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Episode 3: Bros Do It Better
50 Plays20 days ago
The boys discuss sinister homosexual du jour, Ryan Murphy's porn-brained spin on the shotgun toting demon twinks, Lyle and Erik Menendez.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Episode and Ryan Murphy's Works
00:00:38
Speaker
Background knowledge on the Menendez brothers. um Welcome back to Twink Death. Hi, Vicky. Sorry, I was just taking a gulp of water. It's fine.
00:00:51
Speaker
yeah um We're here today to talk about the Menendez brothers, primarily through the lens of the new Netflix show called um Monsters, produced by the ever subtle and the ever um tasteful Ryan Murphy.
00:01:10
Speaker
um I will, before we really get into the show, i'll go on, a I'll admit to being a I'm a fan of Ryan Murphy television. I've probably watched maybe 80% of American Horror Story, and I was really impressed by the first season of American Horror Story.
00:01:33
Speaker
But at the same time, and I've watched all of Dahmer, which we'll probably talk about at some point and some other on some other pod. But I will admit that it's the type of show that I watch and then I feel like I need to take like a shower and sort of like scrub my body and mind clean of what I've just seen. That's how I feel about a Ryan Murphy show. How are you coming in to, what is your, what was your opinion of Ryan Murphy pre-watching this show or your, like or your exposure to his media?
Ryan Murphy's Career Evolution and Influence
00:02:03
Speaker
um i
00:02:05
Speaker
i would say we're probably like on a similar level. Like I i would say that I've watched, I've probably watched a hundred percent of American Horror Story, even the really bad stuff.
00:02:19
Speaker
Cause it's definitely gone downhill over the past sort of five or six seasons. um But yeah, i I first sort of became aware of him. I i was a big fan of Nip Tuck when that came out.
00:02:33
Speaker
Oh God, that is so weird because I was about to say that Ryan Murphy has been traumatizing me since my teenage years because I watched Nip Tuck like religiously and it really, really, really, really really fucked me up.
00:02:48
Speaker
because I was way too young to be like consuming that content. you Yeah, i was i was i mean where I think we're about the same age, so i was probably the same age as you when I was watching it. and But like yeah, that kind of started off my like morbid fascination with like plastic surgery and that kind of stuff. but and Yeah, so I like Nip Tuk. I haven't watched um have more any of his like non- horror-ish stuff, so I've never watched Glee. Yeah, I've watched none of Glee. I would rather die than sit and watch Glee. like it's It's like everything I hate in a show.
00:03:25
Speaker
um I've watched, yeah, I watched Dharma, obviously. i watched, I think I watched the O.J. Simpson thing. I didn't watch the Gianni Versace thing, though.
00:03:39
Speaker
Well, the thing that's... Okay, so
Controversies and Critiques of Ryan Murphy's Approach
00:03:41
Speaker
I think... I wanted to talk before we get into the show, like, a little bit about Ryan Murphy's career, because it's pretty fucking insane in the sense that, like, he has gone from...
00:03:55
Speaker
you know, nip Nip, Tuck, and Glee, which were obviously huge. um But like, so I'm not saying he was like small time before, but now he's like such a cultural power player after he signed this $300 million dollars deal with Netflix.
00:04:12
Speaker
So i would say that like his his influence has expanded um really far. And I don't think he's probably a good person. i have to just come out and say that. And it does scare me that he was...
00:04:27
Speaker
um directing and writing Glee. Like, I just, I don't like the idea that he was around all those kids and young people. If anyone has ever, like, looked into Glee, there's, like, a ridiculously suspicious amount of, like,
00:04:43
Speaker
early deaths and like tragedies, um you know, associated with the show. um Lots of the actors do not seem to remember the show fondly.
00:04:54
Speaker
um So I've always felt he's pretty sinister. And I think it's impossible to like really consume his content at the rate that I have and not conclude that this guy has some seriously fucked up ah problems but he's a mainstream like super mogul basically he's gay he does have two surrogate like but and whatever two babies yeah i don't what kind of evil ritual he had to perform to get someone to agree to father his children but um no he like
00:05:34
Speaker
Yeah, he's always kind of, since he's kind of become a like a public personality as well as like a TV producer, he's always struck me as extremely like sinister and weird and demonic. And like even going back to like um like American Horror Story, kind ah kind of he seems like the kind of guy who just does whatever he wants, like, and damn the consequences. Like, I know even in, like, the second, is it the second or the third season with all the witches?
00:06:08
Speaker
Right, yeah. um Like, in that in that series of American Horror Story, like, they were doing, like, real magic spells, like, in the show. Like, some of the magic spells and stuff that they do are, like, genuinely real and they're saying all of the words and stuff that they would say if they were performing magic. And I don't know, like,
00:06:28
Speaker
Putting that kind of stuff into the into the atmosphere without like fear of consequence just seems very like reckless and selfish to me. And I think that kind of approach is that's kind of followed him like throughout his
Introduction to 'Monsters' and the Menendez Brothers
00:06:44
Speaker
career. like If you look at Dahmer and then now with like this Menendez Brothers show, it it feels like he he he just wants to do what he wants to do and he doesn't really care about how it affects other people.
00:06:55
Speaker
i don't know. Yeah, I mean, it's clearly like, and it's interesting because he went through like a brief period of sort of like woke stardom when he did Pose.
00:07:07
Speaker
because people were like, oh, he's like hired all these like Black trans like actresses and you know that's like really amazing. like This is what you do, white men. I remember someone tweeting, like this is what you do, white men. You don't pull up the ladder, you put down the ladder for everyone else to come up after um So he had a but he had a period of um like kind of woke being lauded, but his I feel like his public reputation has taken a massive hit.
00:07:36
Speaker
since Dahmer. And then it's interesting, I'm sure this was already in production when Dahmer was airing, but it's interesting, and I guess likely he he probably couldn't pull the plug on it even if he wanted to, but it's interesting to to have had such a backlash to Dahmer.
00:07:51
Speaker
and then release this show. um So this show is called Monsters. It's on Netflix now. They dropped it all at once. um Typical Netflix fashion. um So it follows the, ah just to give a brief introduction, it follows 19...
00:08:11
Speaker
Well, it follows the 1989 murders, but then subsequent about six years of trials that Eric and Lyle Menendez, two wealthy brothers who were living in Beverly Hills, they murdered their parents, Kitty and Jose Menendez.
