#monster: the jeffrey dahmer story

[justthemis124]

My opinion on “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez story” PART I

If some of you guys have read my presentation post, you know that this show encouraged me to create this blog, because after finishing the last episode, I just needed to talk about it to someone. Unfortunately nobody I know has seen it or is even interested in seeing it. Anyway that’s not the point, I have a lot of things to say about the show, that’s why this post is only a part 1, and I’ll try my best to organize my thoughts as best as I can.

You can read part II just here :))

I. THE RYAN MURPHY PROBLEM

I feel like I needed to start with the most obvious one.

So first of all you need to know that my only knowledge of Ryan Murphy comes from the 5 seasons of American Horror Story that I watched. And the thing that I noticed straight away when watching AHS was the omnipresence of very, very uncomfortable and weird s*x scenes. Every 5 seconds you get these scenes that serve no purpose to the plot whatsoever, it feels like they’re there just for the sake of making people uncomfortable and satisfying whatever perverse desire Ryan Murphy has. Now, I’ll say that American Horror Story is fictional and that, at the end of the day, no matter how disgusting these scenes are, they remain in the fictional realm.

BUT the problem is that RM has clearly brought his weird and obscene fantasies into the world of what I can only think of calling “True Fiction” (a show or movie based on real events, and that wants itself to be accurate). It’s something that you can so clearly see in each and every episode of the show, and while watching it, I remember thinking how disgusting it was that this almost 60 years old man was just forcing his perversion into a representation of literal victims of incestuous s*xual abuse. And I genuinely cannot express how sick to my stomach it makes me.

Furthermore, I think that it is also very clear whose side Ryan Murphy seems to be on, and in my opinion and based on the way he decided to portray the brothers, I think that he clearly thinks that the boys are liar. Which okay, he is of course entitled to his opinion on the matter, even if I (along with a lot people) strongly disagree with it. The problem is that he should not bring his opinion into the show and make his opinion seem like the real and factual events.

On that same note, I’m sure most of you are aware, but Erik released a statement through his wife about the show, I’ll put it below :

And I’m so glad he spoke up and said how much fake things, inaccurate portrayals and misinformation this show was spreading. Unfortunately, Ryan Murphy responded to this statement, in the worst manner possible, here is his response below :

I find it absolutely insane to tell people, whose life you tried to recreate on screen, that you did an amazing job at it while these persons themselves tell you that you failed to put in light the truth that they spent their whole lives trying to be heard.

In conclusion on this whole part about Ryan Murphy, I was just really disappointed in the way that he produced and realised the whole show as well as the way he handled the aftermath of its release, this man even had the audacity to say that he had no interest in talking to the brothers so that tells us everything that we need to know about him. And I think that he should just stick to fiction and stop trying to film true crime shows if he’s gonna ignore the facts and just build the show on his opinion instead.

II. THE PORTRAYAL OF THE BROTHERS

The issue with the portrayals of the brothers is obviously directly linked to Ryan Murphy but I wanted to dedicate a part about it and not it be a sub part to the RM problem.

When I was watching the show, the first thing that struck me was the portrayal of Lyle. I was familiar with the Menendez case way before the show because, like a lot of people, I had watched the trials on YouTube. And while I cannot claim to know what Lyle is like, and none of us can, because we don’t know him, I was still quite shocked to see the way they made him act on the show. I guess that this arrogant, angry, violent and spoiled rich kid act just wasn’t what I was expecting, along with a lot of people. And we were right to find this representation to be odd because Erik, himself, talked about how inaccurate and defamatory this representation of Lyle was in his statement that you can read above in the Ryan Murphy problem.

So there's already that. And then, the worst part in my opinion, is the way that Lyle and Erik were, first of all, highly s*xualized and also represented as if they were in some kind of incestuous relationship with each other. If we focus for a second on the s*xualization of the brothers, the first example that comes to my mind is the shower scene with Erik in prison. What purpose does that scene serve in the telling of Erik and Lyle's story? I cannot help but think that this is just another manifestation of Ryan Murphy's perverted mind. On that same note (I'm gonna try and explain this next part as best as I can) but I think we all know now that RM has a tendency to cast attractive actors for these type of roles (ex: Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer) to later s*xualize them non stop. And words are failing me to express how wrong that is, because in Dahmer's case he was literally s*xualizing a serial killer, and in the Menendez' case, victims of incestuous s*xual abuse. Again I fail to understand how this man doesn't see any wrong in that.

Now, about the representation of the brothers' relationship. As I was watching the show, I remember noticing all these little things that were insinuating that something romantic was going on between them, again I cannot express how uncomfortable it made me, I can only assume that it was the case for everyone else watching. And again, I cannot find the words to say how disgusting and sick this is. Because here is the thing, so we know that Erik was m*lested by Lyle, because Lyle was himself being abused by José Menendez, he was child and he didn't know any better than to try and recreate what he though was an act of love. BUT knowing that and willingly deciding to subtly portray these brothers as if they were in a consensual incestuous relationship is digusting and sickening.

