Aileen Wuornos, Victimizer or Victim: an analysis

Rating: Null/10 (11 January 2004)

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** Monster

I have always held firm in believing that the death penalty is a justified, and indeed, necessary, part of our criminal justice system. Similarly, I have always thought of serial killers as "monsters" who prey upon the innocent in the dark of night. Going into Monster, the new film by Patty Jenkins, I expected to get just such a portrait of Aileen Wuornos. After all, Wuornos was dubbed by the media as America's first female serial killer and executed in 2002. What the film reveals about her, though, is much more unsettling than a soulless beast. Life has chewed Aileen up, spit her out, and wiped its feet on her remains. Idealism she desperately clung to in her younger days--clung to in spite of increasingly insurmountable roadblocks to normality--has been forcibly extinguished.

Charlize Theron gives the best female performance of the year in capturing Aileen both physically and emotionally, in both cases a wreck. The film opens with a suicidal Aileen sitting in the rain getting ready to snuff out her existence. Having five dollars left from her last john--her only job since her early teens has been prostitution--she enters, unknowingly, a lesbian bar to have a final drink. She struts into the place with a gruff and manly persona, an obvious mask to hide the cowering child inside. A younger and more obviously vulnerable Selby (Christina Ricci) immediately is attracted to her. Aileen quickly opens herself to Selby and develops perhaps the first real human connection of her life. Aileen may or may not be gay, but following her experiences, a woman is the only person with whom she can possibly relate.

Both Aileen and Selby are on the run, Aileen from a job that is killing her every day and Selby from a father who can't accept her as she is. Their relationship is far from perfect, but each represents to the other a hand to hold when the silver lining we are told lies in every cloud turns out to be, in fact, lies. They have a taste of fairy tale happiness, going roller-skating and then making out behind the rink. We wish they could be transplanted into a more hopeful situation. But life comes crashing in, and purity disappears.

Aileen is brutally raped by a john, and probably saves her life by grabbing a gun from his car and killing him first. In stealing the rest of his money, Aileen envisions using that seed to grow a life for herself and her new girlfriend. She springs Selby from the family her father sent her to and they run off to a motel together. Aileen, searching for any straight job available, tries to wedge herself into a society she's never been part of and that coldly rejects any advances she attempts. Selby, seeing the idealistic mirage starting to fade, explodes at Aileen one night thereby pushing her onto exactly the wrong path.

Returning to hooking, Aileen goes out day after day, then returns with a new car and wads of cash. Selby initially may not see what is happening, but soon becomes an accomplice in enabling Aileen to continue this bloody and tragic method to get a leg-up on life. But even as the murders continue and sloppiness begins to put the couple at risk, one never loses sight of Aileen's humanity and the underlying motive of her crimes. She wants enough money to be able to stop selling her body, live an actual life with Selby, and maybe even be accepted by the rest of the planet. The fact that she has been used her entire life has blinded her to all rationality and sense; she's been trained to believe that the only way to get ahead is to use other people.

Aileen cannot be forgiven for committing her murders, which should go without saying. But, at the same time, how much culpability can be placed on the shoulders of a person who never received a moral compass and whose only education was victimization? If a dog is beaten by its owner in puppy hood and shown no love, can one possibly be surprised when that dog becomes a vicious adult? If there is nobody willing to guide the victimized back onto the right path, the outrage we rightfully feel when blood is spilled may be tragically misdirected.

Final Film Grade: A-