Every time director, writer and producer Ryan Murphy, known for his works “American Horror Story” and “Glee” decides to passionately write a new true crime show on Netflix, controversy always seems to arise. And it is no one else’s fault but his own– Murphy has an aching problem that is hard for any normal person not to notice.
It all started with “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” (2022), which is a limited Netflix series created by Ryan Murphy that stars Evan Peters as the infamous serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer. Of course, Murphy’s Dhamer biopic is not the first of its kind, with “Dahmer” (2002) and “My Friend Dahmer” (2017) coming out previously. However, the Netflix series did bring out some important conversations regarding Murphy’s lack of judgment in the show.
As a writer and director of a television show that deals with a delicate subject, the obvious thing to do before anything would be to make sure the victim’s families and closest friends were okay with everything being written and shown to the public. However, Murphy did not do any of that.
One of the most popular and gut wrenching scenes from “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” is where DaShawn Barnes portrays Rita Isbell (sister to one of Dahmer’s victims, Eroll Lindsey) giving an emotionally charged impact statement in front of Dahmer in court. There are multiple videos online that put the real statement that Isbell gave and the one recreated in the show for dramatic effect side-by-side.
When Isbell saw the scene, she did not have any positive feelings towards it and for Murphy either. In an interview with Business Insider, Isbell felt like she should have been asked if she minded or her thoughts about the show. But, no one did and Murphy went ahead with the show.
Having to see herself on television saying the exact same thing she screamed at Dahmer only just reopened wounds that never really closed. Especially in the brutal way that her brother was murdered by Dahmer, there is not any gain in retraumatizing someone who went through a terribly tragic loss.
That is not to say that Isbell should have been the only one contacted for her approval. To Murphy’s credit, per The Hollywood Reporter, Murphy did claim that he and his team reached out to 20 family members and friends of Dahmer’s victims during the show’s fact-checking process—but they did not get any responses.
That is the number one reason why the show should not have been made at all. If the people closest to the victims flat out refused to reply to Murphy, that only adds to the point that no one felt the need for “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” to be created.
Actions speak louder than words and people not reaching back to Murphy should have been a wakeup call. Unfortunately, it was not and flash forward to 2024, the same issue just keeps coming back.
In September, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” released onto Netflix as a limited series centering on the 1989 killings of José and Kitty Menendez by the hands of their own sons, Lyle and Erik.
Now, the main thing to understand about the Menendez brothers (if it was not already known) is that their case is not as black and white as the title ‘Monsters’ prompts the viewers to believe. That is not to defend murder at all, but the conditions the two had to live under with their father makes it easier to have a different viewpoint than that they are 100% guilty for their crimes.
The Menendez brothers, to this day, allege that their father José subjected the boys to physical and sexual abuse for years while their mother Kitty did nothing to stop it whilst contributing to the abuse. With a case like this, there just has to be some nuance integrated for the story to work and the show practically had none, especially with how the brother’s relationship was portrayed.
In fact, most of the promiscuous scenes that happened in the show were between the two brothers.
A clip from the show that had received a lot of online negative attention was Erik (portrayed by Cooper Koch) and Lyle (portrayed by Nicholas Chavez) partaking in a kiss. There are multiple scenes like that with Lyle sticking his thumb in Erik’s mouth and their mother walking in on them showering together.
The fact that Murphy wrote two victims of sexual abuse by their own father in a incestuous relationship is just irresponsible on his part, especially when there is not any evidence of it actually happening.
Just like the victims of Dahmer, the family of the Menendez brothers has made their positions on the show clear and how much they believe it does not portray the brother’s correctly. Tammi Menendez (who married Erik Menendez in 1999) released a statement on X the family’s response to “Monsters” and the comments were positive in the slightest.
How long is Ryan Murphy going to get away with not taking into account the real people whose lives were affected by the very things he writes about and bestows to the public? Others who have no idea what the Menendez brother’s case was about until the show are going to be fed lies and misinformation.
It should always be that whenever making shows like the ones Ryan Murphy has, the families and victims are treated with the utmost respect and taken into complete consideration when going into production.
Milking trauma and using it for entertainment, especially with inaccuracies, is not right. The lessons not learned from “Dahmer” are becoming apparent that Murphy just does not care as long as he is making money. This issue is prevalent in true crime and Murphy is not doing anything to fix it—he is just adding onto it.
It was announced that the next installment in the “Monsters” series would be actor Charlie Hunnam portraying the infamous Ed Gein. Why make another entry into his” serial killer cinematic universe” when all Murphy does is just make it worse for the victims and their families?