And I want to clarify that this critic of their portrayal is aimed at Ryan Murphy and in no way at the actors, I will be talking about the actors' work in the second part, in another post.

Alright guys that's it for the first part of my opinion on "Monsters", I hope that maybe some of the points I addressed will help you see the show in another light if you didn't share my point of view. And if my post didn't convince you of anything and if you disagree with me on certain point, please leave a comment so we can discuss it :)

The second part will be focusing on the portrayal of José and Kitty Menendez as well as the work of the actors.

See you in the next post!

[evanpeters]

EVAN PETERS FILMOGRAPHY

EVAN PETERS as Jeffrey Dahmer in Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022)

[always-rolling-my-eyes]

The way Ryan Murphy consistently thinks he’s entitled to tell other people’s stories, without permission or consulting the victims / subjects of his projects, while twisting the truth and blatantly ignoring and leaving out factual information in his shows causing them even more pain and suffering, and when all is said and done, he believes he should be exempt from any of their criticism after profiting off of their trauma…

His brain needs to be studied.

[evanpetersdaily]

EVAN PETERS for Los Angeles Times (November 2022)

[painandmovies]

As a fan of true crime-

...plz, stop right there

[bebx]

Evan Peters won his first Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a Limited Series: Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story

Honestly his best/most intense performance so far. Well deserved. I’m proud of him ♡

[jeffrey-lionheart]

[maybethistimemegz]

TJ MIKELOGAN'S HALLOWEEN 2023 EVENT ↳ Day 3: Based on real events

Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022)

[cult-of-kai]

Evan Peters & Niecy Nash for ‘Backstage’, 2023.

[justthemis124]

The Menendez Brothers Documentary

So I finally found the time to watch the Menendez Brothers documentary.

I'll begin to say how happy I am that Netflix knew to do a documentary to give Erik and Lyle the space to express themselves after "Monsters" was released. I also liked how they addressed the false events that the show was trying to display as the truth, the first example that comes to my mind is the documentary making it clear that even though there were rumours about it, the brothers never made an escape plan and never thought about escaping county jail.

The highlight of the documentary was of course having Erik and Lyle's perspective on everything after all this time. And it was truly heartbreaking hearing them talk about how the only thing they really wanted was to save the other one from José and Kitty, and that they each blame each other for the life that they have now.

I feel like some of you might expect me to talk about the prosecutor from the first trial (I don't remember her name sorry, not that it matters to me anyway) and I really don't feel like she deserves to be talked about, I'll just say that still having this much hatred 30 years after is genuinely crazy.

I was also surprised that the documentary wasn't addressing more of the abuse that the brothers suffered but in insight I understand why and it makes sense to me. Everyone knows by now what these brothers had to endure for most their lives, and I truly think that the main point of it was giving more context to their trial and explaining why today, despite everything, Erik and Lyle have been serving a life sentence without the possibly of parole. For that reason it was really nice to have jurors from both trials explaining what was happening behind closed doors. Because the reason why Erik and Lyle are still in prison today, and I cannot express how glad I am that the documentary made that point very clear, is because the justice system made it so. They made it so that the only thing the jurors could vote for was first degree murder, this is basically manipulating a jury that had no knowledge of the first trial, omitting clear context as to why the crime happened, which is absolutely insane and incredibly unfair.

Now I just wanted to say a few words about Leslie Abramson not wanting to be apart of the documentary. If at first I was disappointed I quickly understood how she must feels. I think it's safe to say that this case was probably the "case of her life", in the sense that she fought so hard and for so long for these brothers. She was the first to believe them and no one has ever fought for them like she did, and maybe no one ever will. And I found some people saying on TikTok (so it's not from me) that her statement probably meant that even if they were able to get out in the near future, they still lost more than 30 years of their lives in prison due to an unfair and corrupted justice system.

I'd also like to say a few words about everything that's going on regarding a possibility of them being free in November, I haven't done enough research on that yet to express myself properly about it so in the meantime I won't express myself on it on this blog until I am 100% sure of what I am talking about.

In conclusion I'll say that this documentary did its job of reestablishing the truth after "Monsters" and giving crucial context about their second trial and why it ended the way it did.

I hope you liked this mini review guys!

See you in the next post!

FREE THE MENENDEZ BROTHERS

[evanpeters]

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: The Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or TV Movie

EVAN PETERS as JEFFREY DAHMER in MONSTER

[xmcu-fietro]

Agnes and Ralph are fighting again….

[oldmanpeters]

Evan Peters recently. 🥺

source: @EvanPetersBR_ from Twitter.

[evanpetersdaily]

@hair.by.shaysanfordfong: Sometimes they make it as real as possible to put you in the decade of where the event took place and you have to match it as close as possible . #90s #people #enquire #dahmernetflix #dahmer #decades #hair #hairdresser #hairdesign #evanpeters

[bebx]

𝑬𝒗𝒂𝒏 𝑷𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔, 𝒂 𝑮𝒐𝒍𝒅𝒆𝒏 𝑮𝒍𝒐𝒃𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒓

[thepeterswifeee]

Those muscles...

🔥🔥🔥🔥