00:08:29
Speaker
um Jose was a like a record executive who had made a lot of money. um Kitty was a homemaker.
00:08:40
Speaker
ah Jose was a Cuban immigrant. um The brothers were... attractive and young and obviously very rich. um So at the time, and obviously you and I are not so old that we remember it as it happened, but it was, um you know, it was a sensational kind of OJ-esque, you know, court scandal.
00:09:06
Speaker
um And before we kind of break into the show, I guess the main thing you kind of need to know if you have never, you know, encountered this case before is that what came out in the trial was that the brothers were, or claimed to be, um have been molested by their dad for essentially their entire childhood. um And that was the reason for the murders.
00:09:32
Speaker
But there's many people to this day who don't believe that. And then there's been a renewed interest in the brothers since COVID because a bunch of TikTok Zoomers have begun making videos of how the brothers are innocent and how in love they are with...
First Impressions of 'Monsters'
00:09:50
Speaker
Lyle and Eric Menendez, even though if you look at pictures of them currently, they've you know obviously been in prison for the better part of 30 years isn and lost quite a bit of their good looks that they once had.
00:10:06
Speaker
yeah I didn't know that about the the like renewed Zoom interest in them. I mean, I'm not on like TikTok and stuff, but like um yeah I had no idea about that.
00:10:17
Speaker
That's interesting. Yeah, well, the new documentary that's coming out where the brothers actually speak is going to focus on this like renewed interest. And it seems like they're trying to sort of like, for other true crime you know heads like me, it seems like they're trying to sort of adnod Syed these brothers and get them out, which is what happened when ah Sarah Koenig did the serial podcast. Eventually he did get out from you know the the publicity and the press around that.
00:10:45
Speaker
Um, so yeah I guess that's like the background you need. The whole thing reads like a total Brett Easton Ellis novel too which I think is another, uh, reference to make because it's just like, the whole thing is like LA and Beverly Hills and nihilism and cocaine. And it like, it it truly could be like,
00:11:10
Speaker
the shards I know they're making an HBO share a series about that too, but it's, it's like, it it gives that vibe. Yeah. for show what did you think of?
00:11:23
Speaker
Okay. Let's start with episode one and episode one We just get the sort of salacious partying. The brothers are doing after the, um,
00:11:37
Speaker
Murders. So it does, this does not go in chronological order, but we see the Coke and they're in a hotel room and they're, you know, they these guys are like ripped to shreds as in like, they worked out like crazy. They're partying and sort of making out a little bit.
00:11:54
Speaker
What did you think of the, when you initially started watching coming at this without really knowing where it was going? Yeah. Well, i I didn't really know. until probably you kind of suggested that we watch this ah for the pod, I didn't really know anything about them at all.
00:12:14
Speaker
um So i was like I was definitely curious going into it. ah thought the
00:12:22
Speaker
i told the first I thought in general like the tone of the show was kind of all over the place, but like the the first episode, it almost feels like it's going to be like sort of like a dark comedy.
00:12:38
Speaker
um Like you have like the, because it kind of goes backwards the first episode. So it's like starts like at the funeral of the parents and that kind of eventually leads up to sort of the flashback of them, the murdering them. um And yeah, that, that like initial scene at like the funeral, like as sort of like a sort of comic element that seems like kind of falls flat. it didn't really make me laugh. And I was just kind It felt just very watchable Netflix fluff um until the sort of the killing starts.
00:13:15
Speaker
um Yeah, I want to be clear that like I don't think this show is very deep.
Ethical Concerns and Graphic Content in 'Monsters'
00:13:20
Speaker
um I think it's like one step above, maybe two steps above like literal pornography.
00:13:27
Speaker
and I'm not saying that because of like the sex scenes, just in the feeling it kind of evokes. It is like pretty mind-numbingly dumb.
00:13:38
Speaker
has... and has very little care for its subject matter. But I mean, I guess I'll just say that like some of my initial impressions were, I mean, the brothers are ridiculously hot.
00:13:52
Speaker
um He doesn't spend any time, the actors who play them, he doesn't spend any time like not like sort of, panning the camera over their like gleaming bodies yeah for sure or like having them like man spreading on the couch and you know just lots of shots that are obviously meant to appeal to sort of a salacious gay male gaze yeah it has that whole like ralph lauren ad sort of thing going on like the boys is are very pretty and tan beautiful like i
00:14:26
Speaker
then They're not really my type, so i didn't really find them that attractive. But I could... have back there like I would describe them as classically American, like, good looks. It's, like, strong jaw.
00:14:38
Speaker
You know, they kind of have this, like, sort of... yeah yeah, for sure. Pretty boy, Abercrombie model, you know, looks, that's what they look like, which isn't quite realistic. Like I looked at pictures, even of them and as brothers when they were young and they weren't quite as glossy as he made these, you know?
00:14:57
Speaker
No, I watched, when I watched the Barbara Walters interview, which I think was like, it was just after they'd got sent down. So was like 96. And like, and like Yeah, they're kind of good looking, but kind of like, I don't know. You could tell they were definitely probably hot when they were younger, but they're kind of, they both got something off about them.
00:15:20
Speaker
Yeah, it's ah it's a little bit of a weird, I mean, their dad wasn't particularly hot. I like looked at pictures of the real like cast of characters and like the mom is like significantly prettier than the dad.
00:15:33
Speaker
um dad's sort of like, basic like i don't know like i will say i will say i think i do think it was well cast um because they are sort of they do resemble them enough they're sort of like slightly heightened like hotter versions of the people that they're playing so they they definitely do resemble them i i think some of the acting is pretty choppy but um but yeah no i i do think it was well cast So in the first episode, we kind of we do see the actual murder really early on. And then we see like its immediate aftermath.
00:16:09
Speaker
I guess if we're going to we could zoom into a few scenes in particular, like, The scene of the murder, if I had to describe it, is about as graphic as it could possibly have been made. Like, he spares no um detail. So, Chloe Sabini, who plays the mom, has her, like, half of her hand blown off by this shotgun. And the dad, who I don't even remember who plays him, but Jose Hernandez.
00:16:38
Speaker
There we go. Heavier Bardem. You see him like at his literal face blown up. It's so graphic and like crude and like, you know, as there's no mystery at all. Like you see like these people's bodies getting blown apart by these massive shotgun bullets.
