitable actor (he played the murderer with a high-pressure air gun in the Coen brothers' film "No Country for Old Men"), which adds to the veracity of the abuse and sexual assault allegations.
The actors who play the brothers are equally commendable. Nicholas Alexander Chavez, who played his brother·· Alexander Chavez, once won an Emmy Award for Best Young Actor, and he played his brother's arrogance and mania vividly. Cooper ·Koch, who plays his younger brother, was born in an acting family, and his performance in this drama is amazing, especially the performance in the fifth episode, which has been crowned on the Internet, and I believe it will be the big winner at major film and television awards ceremonies next year.
Because of the outstanding performances of these four actors, the accusations of abuse and sexual assault have changed from the brothers' one-sided statements to real images, confusing more people. Many netizens have taken abuse and sexual assault as facts when evaluating this series, forgetting that the first two episodes of this show, and the finale of the last episode, confessed more evidence to the contrary, and can summarize at least 10 points by just thinking about it:
1. The brothers had never previously disclosed to their psychiatrist or relatives and friends that they had been sexually assaulted, and all the accusations came after they went to jail. On the contrary, both brothers had watched a TV series about a rich son killing his parents three weeks before the crime, and Eric had written a script on a similar theme.
2. After the brothers went to prison, the prosecution and the defense struggled for more than two years on whether the tapes could be used as evidence, giving the brothers enough time to prepare defense materials and directions.
3. During their detention, the brothers read several books related to child abuse and sexual assault, and many of the details they described were from the books, including the common process of sexual assault and the typical psychological activities of victims.
4. The brothers called many relatives and friends in prison and asked each other to give false testimony. Subsequent testimonies of abuse and sexual assault were second-hand information of this kind of hearsay, and none of the witnesses ever witnessed it with their own eyes.
5. Beyond these testimonies, there is no physical evidence that can prove that José ever sexually assaulted the brothers.
6. Jose had already arranged a lot of things for the brothers before the crime, and the couple even invited friends to their house for a party on the night of the crime, and it was impossible for them to try to kill people as the brothers said.
7. A live-in nanny who works five days a week testified that she never saw José and Kitty reprimanding their sons, and that the family's usual family atmosphere was not at all as tense as the brothers described in court.
8. Before the incident, the family had gone fishing by boat, and the captain testified that he not only did not realize that the brothers were afraid of their parents, but even thought that their parents were afraid of the brothers.
9. The brothers' defense strategy was designed with the help of Eric's defense lawyer, Abramson, who hired Paul ·, the author of "When A Child Kills: Abused Children Who Kill Their Parents," as a consultant, who advised the brothers to wear boyish sweaters, sweatshirts and khakis. Eric was also advised to put on a pair of glasses and try to pose as an innocent child who had been abused by his parents, even though both brothers were already adults in their 20s at the time of the trial. Abramson also found many common symptoms from a diagnostic tool developed by a psychotherapist for incest survivors, and asked the brothers to follow suit.
10. The most crucial point is that both brothers are habitual liars. Since the day they reported the crime, they have been panicking countless times with the police, including how to buy guns and how to fabricate alibis. They showed unusual acting talent when they lied, and both of them could cry to death at any time, which deceived many people.
Of course, just because the brothers lied doesn't mean that their parents aren't responsible. In fact, the fact that these two sons were raised is enough to show that the Menendezes are not qualified parents. The main problem should lie with José, who is a Cuban immigrant who has worked his way up from the bottom to the top and naturally has too high demands on his children. In the words familiar to Chinese readers, this is a family that is rolled to the extreme. It is likely that the brothers were forced to break the pot because their father was too demanding to meet them.
In fact, shortly before the crime, the brothers were almost sentenced to prison for burglary, but in the end, Jose paid for the losses and then persuaded the police to release the brothers. But José was very disappointed by this incident and canceled the brothers' inheritance. The murder took place two months after this decision, and the brothers were in a hurry to find the will soon after the killing, and Eric even slept with his father's safe, for fear that someone else would get the will first. They also paid a computer specialist to hack into José's computer and try to change the will.
