Ryan Murphy, Put That Pen Down!
It's October, so that means it is time to tune into some scary media. Ryan Murphy is one of the many writers who have produced shows that have given horror fans their classics. For years, he has provided audiences with iconic moments and traumatizing scenes. Yet one thing is for sure: his work always causes a stir.
His most popular creation is the infamous FX show American Horror Story (AHS). Its first couple of seasons, “Murder House,” “Asylum,” and “Coven,” have grown lives of their own on the internet. The shows are shocking in their subject matter but entertaining in their stars. Murphy is known for repeatedly casting the same actors in his work, such as Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Evan Peters, Sarah Paulson, and Angela Bassett.
Image Courtesy: FX
A common thread throughout all his works is his connections. Somehow, iconic singers like Stevie Nicks, Lady Gaga, and Ariana Grande have starred in the series.
In the opposite genre, he created the musical comedy-drama Glee. While this seems out of left field, as you dive into his later works, you can see glimpses of the show’s elements in his horror works.
For example, Scream Queens, another show he co-created, was a middle ground between AHS and Glee. It had gruesome scenes but also had absurd dialogue and humor. All of his shows have some level of ridiculousness that makes it entertaining, whether you hate the actual show or not.
Image Courtesy: Fox
Yet these elements of celebrity cameos, outrageous lines, and grotesque scenes have yet to translate as well to his newest endeavors. Monster is one of his more recent anthologies premiering on Netflix.
The first season, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, aired in late 2022. It followed the infamous American serial killer. The show received backlash from the internet for giving additional attention to the killer. But more significantly, families of his victims spoke out against the show for dramatizing and profiting off the story.
In 2022, at an event in the DGA theater in Los Angeles, Murphy responded to the situation, saying, “We reached out to 20… of the victims’ families and friends trying to get input, trying to talk to people. And not a single person responded to us in that process. So we relied very, very heavily on our incredible group of researchers who — I don’t even know how they found a lot of this stuff.”
Murphy and Paris Barclay, directors of the show, said the show intended to show the victims as more than just a statistic. Yet, in the end, it made them a spectacle for true crime fans and retraumatized their families.
The second season, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, was released in September. It has amassed 19.5 million viewers in its first week.
Image Courtesy: Netflix
Murphy’s intention with “Dahmer” was to show what leads up to making the killer a “monster.” However, he took a different approach this season by showcasing multiple points of view. The show revolves around the case of the Menendez brothers, who killed their parents in the 1990s after enduring years of sexual assault at the hands of their father. Audiences were first critical of the title, which refers to the brothers as “monsters.”
Another critique was the over-sexualization of the brothers. Besides a graphic sex scene of Erik in prison, there were depictions of the siblings having an incestuous relationship.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Murphy defended the plot line: “Dominick Dunne [a Vanity Fair journalist] wrote several articles talking about that theory. We are presenting his point of view. And we had an obligation to show all of that, and we did.”
Whatever Murphy’s intentions were, Erik has spoken out, saying, “I believe Ryan Murphy cannot be this naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives so as to do this without bad intent.” In the same interview, Murphy responded, “I think it’s interesting that he’s issued a statement without having seen the show.”
Image Courtesy: The Hollywood Reporter/ Youtube
Amid all of this attention, Kim Kardashian, now a powerful voice in the legal realm, has voiced her thoughts. She has recently called upon the brothers' release and visited them in prison multiple times.
The Los Angeles district attorney has even announced a new court hearing to weigh new evidence just two weeks after Murphy’s show was released. Yet this sudden new motivation for justice should not undermine the criticism that the show is inaccurate.
Additionally, it seems that any criticism is met with dismissal from Murphy. That is not only seen through Murphy’s responses but also through his future projects. One is a show that will focus on the relationship between John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy who both died in a plane crash in 1999.
Besides Monsters, American Sports Story is another true crime anthology released last month. Its debut season focuses on Aaron Hernandez, an American football player who killed multiple people while suffering from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE).
With limited time between the release dates of these projects, none of the criticism is being taken into account. Ryan Murphy is taking his prior experience of theatrics and dramatizations to true crime stories. The result is inaccurate and disrespectful to the real people that these stories are about. Murphy needs to realize that these are not just characters written on a script but real people who are often still healing. If he wants to continue down this path of true crime media, more care and time must be put into the projects.
In the end, if he wants a show to be put out as merely a pop culture reference or a cash grab, he needs to stick to his older fictional shows. Yet, as seen through the lack of popularity for the new seasons of AHS, it looks like it’s time for Ryan Murphy to put that pen down.
Strike Out,
Kim Nguyen
Boca Raton
Kim Nguyen is a Content Writer for Strike Magazine Boca. When not overthinking, this fangirl is either consuming romance media, Vietnamese coffee, or Beyoncé's discography. You can reach her by email at kimvunguyen14@gmail.comor on Instagram @kimnguyen1_.