00:16:56
Speaker
um That was like my favorite part. Yeah. No, I mean, I liked seeing it and I definitely thought, I mean, as someone who's like into gore and stuff, like I did think about it, but I'm just thinking about how like I would feel.
00:17:10
Speaker
It's more like I'm i'm doing two things. I'm thinking about like my enjoyment as a viewer versus how I would feel if I was like in any way tangentially related to these people. Yeah, for sure.
00:17:22
Speaker
And like how it would make me feel to see it portrayed so graphically. I feel like i feel like when when Dharma came out, like... I had a lot more of an issue with that kind of stuff than I do here. And I don't know whether that's because, um,
00:17:41
Speaker
I'm kind of viewing this as like a family of four and the only two people alive are the ones who did it. Whereas obviously they must have like other relatives and stuff. But with the, with the Dharma thing, it felt like there were like so many victims and so many of them have still got like mothers and sisters and brothers and stuff that are still alive that it felt, it felt,
00:18:02
Speaker
that kind of like hyper-violent aspect of it felt way worse to me than it does here. But there are other issues here that morally I find way more objectionable than that than the violence. so Yeah. And pretty early on So I guess what's worth mentioning is there were like kind of two...
00:18:25
Speaker
accusations levied at the brothers or, okay. So first, first, and this is, this is, you find this out early on. It's, it's levied at the, but Lyle in particular, the older brother that he molested Eric as well as the dad.
00:18:42
Speaker
Um, and this is sort of given the, like, you know, like, I think we're supposed to sort of presume or like the audience has sort of led along pretty well to like, believe that this should be sort of forgivable in some way because, you know, they're only a couple years apart and Lyle was being molested by his dad. So it's sort of like, it kind of like as an audience viewer, you don't really, um you know, you don't spend too much time lingering on that. At least i didn't. I was like, yeah, I mean, I could imagine if they had the parents they had, something like that could happen. And I don't, I wouldn't really hold a child, Lyle, accountable for
00:19:27
Speaker
his actions in the same way I would an
Salacious Elements and Ethical Implications
00:19:30
Speaker
adult. But um the second accusation that I think is pissing the brothers off from everything I've seen. And they only, i asked you earlier today, Vicky, if they hint at this more aggressively, but they really only hinted it with like a single shower scene and a kiss, but it's that the brothers themselves had a continued incestuous relationship, like past the point where it would have been, you know,
00:19:53
Speaker
kind of excused by their traumatized self. That's one of the things, like, I'm kind of on the side of the brothers with that in that, I don't know, I think there's no real evidence for that. Obviously, yes, they've talked about, like, the molestation and stuff. They talked about that even in court.
00:20:16
Speaker
But there's there's no real, like, evidence that they were in any kind of incestuous relationship with each other and no there's absolutely and they're both like adamant that that's not the case so i feel like i don't know just insert it just inserting something like that into a show like this when it's supposed to be presenting something factual and okay i get i get that they're sort of showing lots of different perspectives throughout the show but like
00:20:48
Speaker
you still should be aiming to present the truth. And I think the optics of ah a gay man, like shoehorning in like a gay incest storyline into ah ah show that's supposed to be factual, I think is just like,
00:21:07
Speaker
well It just, it just, it feels grubby and salacious. And yeah, I don't know that. Well, it feels, it feels like quite literally very porny. Cause there's a lot of, like there's a lot of like, you know, twin cest or like incest sort of porn out there. Even like the like poster for the show, like that main poster where you just see like the brothers faces and it almost looks like they've probably got their like arm around each other. I don't know. It just feels, it does feel very porny.
00:21:35
Speaker
So, I mean, it's just kind of this, like, it feels inserted to be salacious, which I was like, and this is, this is like an indictment on me, which I'm willing to take on. i was, I thought because people were complaining about the incest element so much, there must be a scene of like full on banging.
00:21:52
Speaker
So i was like, ti I was trying to like fast forward today to see if that happens, but that's not what happens. So again, i indict myself and everything I'm saying about Ryan Murphy in the sense that like,
00:22:04
Speaker
while I might not make an artistic product like this, I absolutely consume it. Yeah, it's funny because um you were saying before, obviously, that the show kind of, it doesn't really follow the events like chronologically.
00:22:19
Speaker
I may or may not have been watching the show using alternative memes because I don't want to give Netflix or Ryan Murphy any of my Vicky books.
00:22:30
Speaker
But um ah the site that I've been watching it on um the order of the episodes was wrong. So it had like episode one and then three, four, five, six. And i got to about episode five and I'd read in like news articles that the kind of incestuous stuff like mostly happens in like the second episode. And I was like, well, have I missed something here?
00:22:56
Speaker
And then I clocked that I'd like missed out an entire episode. So after I'd watched like episode five, i went back and watched the second episode. And I don't think, i don't think it affected my viewing of the show whatsoever because it jumps around so much.
Characters and Ethical Boundaries
00:23:12
Speaker
But, and but yeah, I was the, yeah, there's no like explicit like brother fucking or anything. No, which is like, what so it shows a shocking amount of restraint because like, you know, um,
00:23:31
Speaker
like when Ryan Murphy did Pose, like for instance, he wanted to make the, the like tranny chaser sort of like, um,
00:23:45
Speaker
you know, ah character, he wanted to literally make that person Trump just to give an example of where this guy's mind goes. Like he wanted to like, you know, he wanted to make it like, yeah, like literally Trump. So I don't know. Um, it's just like, this guy does not have a lot of restraint, but I guess he managed to have restraint there. I also guess I probably shouldn't have said, um,
00:24:11
Speaker
the t-word i don't know we'll have to maybe maybe it didn't even register with me well you're on you're on you live on turf island so there's turf island is not real i know i know okay so i guess another thing now i'm now i'm pulling up this like little uh summary thing i wrote okay we have to mention that um in the first episode there's two characters that i do think are important to talk about dr oziel and juda lond Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jude Alad being the ridiculous, like, person Dr. Orzeal is having an affair with.
00:24:49
Speaker
um And so there were a few things about that. So this is how they get caught. Basically, Eric breaks down, and and this really happened, I looked it up, that Eric breaks down and goes to this psychiatrist that they had to see before because they actually had been... um They had been convicted of crimes previously, mostly like a string of robberies in Calabasas, um which is another fancy l L.A. area neighborhood. um And that's why they moved. And anyway, the long story short, they had to go to the psychiatrist
00:25:22
Speaker
And so Eric goes to him and confesses to the murders. And then this starts a whole process of Lyle and Eric going to him sort of, you know, repeatedly in order to ah kind of work through, i guess, what happened.
00:25:38
Speaker
Honestly, they came across as like so fucking retarded because I was thinking about this and I was like, this is obviously like the stupidest thing you could do. I can't think of anything stupider. um and then the the way they get caught is this woman, Judeline, who is, I don't know if she was really like this in real life, but the way she's portrayed in the show is absolutely hilarious. um But she's like this, you know, neurotic sort of depressive. Like crystal. Yeah.
00:26:07
Speaker
Crystal sort of like LA woo woo woman. But like, yeah, anyway, she, she's like the mistress, right? She's like the she's like his mistress. And eventually the, he kicks her out of the house and she's, which is shocking that one thing that I found shocking is that like,
00:26:25
Speaker
his wife allowed this woman to like move into his house. So this is like already like a therapist with like so many boundary issues. You know what I mean? Cause he's, he was seeing her and then they started fucking. And then he eventually, because basically the show depicts this and this, this, this apparently did happen, or at least there's some evidence that's happened that Lyle said he would kill the doctor if he told anyone.
00:26:52
Speaker
And so, um
00:26:56
Speaker
yeah he So he kind of, he he sort of tells his mistress it's like an insurance policy so that if anything sort of happened to him. she would she would obviously know why and be able to sort of deal with that. Yeah, and she's then scared for her own safety, which is why she she moves in with him And psychiatrist, psychiatt the eighty s must have been a wild time because the psychiatrist's excuse to his wife is that he has a patient going through a difficult time and she needs a place to stay. I've never, I've i've been going to therapy my almost my entire life. I've never heard of anything like
00:27:33
Speaker
Yeah. that was so yeah So it's just, it's just insane. She later accuses him of like kidnapping and rape and all this stuff. I don't even know if you got to that point, but she does eventually turn on the doctor too in a big way. but um,
00:27:50
Speaker
Anyway, okay, whatever. So they're worth mentioning and they throw out that the whole patient client confidentiality because of this death threat. That really did happen in real life. The judge is like, once you threatened to kill him, you were no longer involved in a doctor patient relationship. You are now involved in a black male-esque relationship. that was little, that whole like,
00:28:17
Speaker
thing was a little confusing to me because I think that the laws are different in America. So, so let me get this straight. So if, if you were my therapist and I confessed a murder to you, like you, you are not obliged to like tell the police.
00:28:33
Speaker
In America? No. So in the UK, you would be, you would be like legally obliged to tell the police. In America, you only have to go to authorities if there's an imminent threat of danger to someone, but an already previously disclosed like murder, no. a priest doesn't have to go.
00:28:55
Speaker
yeah I think same here with a priest. I don't think a priest has to, but I think i think a therapist would definitely have to go to the police. In America, it's like priest, therapist, and spouse. like Your spouse can say that they...
00:29:08
Speaker
murdered someone to you and you don't have like a legal obligation to like turn them in or anything.
Financial Portrayals and Realism in 'Monsters'
00:29:14
Speaker
Yeah. I've definitely, i don't really know why. I mean, it's kind of a weird law, but we have this like, yeah, this like privacy sort of aspect.
00:29:22
Speaker
Yeah. um Okay. So in the second episode, um this is like, actually I'm realizing the second episode is where they just begin blowing money like crazy. So you see them go on like a shopping spree in Rodeo Drive and Lyle's like, I'll take, or Eric is like, I'll take 10 of these Rolexes. They're buying just tons of luxury clothes.
00:29:49
Speaker
I think they actually threw out some numbers at some point, like in the months after the parents' murders, they like spent $300,000 shopping. I got even higher. So um yeah, I can't, I think,
00:30:00
Speaker
I think in the Barbara Wallace interview, she mentioned like $700,000. So I was like, oh. I mean, it's crazy. And that's like in 1989 money. So I don't even know. i mean, I'm sure that's like a couple million now ah today. And it's like, yeah, they just do all these crazy things. They buy side by side apartments in this fancy part of LA.
00:30:22
Speaker
ah What is that place called? The docks. It's not called the docks, but it's like by those docks, the Marina, the Marina Del Rey. um And they, um yeah, they just start blowing shit tons of money. the The record company that the dad works for gives them drivers and security and they insist on having two separate limos, like just insane shit.
00:30:47
Speaker
Yeah. And it kind of turns out when you find out how much money the parents had, that they didn't really have. Because they they seem to think there's a chance they'll be able to, like, inherit money, even though the dad said they were disowned.
00:31:02
Speaker
But the parents don't actually have, like, that type of money. Yeah. You find out later. Yeah, they were they were well off, but not, like... I mean, they have, like, it said it said their estate was worth, like, $14 million, dollars but $14 million dollars is not spending 700 grand in six months, you know?
00:31:22
Speaker
um Yeah, what did you think about the glossy shopping pretty woman aspect? Like, that kind of stuff, I didn't mind so much. I thought it was just it was just kind of, like, fun. Again, kind of just sort of typical fluffy, um...
00:31:42
Speaker
tv stuff i think i definitely think it was exaggerated a little bit like i think they bought like one rolex not like 10 but i i can forgive like little things like that i can i can forgive sort twisting the truth a little bit because nobody's getting hurt by it um but yeah i the second episode just yeah i don't know i i because i watched a little bit later um and trying to remember what happened in that part from the spending spree.
00:32:10
Speaker
I think the funniest scene in it, which I'm, this does happen in the second episode is when they're partying and they're like luxury suite at this hotel. And they're like, Oh, is this when they were like almost kiss? so and They they do do kiss a little bit. And there's like all these like eighties, like party hoes, like standing around being like, what the fuck? Yeah.
00:32:29
Speaker
you know? Yeah. Um, Yeah, so that was that was kind of funny. I kind of cracked up at that. Did your family kiss on the mouth at all?
00:32:41
Speaker
I would like kiss my mom or my grandma on the mouth like when I was a little kid. But like yeah not not not my brother's and sister's. I feel like my siblings and I kissed on the mouth until we were a certain age. It definitely aged out of it.
00:32:57
Speaker
Yeah, I wouldn't kiss any of them on the mouth. No, even my parents, I wouldn't. No, no, no, not as an adult. That would be really weird. Yeah. My grandma, I remember up until she died, still sort of insisted on kissing me on the mouth. But I feel like that's like a grandma. i always i always remember when I was a kid, like um my gran had like a little bit of mustache. And sometimes when you kiss her, you've got like a little static electric shock.
00:33:23
Speaker
from mustache.
Jose Menendez's Portrayal and Legacy
00:33:24
Speaker
But no, I would never kiss any of my siblings on the mouth now. it would be extremely weird. There's no way to like call that normal. But I don't know, I guess it's like, am I being a little bit, I'm wondering if like, okay, like I'm trying to imagine if i saw my sisters,
00:33:42
Speaker
not make out at a party, but like, if they went like, and did like a quick kiss like that, would I think it's weird if it was women? Probably I would still think it was weird. I'm just trying to figure out if I would, you know what I mean? Yeah.
00:33:56
Speaker
But then the main point, I guess, is that like, i this is the this is the issue that I have with the show, is that like, we don't actually know whether the story that they've sort feds during the trial is real. Like we don't really know whether they were like abused by their family or not.
00:34:15
Speaker
So it's, it's hard to, in the context of like that kind of being true, like, yeah, okay. Maybe it makes sense that they would behave like that with each other, but we don't know if that was true or not. So it doesn't make sense to me.
00:34:35
Speaker
them like kiss yeah I don't know I mean I guess should talk about the way Jose Menendez is portrayed now because like you know that's one thing that hide a lot of moral qualms about because I'm like none of like this that none of this has been proven about this man and yet we see him have an affair on his wife with a woman we see him obviously be very violent with the boys. Although again, Ryan Murphy at least doesn't show like literal child rape. think, I guess that would be illegal. um And then, you know, he um did you see the scene with the prostitute?
00:35:20
Speaker
Male prostitute. No, maybe, ah maybe I missed. Oh my God. I have to describe this scene to you because it was so ridiculous. Like, so basically he has this male prostitute there, like a typical, like whatever.
00:35:35
Speaker
and don't know. Is this like later on in the series? Yeah, I'll just tell you, it's very quick, but I think you'll laugh because basically he gives this prostitute a whole speech about how the ancient Romans and Greeks' man love was their way of toughening each other up.
00:35:52
Speaker
And he puts on like one of those gold crowns the Greeks wore. my God. And then he like makes the prostitute like crawl toward him.
00:36:04
Speaker
The dad does. The dad does this, yeah. Oh my god. So it's just like... That's like the most pornified right-wing Twitter. fuck I know, well that's what made me think that. I was like, is healing is he like reading BAP tweets or something? It was so absurd and like...
00:36:25
Speaker
Yeah, so that happens. And I guess basically the... So I had trouble with, like, how they portray him because, again, like, none of this is really, like, proven. So it's like this man's memory is being dragged through the mud, maybe deservedly, maybe not. But even if they had proof that he molested his sons, they certainly don't have proof about this, like...
00:36:44
Speaker
insane Grecian prostitute speech. um But the other thing you find out, and I think you do find this out in the episodes you saw, is that basically the show portrays Kitty Menendez as, like, hate, not one, hating her children, and two, knowing they were being abused yeah and not caring.
00:37:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's kind of, um
00:37:11
Speaker
that's kind of revealed in the, like, what episode is it where he's it's just him and the lawyer and it's, it's like half an hour of him just talking. Well, that's the, that's the scene that you and I had ah the most texting about because they basically have a scene where he's getting questioned by the lawyer for basically like a half an hour. And that's where he describes the taste of his dad's cum. This, yeah, that episode, it was like, it was, just I think it was just like one shot, the whole episode.
00:37:41
Speaker
um And, and, That to me was like worse than anything else that I've seen in the show. And it was, so it's basically just half an hour of him, um Eric, explaining to his lawyer the abuse that he's like supposedly suffered at the hands of his father in like the most like graphic, grim detail that you could possibly imagine.
00:38:09
Speaker
and ni It's incredibly graphic. And it just felt like, and it didn't feel, I don't know, correct me if you have a different view on it, but like, it didn't feel like it was done with the attempt of like, trying to make you feel sorry for him or trying to of raise awareness for like this cause or it, it, it just felt like,
00:38:40
Speaker
It was done for shock value, the whole thing. And i don't know, i I don't have an issue with um like shows and media tackling like difficult themes like child sexual abuse and stuff. but i don't like Call me a Puritan, but I don't feel like there's i don't feel like there's ever a justification outside of like a literal courtroom to go into that much detail about and child sexual abuse. I don't know. It just feels like why was why is someone writing this?
00:39:15
Speaker
It absolutely felt like its purpose was to titillate. It did not feel like its purpose was anything else besides that. was avoiding the word titillate, but that's the word I would have used. like That's what it felt like.
00:39:27
Speaker
And I felt like even the way that it was shot, it's like lingering on this like handsome guy. And even though he's talking about things that have happened to him when he's a six-year-old or whatever,
00:39:38
Speaker
you've got this like Ralph Lauren model in front of you and he's talking about Javier Bardem. So in your head, you're like imagining that this, um, like adult version of him sort of engaging in these things. And I don't know, it just felt, just felt really, really gross. Like the, the,
00:39:57
Speaker
the grossest thing I've seen from Ryan Murphy. And I've watched like every season of American Horror Story. So yeah, I don't know. Yeah, no, it was bad. and it was absolutely there to titillate.
00:40:10
Speaker
um And it wasn't very good art, you know, like it I didn't feel like it was doing anything, but literally just like drudgery, like it was like drudgery, just like the, you know, the pure, like just like listing of things,
00:40:27
Speaker
various types of you know molestation that he had experienced.
Critiques of Emotional Depth and Storytelling Coherence
00:40:32
Speaker
um Yeah, so that that was very gross. And then you, yeah, you sort of get the like parents' backstory, how they met, but like they don't really make a leap of like how the parents went from this like American dream, eloping couple to this, like what they eventually became.
