Charlize Theron said in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that she didn’t think of Aileen Wuornos as a lesbian. She had sex with men without pay and had had relationships with men before her serial killing began. Rather than a lesbian, she was someone who needed love from someone regardless of gender. In the movie Monster, Wuornos’s character begins as a homophobe herself, offended by the advances of Selby.

Selby is re-named in the movie probably to protect the interests of the movie makers, as the real-life lover of Aileen Wuornos, Tyria Moore, is fictionalized to a large extent. In reality, Tyria Moore was not the waifish, meek young lesbian that Christina Ricci portrays, but rather a larger woman with more experience and confidence. Selby wants to be taken care of, and is furious at Aileen’s quitting hooking, even before her attempt to find legal employment had officially failed. Selby had a glamorous idea about prostitution, despite Aileen’s rough appearance and obvious emotional scars from doing it. In the character Selby’s version and the real life Tyria Moore’s, wanted sterotypically masculine services from Aileen–first and foremost, to be taken care of. In the movie Selby only learns about Aileen’s first murder well after the fact, and never questions or seems to suspect that additional murders are taking place, even after Aileen returns with money and different cars after her nights of hooking. In reality, Tyria did know that there were murders taking place–but refused to let Aileen discuss them, not wanting to know any information that might have an impact on her moral senses. Aileen loved Tyria to the end, but it was clearer in reality than in the movie, from both Aileen’s and Tyria’s words, that Tyria was most enamored with their traveling, partying, and money and cars.

A popular criticism of the movie is that it intends to elicit sympathy for a serial killer. However, I think that her non-romanticized, true story does a good job of that on its own. No one condones serial murder, but it is apparent that more than an intrinsic evilness is involved in their evolution from “normal” people in “monsters”. The movie focuses in on the time shortly before she killed her first victim and ends with her conviction. Her actual story, however, begins long before with abusive familial relationships, and early descent into prostitution, through the unusual relationship she developed with a born-again Christian woman who adopted her, and concludes with her campaign to be put to death, which happened 12 years after her trial.

As Wuornos kills men in the movie, over time they become more “innocent”. We don’t mind seeing the murder of a would-be murderer, but we do think it extreme for a man to be murdered just for wanting the services of a prostitute. This is what makes her a “monster” to observers–she is the extreme “man hating lesbian”. In reality, she didn’t hate men in particular–she was intensely angry at everyone–and whether or not she was a lesbian is a matter of definition and philosophical opinion on what puts someone in the lesbian category.

Initially, the real Aileen Wuornos claimed that all of her murders were in self-defense from rapists. Rape is in fact an enormous occupational hazard for female prostitutes, but she later recanted and stated that they all could have been. In the movie, her first shooting reassures the audience that she is not randomly selecting victims from meanness, because he “deserves” to die for the sexual torture he inflicts upon her and his own plans to kill her. (The first victim in her true story was later revealed to have had past convictions for violence against women, among other things.) As she goes through more victims, her vision blurs with ours. She justifies the killings to herself with what they might do to her, or what she imagines they want to do to her. We want there to be a reason for her to turn violent–we want to be able to forgive her, or excuse her. In a scene where she is hyping herself up and her potential victim up, she catches herself in a role reversal–where she has become the predator, eager to have a struggle initiated so as to unleash her weapon upon him. She discovers that he has a speech impediment and possibly a mild retardation, and has not intentions of being aggressive with her, and probably has no sexual experience at all, with prostitutes or otherwise. She spares him. But eventually, when she feels forced to kill a man who was not even a client but just a good Samaritan who offers her a warm place to stay and honest help, we are reassured that, yes, she was inexcusably murderous.

Charlize Theron did do a great job at the acting, and she won an Oscar for it, but I think it might be a bit overpraised. A lot of her "transformation" was weight gain and makeup.

I did like this movie, but, if you will see it or have seen it, I suggest you also check out the documentary Aileen: the Life & Death of a Serial Killer for a little balance and a true(r) account of what all went down.

Recommended: Yes