On September 19, Netflix released “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” sharing the brothers’ real and devastating story as a drama series.
The criminal incident on which the series was based occurred in 1990 when brothers’ Lyle and Erik shot and killed their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez in their Beverly Hills home. The defense claimed the brothers acted in self-defense after years of sexual and physical abuse by their father Jose. Yet that defense was dismissed in the 1990’s the idea of boys getting sexually assaulted wasn’t accepted since no one believed it was possible.
With their defense dismissed, the brothers had nothing left to defend themselves from charges of murder and were arrested March 12, 1990. It has now been 35 years and justice has spoken out for these helpless brothers.
Some followers of the brothers’ story who had watched the 1990 trial believed the producers poorly betrayed their story. It is even recorded that the Menendez brothers’ family members publicly spoke out against the show. They demonstrated the series’ disgracefulness by exposing the truth about Lyle and Erik.
With all the hate and backlash, the brothers’ case quickly became very public. This resulted in a new documentary being released about the Menendez brothers. The documentary, “The Menendez Brothers: 30 Years After the Murders, the Brothers Tell Their Story,” exposed enough truth to give the brothers another chance at freedom with a resentencing date set for November 26.
Gianina Broccolino, a senior at Linganore High School (LHS) had known the backstory of the case prior to the shows coming out. She believed every word Lyle and Erik spoke and found the show intriguing to watch.
“Although it was more interesting to watch the [Netflix] show rather than the documentary, I would definitely agree that ‘Monsters’ made the brothers look like psychopaths,” said Broccolino. “In the show, Erik and Lyle would completely flip like a switch acting like a crazy person.”
The question of whether they deserve to be resentenced or not is frequently raised, given such a twisted case like this.
“I think they deserve to be bailed because they have already spent 30 years in jail, and I feel that they’ve served their time, especially because they did what they did out of self defense,” Broccolino said. “If a young boy or girl is getting sexually abused by their own father, it makes sense for them to try and get it to stop.”
The main controversy is how they took an extreme case and framed it as if what the parents did was valid. The jury referred to it as tough parenting in order to justify their actions and keep the children straight.
Senior Ellie Engel has had a strong obsession for the Menendez Case ever since the prime of the pandemic. During COVID-19, videos of the case were leaked on TikTok and everyone’s curiosity grew. By the time the two shows came out, Engel had known the whole case front to back and was devastated to see how awful the show projected the brothers.
“I did not favor ‘Monsters’ because I didn’t like the way it portrayed them; it wasn’t accurate at all,” said Engel. “The problem of the show was how it portrayed the parents as the good guys and making the parents look really good and the brothers look like psychopaths who had been plotting their murder for quite some time.”
Some believe the documentary was released in response to the portrayal of the brothers in the series.The prosecution presented a motive for the parents to be for financial gain. Such a claimallows the authorities to ignore the possibility of sexual abuse and assault. In 1990, many people did not believe that boys could be raped by a male, let alone by their own father. Which was all stated in the Menendez brothers documentary on Netflix.
Jennifer Twiford, an instructional assistant at Linganore, first heard about the case in 1996. At first, she did not believe the boys and whole-heartedly believed they killed their parents for the money.
“I honestly didn’t see their side, but the more I watched and got to see their emotions while following along [with the case], the more I felt for them and believed everything they were saying,” said Twiford.
The fear, sadness and desperation in their eyes, as seen in the documentary, is not something anyone can just fake. Justice and time has been served. It is time for the brothers to have a chance at a somewhat normal life.
