In an…interesting move, Netflix will be releasing the documentary “The Menendez Brothers,” directed by Alejandro Hartmann, in early October. While the streamer is no stranger to true crime content, it is odd that it will air almost a month after the premiere of “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.”
A season of the Ryan Murphy-created series “Monster” about Lyle and Erik Menendez’s murder of their parents in 1996.
“The Menendez Brothers”
The trailer boasts about having both brothers being interviewed from prison. “Everyone asks why we killed our parents,” says Lyle. “Maybe now people can understand the truth.”
“What happened that night is very well known but so much hasn’t been told,” adds Erik. “We were not the ones who told the story about our lives. Two kids don’t commit this crime for money.”
The slew of interview clips we see afterwards mostly attest to them being guilty of killing their parents for money. Interviews for “The Menendez Brothers” include lawyers involved in the trial, journalists who covered the case, jurors, family, and other informed observers.
Backlash
“The Menendez Brothers” trailer release comes less than a day after Erik criticized the upcoming season of “Monster” via his wife Tammi Menendez’s X (formally Twitter) account.
“I believed we had moved beyond the lies and ruinous character portrayals of Lyle, creating a caricature of Lyle rooted in horrible and blatant lies rampant in the show,” he said. “I can only believe they were done so on purpose. It is with a heavy heart that I say, I believe Ryan Murphy cannot be this naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives so as to do this without bad intent.”
“It is sad for me to know that Netflix’s dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime have taken the painful truths several steps backward — back through time to an era when the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experienced rape trauma differently than women,” Erik adds.
He believes that Murphy, “shapes his horrible narrative through vile and appalling character portrayals of Lyle and me and disheartening slander.”
“Is the truth not enough? Let the truth stand as the truth. How demoralizing is it to know that one man with power can undermine decades of progress in shedding light on childhood trauma.”
Given that Erik is still behind bars, he hasn’t commented at this time about the upcoming documentary.
“Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” primeres on Netflix on September 19th. “The Menendez Brothers,” will be released on October 7th, you can check out the trailer below:
