Monsters star defends 'incest' storyline after backlash: "Not everything should be taken literally"

In some scenes, fans have felt as though the depiction of the brotherly relationship between Erik and Lyle veers on romantic or incestuous, with one scene even showing the pair showering together.

Series creator Ryan Murphy told Entertainment Tonight that depicting the relationship as such was a way of "presenting the points of view and theories from so many people who were involved in the case", going on to highlight the fact that "Dominick Dunne wrote several articles talking about that theory".

Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com about the series, Dominick Dunne actor Nathan Lane spoke about the portrayal of Erik and Lyle's relationship and what his thoughts were about the drama's intimated incestuous arc.

He said: "Well, I suppose it was suggested, not just by Dominick but... in the way it’s shown in the series, it’s at a dinner party and he’s theorising about different things that might have happened.

"And let’s just really make it clear that this is a dramatisation, it’s not a documentary, not everything should be taken literally. Dominick Dunne is expounding his theories at a dinner party and says, 'Perhaps this is what might have been happening and it had nothing to do with José'.

"It’s no different than Hercule Poirot gathering everyone together and saying ‘This happened and this happened and that happened and maybe it didn’t happen that way’. That’s all it is, it’s a writer theorising at a dinner party."

Read more:

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Lane continued: "I don’t think people should take it all that literally, that the show itself is suggesting that was the nature of their relationship. And I certainly... you know, there are many different points of view about them. From their point of view and from Leslie Abramson’s point of view and some of it is very sympathetic and some of it is less sympathetic.

"It gives the audience many different ideas about what might’ve happened and then allows them to make the decision, what they think happened."

He added: "Obviously, this has become sensationalised because everyone has been talking about this, but that’s not what the series is about.”

Erik previously criticised the "vile and appalling character portrayals of Lyle and of me" in Monsters, saying: "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.

"Those awful lies have been disrupted and exposed by countless brave victims over the last two decades who have been broken through their personal shame and bravely spoken out.

"Is the truth not enough? Let the truth stand as the truth. How demoralising is it to know that one man with power can undermine decades of progress in shedding light on childhood trauma. Violence is never an answer, never a solution, and is always tragic."

In response, Murphy stated: "I would say 60 to 65 per cent of our show in the scripts and in the film form centre around the abuse and what they claim happened to them.

"And we do it very carefully and we give them their day in court and they talk openly about it in this age where people can really talk about sexual abuse.

"It's a Rashomon kind of approach where there were four people involved in that – two of them are dead. What about the parents? We had an obligation as storytellers to also try and put in their perspective based on our research, which we did."

The nine-part series chronicles the case of the real-life brothers who were convicted in 1996 for the murders of their parents, José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez.

As per the series synopsis: "While the prosecution argued they were seeking to inherit their family fortune, the brothers claimed - and remain adamant to this day, as they serve life sentences without the possibility of parole - that their actions stemmed out of fear from a lifetime of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse at the hands of their parents.

"Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story dives into the historic case that took the world by storm, paved the way for audiences’ modern-day fascination with true crime, and in return asks those audiences: Who are the real monsters?"

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is available to stream now on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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