There’s something in the air. Two of the most intriguing shows of the year:Netflix‘S Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez And Prime Video‘S Cruel intentionshave major incest storylines. It’s not every TV season that you get one show on such a heavily banned subject, let alone two.
There’s a reason why people are drawn to things like true crime: it’s fascinating to see the circumstances that lead someone to commit a shocking crime. In the comfort of your own home, you can see people doing things you can’t imagine and would never dream of doing. The same idea applies to all kinds of taboos, illegal or not. And both Monsters And Cruel intentions offer the promise to investigate one of the most tabooo taboos: incest. Unfortunately, they both handle it terribly.
Minor spoilers ahead Monsters and major spoilers ahead Cruel intentions forward!
While Incest is shocking, there is arguably value in portraying and trying to understand such a deeply forbidden element of society. What could possibly make someone feel attracted to their sibling, let alone drive them to act on those desires? Yet neither show is interested in incest beyond basic shock value.
Cooper Koch as Erik Menendez, Nicholas Chavez as Lyle Menendez in Monsters: The Menendez Brothers Story. Netflix/Netflix
The one from Netflix Monsters deals with incest in a relatively subtle way, although that didn’t stop things controversy does not flow in. In episode 2, “Spree,” Lyle Menendez (Nicholas Alexander Chavez) holds his brother Erik’s (Cooper Koch) neck before kissing him intensely. Homoeroticism is ubiquitous throughout the show Ryan Murphy specialty – and the original teaser and marketing play up the sexual element of the brothers’ relationship. The problem is: there is no evidence of a sexual relationship between the Menendez brothers.
Murphy’s show implies that part of the reason the Menendez brothers killed their parents was to hide the fact that they were secretly in love with each other. That’s a big claim when there’s no evidence, and it looks especially bad when there is Monsters is largely about how the brothers experienced unimaginable sexual abuse at the hands of their father. Monsters’ A sheepish touch of incest turns a terrifying story into an embarrassing, cringe-inducing fanfiction.
Incest is a major motivation for the characters of Cruel intentions. Step-siblings Caroline (Sarah Catherine Hook) and Lucien (Zac Burgess) hatch a plan: if Lucien can successfully seduce the Vice President’s daughter Annie (Savannah Lee Smith), Caroline will give Lucien the one thing he wants more than anything in the world. : the possibility of having sex with her. And yes, again, Caroline and Lucien are step-siblings.
This may surprise you, especially if you haven’t seen the movie yet 1999 Cruel intentions film on which the series is based, which features a similarly incestuous storyline. Although step-siblings are not biologically related – and therefore a sexual relationship is not illegal – we can probably all agree that this is concerning. Why on earth would these siblings want to have sex with each other, you’re probably wondering. This could make for a fascinating exploration of the characters’ psyches, but the TV series never gets more introspective than the very obvious reason that they desire each other because they are conventionally attractive.
Cruel intentions doesn’t try to look inside Caroline and Lucien to explore the why behind their mutual lust for each other. Both characters are frustratingly stupid. They have a complicated relationship with their stepmother, and they are both snarky and popular, which pretty much takes up the entire character description. The incest is all emptiness and plot mechanics; it seems Lucien’s desire is one-sided until the end of episode 5, where Caroline masturbates over Lucien’s sex tapes. The revelation that Caroline wants to sleep with Lucien as much as he wants to sleep with her – if not more – does nothing to help us understand Caroline, and it functions as little more than an inexplicable plot twist.
Sara Silva, Sarah Catherine Hook and Zac Burgess. Jasper Savage/Prime video
Things become significantly more separated when Lucien ultimately rejects Caroline’s offer, saying that he has developed feelings for Annie, whom he had to seduce and destroy. This sends Caroline into a tailspin, which in turn leads Lucien to do something even more unthinkable than having sex with Caroline: he has sex with his stepmother instead. This feels like it should be a hugely impactful moment – a boy just slept with his mother figure! – but it comes across as obtuse and frustratingly hollow. Cruel intentions only cares about incest to create shock and awe and has no interest in why Lucien or his mother would do something so life-changing.
Exploring something as taboo as incest requires a creative team that is both willing to take risks and has a genuine interest in exploring how such desires manifest and what might drive someone to do something so completely against what the society considers acceptable. Sensitive topics require just that: sensitivity. Unfortunately neither Monsters nor Cruel intentions have any desire to understand incest – it just tries to use it as window dressing and lure the audience into cheap shock value and titillation.
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