The Ryan Murphy TV empire is one of the most indomitable in modern entertainment. As Peak TV came to define a new era of small-screen programming, Murphy’s blend of frenetic excess and respectability made him a safe bet for success. He also became a critical darling, as true-life reimaginings of 20th century history in “American Crime Story” made him an Emmys favorite.
While Murphy has not abandoned the high-aesthetic camp of “American Horror Story,” his most notable offerings of recent years have been rooted in the tricky genre of true crime. This month alone, the Murphy-verse has given us two true crime offerings: “American Sports Story,” a new FX series on the life and crimes of football player Aaron Hernandez, and the second season of “Monster”, focusing on the Menendez brothers. Reviews have been stronger for the former than the latter but both shows expose the growing issues of Murphy’s approach to true crime and why his take on such tragic events has left audiences feeling increasingly queasy.
In “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story”, for which Murphy served as co-showrunner, the leering gaze falls upon the Cuban-American brothers who were convicted of the murders of their parents, José and Kitty Menendez. Their much-publicized trial became the pre-O.J. Simpson media event of the decade, as the brothers maintained that their actions stemmed from having been abused by their father, while the prosecution claimed they were just out to get their inheritance.
It’s not hard to see what drew Murphy to the story. Like the O.J. case, which was the focus of the first season of “American Crime Story”, the trial inspired wall-to-wall press coverage that created a false narrative about the case. There was certainly room to dissect how quickly the legal system and American public derided the brothers for accusing their parents of abuse. Instead, Murphy and co-showrunner Ian Brennan spin a lurid and tonally dissonant tale that avoids a nuanced reading of difficult history in favor of creating a playground from its tragedy.
Much has already been made about how “Monsters” plays up the notion that the Menendez brothers had incestuous feelings for one another. The marketing eagerly leans into the eroticized subtext, selling the series as something giddily salacious rather than a portrait of familial trauma. The show itself doesn’t do much better. It’s an overlong slog that never commits to the ideas it sets up and seems too enamored of the Menendez family’s wealth to show it as anything other than aspirational. It turns trauma into titillation, particularly with the brothers themselves and their co-dependency stemming from their father’s molestations that are spun into a forbidden romance of sorts. The driving force of “Monsters” seems to be sensuality, with the brothers both forever in Speedos and shot as though the series was a perfume ad. It is, at best, hugely misguided given the accusations of sexual assault.
“American Sports Story” is, mercifully, not so self-obsessed, but it’s not free of Murphy-isms either despite the fact that Murphy is not a creator, writer or director on the series but merely an executive producer. The story of Aaron Hernandez, an NFL star who was charged with murder, is, like the Menendez case, one whose appeal to Murphy is obvious. It doesn’t have a new angle on this story, which has been relitigated in articles, podcasts and documentaries for years now. Nor does it have anything cutting or intriguing to say about toxic masculinity or the all-American sports industrial complex that chewed Hernandez up and spat him out. It’s simply more of what we’ve already heard, albeit told with some great actors.
Previous Murphy shows worked because they colored in the shades of grey in stories that were shown as starkly black-and-white for decades. Here, the rehashing of the familiar just leaves you wondering what the point is. The pain of these real people, living or otherwise, is just fodder for an overcrowded market of true-crime entertainment. “American Sports Story” doesn’t make your stomach churn quite like “Monsters” but the end effect is the same: why spend all that time, money, and talent on something so much more concerned with gawking than empathy?
Murphy’s work has long been defined by its maddening erraticism. The leaps in quality between seasons, or even episodes, can be wild. Almost every season of “American Horror Story” suffers from his inability to keep interest in one narrative for long periods of time: They start with high potential, offer dramatic promises, then sputter out to disappointing conclusions as it became evident that the writers got bored with their own ideas. “Glee,” still Murphy’s defining series, fell apart at the seams as its scathing satirical tone gave way to broad jokes and an endless search for the next big musical theme that would lead to mammoth iTunes sales.
The first season of “American Crime Story” seemed to offer Murphy’s team a much-needed structure to adhere to. They couldn’t deviate far from the truth of an exceedingly documented and very recent part of modern history, but they could fill in the gaps and offer a new perspective to familiar events. It paid off with what is still the best series released under the Murphy banner.
The second season of “American Crime Story” was smart enough to use the murder of Gianni Versace as the Trojan horse to delve into a wider dissection of systemic homophobia, but the first season of “Monster,” about serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, was a veritable smorgasbord of queasy Murphy-isms. While the performances were stellar (these shows do attract phenomenal actors who give it their all), everything around them was uncomfortable and tonally questionable. Where the first two seasons of “American Crime Story” reclaimed the victims from the starry-eyed press and put empathy first, “Monster” turned a serial killer into a fetish, making his crimes and the men who were murdered accessories to his sensualized world.
The Murphy problem is really the problem of the entire genre of true crime, both documentary and fictionalized. The patina of respectability given to what was once considered irredeemably seedy has given us some excellent reportage, from Errol Morris’ “The Thin Blue Line” to Netflix’s “The Keepers.” Netflix has shouldered much of the blame for the modern genre’s exploitative qualities thanks to programming of questionable ethical fiber, whether it’s the ways that “Tiger King” turned its human characters into figures of classist mockery or how “Don’t F*ck with Cats” chastised its own audience for being interested in true crime stories while glorying in real-life footage of animal abuse. Improved technical craft and the illusion of prestige has allowed much of modern true crime, including Murphy’s output, to have its cake and eat it, to revel in human suffering while masquerading as the morally righteous.
Murphy’s view of the real world seems to be that it is not as lascivious and shocking as his dramas and that he must make up for that to appease his ravenous audiences. Turning truth into entertainment inevitably leads to some sharp edges being sanded down, but Murphy’s consistent flattening of the truth in favor of shock and pseudo-camp binge-watching takes that to an extreme. It’s made all the more aggravating by the fact that we know he can do better. Is it just easier for him not to, or more fun? Neither option is good, and what it leaves us with is an ever-expanding back-catalog that views layered, traumatized and extremely complicated real-life people as more respectable versions of Real Housewives.