00:40:56
Speaker
Well, I obviously, you watched, you watched it all yet, have you? said you'd watch like eight episodes. watched most of it, and I don't see them going into that, because basically, from what I can gather, like, I've watched like six episodes. I did read that in the very last episode, like right towards the very end, they sort of,
00:41:19
Speaker
um shoehorn in like a scene that kind of paints the parents in a completely different light so that they can so they can at least sort of claim ambiguity about sort of whether or not what the boys are saying is true.
00:41:34
Speaker
um i haven't watched that scene yet, so I can't i can't comment on its contents. but But yeah, it definitely feels...
00:41:46
Speaker
up until this point, at least, like, it doesn't feel like you're supposed to like the parents at all. Like, I don't know. It also doesn't feel like you're supposed to like the boys really at all either, except for Eric, maybe.
00:41:59
Speaker
Yeah. Eric, I, I definitely feel like it wants the show kind of wants you to like Eric. I think with like, as I think as episode four or episode three when he's in jail and there's that, that kind of like, um,
00:42:15
Speaker
romance with the black guy, sort of blossoming romance. I was like, where, like, cause that is made up as far as I can tell. It's like trying to research like this, there's some people have said that he had, um, sexual relationships with guys in prison. Um, but this, like this black guy is like a fabrication. He's just made up to, and it, it feels like he's again, it's just like, to it's just like to titillate. It's just to sort of, um,
00:42:45
Speaker
Gay pornify the whole thing. It's like one of the the sexual or whatever. I mean, it doesn't there' doesn't even get explicitly sexual. no But like the sort of, their sort of romance is the only real like kind of loving stuff you see in the show, except for the only other thing I can think of that shows some sort of like loving stuff is the lawyer and she's she's worth mentioning too um what is what is her name leslie leslie abrams leslie abrams who got pretty famous off this case um she i would say out of the cast i think she i liked her the best like i think she
00:43:29
Speaker
I've seen like, um like trial fudge of the real lawyer. And I think she does a really good job of like, the entertain yeah she's great. I liked, I actually liked that. I don't know if she was like that in real life, but anyway, the only other scene I was going to say that shows some like genuine love is like, she adopts a baby boy and like, there's like a scene with her, like in her baby, but, but otherwise like every other relationship in this show is just like,
00:43:54
Speaker
completely tainted by like trends, like the transactional nature and abuse and hatred and like, yeah, just disgust, you know?
00:44:05
Speaker
yeah Um, there's really nothing like, yeah, which is kind of how I felt watching Dahmer too. It's worth mentioning. Like there's very little like soft moments for you to like land on, know?
00:44:21
Speaker
think The thing, the, There are a lot of similarities, I think, with Dharma in terms of, um like, Ryan Murphy just making shit up because he wants to.
00:44:32
Speaker
But, like, I felt like with Dharma, he was making shit up to push a racialized element that didn't exist. I felt like he was sort of, not that Daffrey Dharma wasn't killing black men, but, like, the the idea of, like, the, like,
00:44:49
Speaker
police racism being part of like why um they didn't believe him and stuff like i don't know i it felt like it felt like dama was trying to push an agenda so he was making stuff up to kind of like support his own agenda whereas with this it feels like he's just making shit up to gay pornify everything i don't know which which i don't know which is worse
00:45:14
Speaker
Yeah. So like I don't know what's worse either. i guess it's worth mentioning now, like a little bit about the reaction to the show. um so there has been a really, really, really pretty big backlash, um, to the show, both on Twitter and just in the mainstream media.
00:45:36
Speaker
um, Like to give one example, this writer, Nicole Vassel for glamorous says, describes the kiss as a jarring addition to a story that's already tough to stomach.
00:45:48
Speaker
um And yeah, I guess the implication that, and then there's the brief shower scene and the implication that they were incestuous together has like really been infuriating people.
00:46:01
Speaker
I don't know what it says about me that I thought there must be something worse because it's, because I guess everyone else was already deeply offended by the two things I just mentioned, the shower scene and the kiss. But I was like, oh, there must be something like really, really bad in there. But I guess the reason I'm not, I wasn't shocked by that stuff is is partially because I feel so jaded from all media, but particularly Ryan Murphy media, where I was like, there's no way he I just knew there was no way he wasn't going to make them a little gay together.
00:46:31
Speaker
Yeah, of course. Like the, there's a reason why he chose the, these two brothers, like because they were reasonably hot, it's easy enough to gayify. like He could have made ah a show about any serial killer.
00:46:44
Speaker
It's the same reason he chose Dharma, because he was kind of sexy. So yeah, I don't think that... there's no level that he wouldn't sort of stoop to.
00:46:55
Speaker
um yeah. Like the only reason he doesn't do what's his name, John Wayne Gacy, or maybe he will, but whatever. The reason he doesn't do John Wayne Gacy is like John Wayne Gacy is like not hot, you know? yeah He like uses like hot killers. I'll do like a sort of sexy bear version of John Wayne Gacy.
00:47:12
Speaker
Give him a, give him a hairy chest and mustache. but Okay. Let's, let's, is, is real life Dahmer a wood for you? um In some photographs, but not all of them. Like the one where he's in court and he's like sort of like staring like at this angle. Oh my God, he looks so hot.
00:47:31
Speaker
um Yeah, probably. i could easily be swayed by a like guy like Jeffrey Dahmer. What about real life Lyle and Eric Menendez? know Depends how many drinks I'd had, I think.
00:47:48
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think either. I mean, interestingly, even though I like Latino guys, i don't know if either of them really did it for me. They don't really read as Latino either. They're very like white looking. They look very white. Well, I guess a lot of Cubans have a significant amount of like Spanish ancestry.
00:48:06
Speaker
Yeah, they've both very, like, weak chins as well. Yeah, they have very, very weak chins. And the actors don't. Like, the actors are, like, at least the Eric actor has, like, a chin that's, like, cut, like, a... could, like, cut diamonds. Yeah, they're, like, facetuned versions of them. It's funny. Yeah. Yeah.
00:48:25
Speaker
Yeah, I'm looking at the and'm looking at the cover now where, like, Eric has his hand on Lyle's shoulder and they're like, weirdly, like, why are they nude in this poster? It literally looks like a gay porn DVD cover. like Yeah, I also thought, interestingly enough, as much as I love her, like...
00:48:45
Speaker
they didn't give Chloe Sevigny really, like, enough to do. Because she's just sort of this flat, like, bitter bitch, you know? sure. But she didn't they didn't really, like, give her any anything. And again, it's like it's just confusing to me because...
