Comment|In Finland, the story of the Menendez family is more unknown, but in the United States, Netflix’s hit series has already caused a stir.
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Netflix’s new hit series ‘Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez’ (2024) has become the most watched.
The series is about the murders of the Menendez family, where sons Lyle and Erik killed their parents.
Erik confessed the act to his psychiatrist, which led to the brothers’ arrest and conviction.
The series has sparked a discussion about crimes committed by the rich and their media treatment.
Again the world observes with enthusiasm how unpredictable the mind of even a wealthy person is.
The reason is Netflix’s recent hit series Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez (2024), which has quickly become the most viewed service both in Finland and elsewhere.
The series is based on the tragic true story of the Menendez family who lived in Beverly Hills. In August 1989, the family’s sons in their twenties called the emergency number. They said they had just returned home and found their parents murdered.
The brothers hinted to the police that the mafia might be behind the act, which, however, led to an unsuccessful investigation.
What happened after, Lyle and Erik enjoy their inheritance by shopping for luxury goods and traveling. The father of the family had been a big tycoon in the entertainment industry, and now the money was available to the boys. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on the luxurious lifestyle over the months, and the boys didn’t seem to mourn their parents.
The turning point happened when Erik began to struggle with his conscience and told his psychiatrist about the true events of the murder.
“We thought about what it would be like to live without a negative and controlling atmosphere,” she explains to the man in the first part of the series.
Don’t worry, this is not a spoiler: the guilt of the boys is clear from the beginning of the series.
in Finland the family’s story is less well known, but in the US the Netflix series has caused a stir. Another of the boys, Erik, who is serving his life sentence, called the series “inaccurate and childish” from behind bars, which forced the authors to defend themselves.
The actor portraying Erik in the series Cooper Koch reacted to the outburst with understanding.
“I feel sympathy for him. I understand how difficult it must be when the hardest times of your life are televised to millions of people,” he said of Variety in the interview.
Robert Durst spoke out in The Jinx documentary and was convicted.
Genre wise the series is the popular part of true crime, where the worst acts of the well-off (or at least wealthy) part of the population are dealt with. Thus, it belongs to the same category as, for example, a neurosurgeon of Christopher Duntsch narrative Dr. Death (2021), bestselling author by Michael Peterson stages exposed The Staircase (2022) and many other popular true crime dramas.
On the documentary side, the best-known classic is The Jinxin two seasons (2015 and 2024) dealing with a real estate mogul Robert Durst connection to several murders. In the most famous part of the first season, Durst, who is giving an interview, mumbles a confession into the open microphone during a bathroom break, which eventually leads to his arrest and conviction.
Good, so.
Still, one can ask why television is flooded with crimes committed by the rich. For example, blood crimes committed by the financial elite are extremely rare both in the United States and elsewhere.
So why are they so interesting to both authors and the public?
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The tragedy of a good family may be a cliché, but it’s always just as fascinating.
First the reason is tradition.
Upper- and middle-class murder cases receive more media attention than usual because they arouse great interest in the public. This, in turn, creates a wealth of material from the case that the authors can use.
The most crude example is surveillance cameras, which well-off crime victims often have in their homes. In this way, the viewers get a peek into the lives of the people who otherwise stay behind the walls.
Another reason is the complexity of crimes.
Compared to the knife fights, gang fights, and shootings of the poorer people, the incidents are often more planned, with exciting details and plot twists that keep viewers hooked.
In the best case, the motives may even be related to financial benefits, such as inheritance disputes, business disputes or extortion.
And although intimate partner violence is probably not that rare even in the homes of the rich, the cases violate common expectations and stereotypes. The tragedy of a good family may be a cliché, but it’s always just as fascinating.
Actor Cooper Koch says he understands the series is causing his character, Erik Menendez, suffering.
Third the reason is the dramaturgically effective trials. Fueling the crimes of the very well-off Blood and Money – series authors say that the defendant’s wealth increases the probability of a continuum of trials.
“People with personal wealth have the means to make going to court very difficult,” the series producer Dan Cutforth says Oxygen in the interview.
“That happened, for example, in Durst’s case.”
When you get to the courtroom, everything is put on the line, and the country’s leading lawyers face each other. The legal skills and speaking skills of the top lawyers turn even the most complicated crime into a top-class drama, which the general public appreciates.
Naturally a contested genre always begets criticism as well. Netflix and other streaming giants have been repeatedly accused of financing real-life crimes.
For example, a serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s the relatives of the victims have said that the series made of this tore open old wounds. The creators of the series have also been accused of over understanding the killer and being indifferent to the facts.
On the other hand, it is precisely the investigation of the crimes of the elite that has spawned from time to time a high-quality social discussion. Durstin and the businessman Jeffrey Epstein the protracted cases started a reflection on, among other things, how influence and the structures of society can enable the commission of crimes to continue years after the first suspicions.
Speeches have also been used about the corrupting effect of power, the level of police investigation and the fairness of the entire legal system. Let’s see if there is still something important to say about the case of the Menendez brothers.
For many it probably doesn’t matter to the viewers. There is one more important reason for the popularity of series dealing with the crimes of the rich.
It’s a pleasure of harm.
It’s wonderful to watch how a sunken ankle is finally made to answer for its actions.
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