After confirming that they would receive the inheritance, the brothers immediately went on a spending spree, spending $700,000 (about $1.52 million now) in just six months by buying luxury cars and watches and traveling abroad. All of these behaviors are more like spoiled children than victims who have been abused all the time and even sexually assaulted since childhood. And the purpose of their killing is more likely to be for money, rather than to protect themselves from their father's murder, as they claimed.
The two directors of this play should have long seen that the brothers were lying, and the bespectacled old entertainer · Dunne in the play is actually the director's mouth. The man was real, his daughter was brutally murdered by her ex-boyfriend, but the jury believed the murderer and the lawyer's defense, convicted the murderer on impulse, and finally sentenced him to only 6 years in prison, and was released after only 3 and a half years. For this reason, Dunn devoted his life to criticizing the United States justice system, arguing that it favors criminals and is unfair to victims.
O.J. Simpson, who appears in the final episode, is also a real thing, Simpson is indeed locked up next door to Eric's cell, and the two did have a lot of communication. In fact, the brothers have known Simpson for a long time, because Jose signed Simpson as a company ambassador during his tenure as an executive at Hertz Car Rentals, so the two became friends.
The group of lawyers hired by Simpson is known as the "Dream Team", and the captain is Shapiro, who almost defended the brothers back then. The team also includes Simpson's good friend Robert Kardashian, which is why his daughter, Kim ·Kardashian, recently came out to call for a retrial ·of the Menendez brothers' murder case.
Because of the outstanding performance of the "Dream Team", Simpson was acquitted. The incident caused an uproar throughout the United States, and the Los Angeles court felt tremendous pressure to ban cameras from entering the courtroom. Coupled with the fact that the brothers were bankrupt at the second trial and could not afford a lawyer, and the presiding judge limited the number of mental health experts the defense could call, the abuse and sexual assault did not take up as much of the trial time as the first trial. So in the end, they were found guilty in the second trial, and the brothers failed to escape the law like Simpson.
Interestingly, these two sensational cases in the United States were all cases in which celebrities were defendants, and the deceased was unknown, so public opinion was seriously biased in favor of the defendants. Simpson was the best idol in the United States entertainment industry that year, and he belonged to the kind of black and white all-in-one, and most United States liked him very much. Although the victim is his ex-wife, her popularity is extremely low, and almost no one knows about it before. Similarly, although José was a Hollywood executive, few people knew him before the accident. The brothers, on the other hand, quickly amassed a large following through live television, and they would rally in front of the courthouse every time they appeared in court to build momentum for the brothers. The first trial was also aborted because the women on the jury were mostly sympathetic.
The jury system is based on the fact that ordinary people also have the ability to think rationally. If the jury members do not have the most basic logical thinking skills like these in the play, then the defendant only needs to hire a lawyer who can speak well and play the emotional card, which is very easy to influence the outcome of the trial. There have been too many similar things in United States history, and the documentary "The Jinx" that went viral some time ago was about such a case.
Stills from "New York Disaster".
The last episode of this show is very interesting. Even after several witnesses proved that the brothers had been lying, several members of the jury believed their words, felt that they were excusable for their murder and did not want to be sentenced to death. One of the only female jurors who saw the truth explained why she believed the brothers were lying, but she had a heart attack. In the end, the juror who replaced her chose to believe the brothers' word without knowing the truth, and they escaped the gallows.
However, the choreographer used the last shot to vindicate Jose and Kitty, who died unjustly. They are not an irresponsible and disgusting parent, as shown most of the time in the play, but a couple who love each other. Unfortunately, they are dead and can no longer speak for themselves.
In fact, the choreographer's stance is shown through the soundtrack in the first episode. The show uses a lot of songs from the band Milli Vanilli, partly because the band was one of the hottest bands of the year, but more importantly, because the band was also composed of two good-looking male singers, but it was later revealed that the whole thing was fake singing, and the reputation was discredited for it.
The English title of this play is Monsters, which translates to monsters in Chinese. In fact, a more accurate translation is demons, which is the essence of the brothers Damo and Menendez. The reason why the two directors chose these 3 demons is because of the collapse of the entire judicial system embodied behind them, as well as the evil of human nature of ordinary people who do not know the truth. The fundamental reason why many people don't have a high opinion of this show is that they don't realize that they are the demon.
(Excerpted from WeChat public account Sanlian Life Weekly)