00:49:01
Speaker
I hate to say it, but I guess I imagine, and i have no experience with being sexually molested, believe it or not. um But i I just don't, I just can't imagine such a like, one, like the parents just seem so hateful and abusive. And I just, I guess I just feel like there would have been a mix of things going on.
00:49:29
Speaker
i don't know. yeah there would have been some moments of loving there would have been some moments of like tenderness and you just don't see anything like that do you do you think that they were abusive or do you think it's all a story that they concocted like what sure like if you if you were a the jury like because so obviously the the originally there was like a mistrial and had to go back to another jury but like and eventually they were convicted but like If you were on the jury and you had that like story, like, would you buy it?
00:50:02
Speaker
Okay. Well, i watched, I have seen the original like trial tapes. So I've seen Lyle and Eric's testimonies or at least parts of them. i probably didn't watch the whole thing. I'm sure. I'm sure that was like hours and hours, but yeah, I, I, I believe that they were, um,
00:50:22
Speaker
sexual i i believe that they were sexually abused and something bad happened to them do i know if their dad did that i'm not sure but i do believe they were like fucked up in some way um well yeah you you'd have to be to kill your parents at the first right right yeah i don't think that like there's any way that like what happened happens without something preceding it do i think that that excuses murder i mean to be perfectly honest like I kind of think there's something, and I thought this a lot about Gypsy Rose Blanchard too. There's something very psychically
00:51:03
Speaker
evil about killing your parents, no matter how bad they are. I mean, it's literally Freudian, right? Like to kill the father. Like, I think it's like just an evil thing to do, especially when there's like probably other I mean, for them, there certainly were many other outs.
00:51:25
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. You know what I mean? like Like, by the time they killed their parents, I think they were like 18 and 22. It's like there were, ah you know, there were a massive amount of things they could have done besides kill their parents um up to and including going to the police, which I get is like a hard, whatever, like a hard thing to do. But I'm just saying like,
00:51:46
Speaker
So I guess I just don't really, i guess I probably do buy the abuse, but don't really buy that that's an excuse for what they, they did. yeah I'm, I'm mixed. I think I would agree with you that there's, there's something has definitely gone wrong for these boys. Cause I think that like, i don't know. It's,
00:52:11
Speaker
it's hard enough to get like one person that fucked up that they would do something like that. But for like two of them who are brothers to like do it and not even just like, not even just like kill your parents, but literally like blow them to smithereens. Like they shot them like six times and stuff.
00:52:29
Speaker
It's not, it wasn't like one shot to the head in anger or like stabbing someone in anger. Like that. They, they literally like tore them to pieces pretty much. So I, I,
00:52:40
Speaker
I definitely think something must have gone wrong in their life, but I think I just, I just feel very uncomfy with painting the parents out to be these like monsters without them being around to defend themselves, especially when they were killed like so brutally. Like, I don't know. That just doesn't
Cultural Commentary on Familial Relationships
00:53:01
Speaker
sit right. I mean, it's the same thing I said to people and people didn't love this, but I said that like, I didn't think Alice Monroe's daughter, like coming out.
00:53:11
Speaker
It doesn't matter if you don't know who she is. She was famous writer in case anyone out there cares. But anyway, her daughter, she her daughter came out like after she died and like said all this like terrible stuff that she had done. But I'm like,
00:53:24
Speaker
I don't know. I think it's just, there's a psychic debt you pay when you do that. And I think especially not having the the person, not having a chance to even remotely defend themselves is, yeah. It's like the I call it, I call it check.
00:53:41
Speaker
this You know, the blonde girl, what's her name? Yeah. She wrote the like, I'm glad my mom died. It's just the most like, Oh, Yeah, no, it's gross. Yeah, i didn't I don't like that either. And I don't like this trend. And I think that it's interesting that Menendez Brothers is coming back now like as sort of a topic to talk about because I don't like this trend of like this idea that like you know disowning or even killing your parents is a justifiable act.
00:54:11
Speaker
um is I think it's like an insane like streak in society right now. And I just... I don't think it's healthy. And I definitely don't think we should make these people celebrities. I also saw that Kim Kardashian visited Lyle and Eric Menendez like yesterday.
00:54:28
Speaker
yeah so there's clearly like been this... you know And I'm sure she did that like on behalf of Ryan Murphy to sort of try to like smooth over.
00:54:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think the actor that played... Eric or Lyle, I don't know which one went with her. I read this story as well, but they were apparently they were going to talk about like prison reform or something. But, um, yeah, we should probably mention as well that like the, not both, but like Eric Menendez has like responded publicly to the show, um, expressing his like anger, particularly at the way that his brother Lyle was portrayed.
00:55:07
Speaker
um which I think is understandable because Lyle, I think, gets the ah short end of the stick in terms of how he's... Yeah, I mean, Lyle's portrayed as, like, essentially, like, unrepentant in any way. And also just... And even just... He's um he's almost, like, comically bad. like oh I don't know. There are scenes where he sort of seems like a laughingstock. Like, that scene where, like, and the mum, like, pulls his...
00:55:38
Speaker
toupee off and like he's like bored was like oh my god if that was me I'd be mortified that somebody had depicted something like that on screen um I didn't realize that like a toupee in like its proper form is like glued to your head I think I've seen it in like movies before where guys have had it glued to the head and had it ripped off. So I think I knew that that was something they did. Cause that was a crazy scene when Chloe Sevigny like rips that off his head. It's extremely painful.
00:56:12
Speaker
So I guess I learned that about like a real toupee is like, you know, hook tucked in ah hooked in and like glued to your head. yeah Um,
00:56:23
Speaker
I would die if I went bald. I would literally jump off a cliff. I don't know what I would do. I would go to Turkey and get the like surgery for sure. But you have beautiful hair. Thank you. Yeah. You can't see it at home guys, but it's, it's all right.
00:56:39
Speaker
My hair is, has line has receded a little bit, but I'm praying that it's, it's done receding. No, you go ahead. Um, what was it going to, um was it good Oh, yeah. So I was saying, like, obviously, Eric's spoken, like, publicly about it. And then just today, um ryan Murphy was, like, questioned on the red carpet about the sort of backlash to the show.
00:57:03
Speaker
And he pretty much did the same thing he did with the Dharma, which was, like, double down on it. And he was just sort of... um Let me try and find what he said, because it was interesting. I think I have it up.
