words Niamh Madden
Whether it’s Scoop, Four Lives, or Welcome to Chippendales, there has always been an appetite for docudramas. The recent release of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, the subsequent backlash from the brothers and their family members, and the further coming out of The Menendez Brothers documentary have got me thinking: are we becoming a society of addled brains unable to distinguish between fact and fiction because of the media we are consuming?
I knew little of the Menendez Brothers or their case before Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story came out. While watching, I became increasingly cynical towards the brothers and was left questioning their victim status. This was only fuelled by the spoilt and bratty representation of an aggressive and constantly irate Lyle Menendez. The acting, no doubt, was phenomenal, but it didn’t do the Menendez Brothers any favours in terms of winning over a sympathetic audience. Following the statements from the brothers and their families, it was understandable to see why they would be upset, especially following the recent documentary, which completely solidified my view that the Menendez Brothers deserve to be released from prison because of the severe trauma they were subjected to.
The Menendez Brothers showed me a completely different representation of Erik and Lyle Menendez. What was shown was two brothers who were deeply haunted by the extreme abuse at the hands of their parents, who had used their time in prison to do everything they could to heal. I didn’t see a loose cannon in Lyle Menendez the way he was portrayed in Ryan Murphy’s series. I didn’t see scheming, money-hungry and violent people. I saw two men done dirty by the American justice system. I saw two men who genuinely feared for their lives because of the way José and Kitty Menendez acted around them. How is it that two versions of the Menendez case could connote such opposing views in me?
The crux of it is the difference between dramatisation and stone-cold truth. The Menendez Brothers is a documentary, whereas Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is a fictional television show. Some people would think that because Murphy’s series is a docudrama, it is entitled to a poetic license, and this seems fair. However, the truth and lies are not black and white. The lines between fact and fiction are very much blurred, and those (like me) who knew next to nothing about the Menendez case are impressionable. This is a problem. Maybe my inner cynic is out again, but in our capitalist world, it is increasingly obvious that figures are of the utmost importance, and this television series has successfully profited off very serious trauma from two very troubled individuals and their families. In a world where nothing garners attention more than outrage and scandal, what better way to attract huge ratings than by including rage-bait-worthy scenes? It works because (ironically) people are talking about it, and money is flowing into the pockets of those involved in the project.
We saw it recently and just as publicly in the fallout of Baby Reindeer. The characters, however ‘changed’ and ‘disguised’ they claimed to be, were no match for internet sleuths. The real ‘Martha’ was found extremely quickly, which resulted in an interview with Piers Morgan that was watched by over fifteen million people. Since she was uncovered, she has said how she was inundated with hate messages. Watching a television show that showed a woman who had issues with her mental health seemed exploitative. Whilst Richard Gadd is, of course, entitled to tell his own story, especially as it was so traumatic, ethical quandaries arise concerning the depiction and portrayal of the characters and the short-sightedness at the underestimating of the power of the internet, especially due to its continuously reinforced status as a ‘true story’. Since pursuing her defamation case, at the end of September this year, a judge ruled that ‘Martha’ could go forward with her defamation case, with it coming out that Baby Reindeer couldn’t be labelled as a ‘true story’.
‘The court of public opinion’ plays a significant role in media. When docudramas of this nature are released, everyone is playing armchair judge and jury on something that has nothing to do with them. It is unavoidable, and whilst this is dystopian to me, I don’t see society ever changing on this matter. This is where responsibility lies with the media. As a society, we are smothered by fake news. It is rife in our newspapers, with manipulated headlines to entice readers for clicks, using us as the consumers, as pawns. During COVID-19, it was misinformation about vaccines, during the 2016 US presidential election, it was that the Pope endorsed Donald Trump, and in 2016, the Queen had supposedly died. To survive this era of clickbait, the media needs to promote integrity over the extreme; to be a journalist should be to report the facts. Our role as consumers needs to extend beyond just reading everything exposed to us; we need to think critically about the information given to us and demand truth and transparency from those who are in the positions of relaying that information.
