First, it came up in the group chat: “Have you guys watched the Menendez documentary?”
As a longtime connoisseur of true crime in nearly every medium—biopic, podcast, miniseries—I corrected my friend as a knee-jerk reaction. This new Netflix release was a show, not a documentary. I’d been resolute in abstaining from watching Ryan Murphy’s adaptation of the Menendez story after being disappointed by his over-sexualized and misguided representation of Jeffrey Dahmer. However, in the 24 hours that preceded my friend’s text, media coverage of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story was inescapable. My inner crime junkie couldn’t hold out.
I watched all nine episodes in two days.
Societal hyper-fixations on macabre mysteries are not new, but the buzz over the Monsters miniseries begged two questions of me: Who cares? And why?
Well, the first of those answers is relatively simple. Women care. According to PEW Research Center, women are nearly double as likely as men to tune into true crime podcasts (44% vs. 23%), and 70% of Amazon reviews on true crime books are written by women. While anyone who attended sleepaway camp can recall the humble beginnings of flashlight-lit ghost stories, why is there such a disproportionate spread of women who invest in true crime?
“I have two theories,” asserted Caroline Dub, a 22-year-old media studies graduate from the University of Virginia. She posited that women “want to convince themselves that the worst won’t happen to them. That they’d never put themselves in the positions that victims may have.” The case of Laci Peterson is worth mentioning in this regard, as the circumstances of the case—a pregnant woman murdered by her cheating husband—left women paralyzed with fascination. ABC News noted that there had not been such public emotion expressed about a case since O. J. Simpson’s murder trial. The Petersons presented as so normal, so what could a woman do to separate herself from Laci and thereby avoid her fate?
But not every woman shares the experience—never mind gender—of the Menendez brothers’ parental sexual assault. Yet, their case has experienced such a resurgence in popularity that Kim Kardashian is advocating for their freedom on Instagram. This is where Dub’s second theory comes in: “Women are simply more empathetic.”
Beyond the gender imbalance in the pop cultural reaction to Monsters, the show itself illustrated this fact. In Episode 8, “Seismic Shifts,” a hung jury fails to pass down a verdict, to which Erik’s attorney, Leslie Abramson, says, “Blame the men.” Abramson asserts that men are less likely to empathize with the concept of abuse, especially sexual abuse against other men. Dub expanded upon this point further, noting that women are more forgiving. “They read about all the good that the Menendez brothers have done over decades in prison and want to do something. Men…” she exhaled and looked up to the ceiling before correcting herself, “some men… might just not care as much.”
Finally, it would be remiss not to acknowledge the level of exploitation and liberty exercised by many producers of the true crime genre. The sexualization of convicted murders is manifest in production as early as the casting process: heartthrob Zac Efron as Ted Bundy, pop star Ross Lynch as Jeffrey Dahmer, and now I can barely log onto TikTok without being inundated with edits of Nicholas Chavez as Lyle Menendez. This trend raises critical ethical questions about the fine line between entertainment and the glorification of real-life violence. Convincing Netflix to practice more responsible storytelling is harder when its actor portraying a parricidal criminal is simultaneously rocketing to sex-symbol status.
At places like Georgetown, where college students juggle rigorous academic life with pop cultural indulgence, true crime becomes a shared experience—you can bring lecture notes from Prisons & Punishments to the watch-party couch. For women in particular, the appeal of true crime often stems from both a desire for self-preservation and a deep sense of empathy. Consuming these stories offers a sense of control, a way to mentally distance themselves from the fate of victims by dissecting what went wrong. Yet, a growing number of these stories have been compromised by exploitative storytelling in true crime. Blurring the genre’s ethical lines—through glorifying real-life violence or sexualizing criminals—distorts the very reason women are drawn to these narratives in the first place: the search for understanding, empathy, and security. Our younger generation has the power to push for moral storytelling, proving that gripping narratives can thrive without exploitation or glorification: demand responsibility from creators and do outside research. Find your own truth in true crime.
Lara Connor is a junior in the CAS pursuing a major in Government and a minor in Journalism. She is a prolific writer and journaler who only recently started watching GIRLS, and can’t believe no one made her start the show earlier.
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