00:57:19
Speaker
Hold on. Let me go through my... Okay. It's not very interesting. Isn't it? I mean, it's it's I guess it's interesting in the sense that... But, like, he doesn't really... It's, like, one of those, like, flat half-facts. Like... I think that... Okay, he goes...
00:57:42
Speaker
He's responding to Eric's statement. I think that's interesting because I know he hasn't watched the show, so I find that curious. I hope he does watch it. I think if he did watch it, he would be incredibly proud of Cooper Cock, who plays them.
00:57:54
Speaker
It's a 35, 30-year-old case. We show many, many, many perspectives. That's what this the show does in every episode. You are given a new theory based on people who were either involved or covered the case. Some of the controversy seems to be people thinking, for example, that the brothers are having an incestuous relationship.
00:58:12
Speaker
There are people that say that never happened. There were people who said it did happen. That's it. Yeah. He also mentioned about um sort of the,
00:58:25
Speaker
he said something about sort of spending like ah sixty 60% of the show, like talking about like the abuse allegations as though, um this is the thing that kind of riled me up a little bit when I was, I was watching him talking about it. Cause it felt like he was sort of like, um he was saying like, Oh, nobody talks about male on male abuse. And we like dedicated like 60% of the show to um describing the abuse that they went through. And I was sort of thinking like, you didn't do it for that reason. You weren't trying to like raise awareness for like,
00:58:58
Speaker
male-on-male sexual violence.
Ryan Murphy's Continued Success and Future Projects
00:59:00
Speaker
You just want, it's like, get people horny or get people angry. i don't know. It's also not, I mean, it's like also just like not true anymore in any way. I mean, like, I would say post Kevin Spacey and like Me Too and stuff like that, there's been like tons of discussion of like,
00:59:20
Speaker
male on male, like sexual violence. So I don't really even agree with him that that's like something that's like, verb like you cannot speak about that. Like, it's just, that's not true.
00:59:33
Speaker
that's no it's not true. and I do think he's kind of high profile cases about that now at this point. Yeah. I do think he's kind of at the point in his career where like, he's kind of untouchable though. This one, the fact that there's been,
00:59:50
Speaker
nothing will come of the backlash to this show. Like he'll still continue making like Netflix shows and people will continue watching them. Even the people who are offended by like aspects of this, like I will probably watch his next show.
01:00:04
Speaker
Like, Oh, I mean, he has a new show coming out like literally next week on Hulu called grotesquerie, which has Travis Kelsey in it, which I'm sure was like, is he the Swifty football player guy?
01:00:18
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. and But I'm sure that that's going to be as like, I absolutely am certain he's the type of director who would like have a straight guy just play a role so he could get him to do like gay shit, you know?
01:00:33
Speaker
oh yeah. Yeah. Without a doubt. Thank God poor Jacob Elordi has gotten famous enough. He doesn't have to do Ryan Murphy TV anymore. So true. from diss all mad nipp He's already been through so much.
01:00:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think I don't really have anything. i don't really have any other insights on the show. I guess I don't recommend it. So it's kind of funny if you listen to this whole episode. and yeah it's funny because I would, i to be honest with you, like I'm like six episodes in.
01:01:05
Speaker
And I'm actually starting to get a little bit bored. Yeah. I think there ah there stretches of the show that are pretty boring. um a lot of it's pretty boring, i would argue.
01:01:20
Speaker
Yeah. It could have been a movie. I mean, it certainly could have been like a two-hour movie. I think that... um I think this is Ryan Murphy's problem, right? Like, I think he very commonly has like kind of a good idea and then he just like can't stick the landing. Yeah. And well, I think that's a problem in general with a lot of media these days. I think, I think people have a good idea and then they just stretch it out for as long as possible. They even do it in movies. Like most movies that you go and see now are at least like half an hour longer than they needed it to be.
01:01:57
Speaker
but Oh, totally. I went and saw The Substance this weekend, which I think you should see Vicky. I'm going to watch it tomorrow. I'm really excited to write I think we should talk, back that honestly, I would talk about that next with you because I think it's like, I think, I think it's good for this podcast and I think it's interesting, but I'll just say, like this gives nothing away, but like a huge opinion I have about it is that like, it was like a half an hour too long. Yeah.
01:02:21
Speaker
Like basically basically there was just like enough stuff you could have cut out of that movie to make it two hours. And it would have been like, much more propulsive and thrilling and interesting. yeah um But it's fun. I did find out sad news for all the straight guys out there, which probably when this podcast comes out, there won't be really any listening, but um it just the the fact that Margaret Qualey did use prosthetics for her nude scenes.
01:02:52
Speaker
I wonder if Demine Moore did though. I don't know if she did. i just find it so interesting, the idea of using prosthetics. I don't really understand. It's like, at that point, you just like put fake boobs like over your boobs, I guess.
01:03:07
Speaker
Yeah, I guess. I can see
Concluding Reflections and Future Discussions
01:03:09
Speaker
them. I understand them doing it with penises. And they do do it a lot with penises nowadays. um It's funny because I feel like There was a time when you would just never see a penis on TV. And now I feel like you see penises on TV constantly.
01:03:26
Speaker
But I always just assume that they're prosthetics.
01:03:31
Speaker
I mean, it's so... Think about as an actor how hard it is to, like, just... like if you use a prosthetic, everyone's going to know.
01:03:41
Speaker
I understand why they use prosthetics for erect penises, obviously. Cause then you're just making porn straight up. So they have to use, you know, and ah ah ah like not the real thing for that. But then it's like, if you use a prosthetic for like, I don't know. I just, I guess as an actor, I would be like, am I making everyone assume I have a small dick?
01:04:04
Speaker
Just rather, I would just rather like avoid the whole thing. Yeah. know Something to ponder. Yeah, because I've always said, like, in Salt Burn, Jacob Elordi does not show dick, but...
01:04:18
Speaker
Barry Keegan does and Barry Keegan is has said he did not use a ah prosthetic so I will say i can't remember what his penis looked like so it clearly didn't leave lasting and you know so many of my friends have said that that like they barely even remember it and I'm like it was big and he showed it on screen like whatever doesn't matter yeah um well that we'll end twink death on that thought yeah you can always get a penis that's what Ryan Murphy would want but See everyone later. Bye. Bye.