Netflix’s ‘Monsters’ Series: Expert Debunks Its Most Controversial Fictional Elements

Currently ranking number one on Netflix, the series “Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez” has sparked controversy. This second season of the anthology series “Monster,” which is based on the real-life murders of José and Kitty Menendez, faced criticism shortly after its release.

The series makes controversial suggestions about the nature of the relationship between the two brothers, repeatedly hinting that Lyle and Erik shared more than a brotherly bond and that their relationship was sexual in nature.

Backlash Emerges

The backlash against the series – coming right on the heels of the announcement of a new Netflix documentary featuring Lyle and Erik Menendez, in which the brothers participated – began almost immediately after the show’s premiere.

Initially, a flood of comments from the Menendez supporters’ community quickly grew on TikTok and Instagram, overwhelming social media.

Followers are challenging the narrative liberties taken by Ryan Murphy and his co-creator Ian Brennan, suggesting that the brothers were also lovers. Erik Menendez himself stepped forward to condemn the series: “lies and disastrous misrepresentations of characters.“

Imaginary Incest?

The series alludes to possible incest on several occasions and deals as much with intergenerational trauma as with America’s obsession with wealth, while mocking the most questionable trends of early 1990s Los Angeles.

In the second episode, the brothers briefly kiss after Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez) places his hands on Erik’s (Cooper Koch) neck. Later in the same scene, Lyle interrupts Erik while he is dancing with a woman at a party in their Bel-Air hotel room, then wipes cocaine off his nose and puts his thumb in his brother’s mouth.

In a sequence from episode 6, which is clearly presented as a fantasy sequence, their mother Kitty Menendez (Chloë Sevigny) walks up a staircase and finds her sons showering together.

Expert Strikes Back

Lyle testified during his trial that he had never had a sexual relationship with his brother. Robert Rand, who in 2018 wrote the definitive work on the brothers’ crime, The Menendez Brothers: Murders at Beverly Hills, the culmination of his close coverage of their case as a journalist since the day after the murders, said the same to the Hollywood Reporter, describing the brothers as traditional athletes who did not use drugs.

Rand explains that the portrayal of the brothers’ relationship as possibly incestuous is false and that this idea of a relationship between them existed only in the minds of those around them.

“I don’t believe Erik and Lyle Menendez were ever lovers. I think that’s a fantasy that crossed the mind of Dominick Dunne [the journalist portrayed in the series by Nathan Lane],” says Robert Rand.

“Rumors were circulating during the trial that there might have been some kind of odd relationship between Erik and Lyle. But I believe the only physical contact they might have had is what Lyle testified to, that when Lyle was eight years old, he took Erik into the woods and played with him with a toothbrush – something their father José had done with him.

I certainly wouldn’t call that a sexual relationship of any kind. It’s a response to trauma.“

Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez is currently available on Netflix.