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Sympathy for the Devil:
The victimization of a serial killer in Monster
By Kristen Morley
Prior to seeing the film Monster,
I knew very little about the film. After watching Monster,
I found it difficult to forget. Monster is based upon
the true story of Aileen Wournos, a highway hooker and America's
first female serial-killer, who was put to death in 1992 for
murdering seven men. Aileen's killing spree began when she shot
and killed a John after being brutally raped. The sense of empowerment
she derived from killing the John who raped her, and a desperate
desire to provide for her girlfriend Shelby, drove Aileen to
kill 6 more victims before she was apprehended by police.
 Initially,
I attributed the title of the movie Monster as referring
to Aileen Wournos. She was a serial killer who took the lives
of seven men, how could she be anything but a monster? However,
by the end of the movie, I could not identify Aileen with that
label. Aileen Wournos is portrayed as a very sorrowful character.
Rather, it was the Johns who took advantage of Aileen and the
men who had victimized her all her life that became the monster
to me. When Aileen killed them, I felt "schadenfreude":
a degree of satisfaction in their deaths. Recognizing my own
reaction to this movie caused me to question my values: had I
simply been manipulated by the movie's sympathetic portrayal
of Aileen Wournos, or do I really believe that sexual victimization
justifies murder?
Monster fills in some of the gaps left by
the movie Dead Man Walking. Critics of Dead Man Walking
thought the film lacked social consciousness by failing to show
the disadvantaged background of most inmates on death row. Those
who have worked with death row inmates attest to the impact that
childhood physical and emotional abuse has in creating a criminal.
Through the characterization of Aileen Wournos, Monster
subtly and effectively reveals how Aileen's childhood abuse contributed
to her criminalization. Aileen's life is a tale of abuse and
abandonment. At age 8 she was repeatedly sexually abused by
her father's friend, and when her father found out, he beat her.
She gave up a baby for adoption at age 13. By the time she
was a teenager, she was homeless and forced to become a hooker
to survive. Where the movie picks up her life, Aileen is 28-years-old
and contemplating suicide. As a viewer, it is difficult not
to assess her later actions in the context of her personal history.
The magnitude of abuse she had suffered inspired in me a righteous
anger at those who contributed to the victimization, and the
social system that allowed it to happen.
Monster can be characterized as a revenge
film. As defined by William Miller in his article Clint Eastwood
and Equity: Popular Culture's Theory of Revenge, a revenge
narrative, "takes us from indignation and outrage at a wrong,
via fear and loathing of the wrongdoer, to a sense of satisfaction
of having righted on the body of the wrongdoer." The initial
wrong perceived in Monster that inspires our fear and
outrage is the rape of Aileen. When she kills the John, we feel
satisfaction that he got what he deserved. However, the later
murders committed by Aileen were not in response to the same
circumstances that occurred in the first instance. Whereas the
first murder could be construed as self-defence, the later murders
were much more predatory. With the exception of her final victim,
Aileen killed Johns simply because they were Johns. Yet, her
murders still find some legitimacy under the revenge model.
Even though she is not directly under attack, she is still the
victim of men degrading her for sexual gratification. Rather
than fighting against one specific instance of rape, she is fighting
against a society that has allowed her to suffer a lifetime of
sexual victimization. The wrong that inspires the revenge is
still there, but the dimension that changes in the subsequent
murders is the audience's lack of fear and loathing of the Johns.
Miller posits that the audience
acts as the judge in determining when an avenger crosses the
line and becomes a villain. The legitimacy of an avenger is
dependant upon whether their response is proportional to the
wrong committed. A case can be made that after committing the
first murder, Aileen became a villain rather than an avenger,
particularly as her victims became less culpable. It may be
legitimate to fear and loath a rapist and feel some satisfaction
in his death, yet it is difficult to argue that a man who visits
a prostitute because his wife is in a wheelchair should be killed
for his indiscretions. Aileen's final victim was a kindly older
man who picked her up not realizing she was a prostitute. Upon
seeing that she was in a desperate state, he offered her money
and a place to stay with him and his wife. Aileen did not want
to kill him, and was visibly distraught as she agonized over
what to do. However, in the end, she did kill him, afraid that
if she didn't he would blow her cover. With this murder, that
had no legitimacy or revenge motive, Aileen seemed to have firmly
crossed the line from avenger to villain.
Although the audience may not
find objective legitimacy for Aileen's actions, she strived psychologically
to legitimate her own actions. During her killing spree, Aileen
tried to justify her actions by casting all her potential victims
as violent abusers. In light of her history of being exploited
by men, it is plausible to believe that in her mind all men were
in fact violent abusers. In one instance, Aileen attempted to
vilify a John she was planning to murder, only to find he was
painfully shy with a stuttering problem and had never picked
up a hooker before. This discovery gave her pause and she did
not kill him. This shows that Aileen does not fit the mould
of a typical serial killer: she is not killing indiscriminately
but rather acting out against the very class of people who had
victimized her. Perhaps it is because Aileen herself is a victim
that it is difficult to characterize her wholly as a villain.
Aileen Wournos is a character
for whom I felt an immense amount of sympathy. This sympathy
was based not only on Aileen's sexual victimization, but also
on the corresponding betrayal she suffered from everyone in the
movie who could have been in a position to "save" her.
Authority figures not only failed to protect her, but contributed
to her victimization. As a child, Aileen's father punished her
for being the object of molestation. As an adult, Aileen was
twice picked up by a police officer and forced to perform oral
sex on him. Aileen's efforts to rehabilitate herself were frustrated
by lack of support. After being raped by the John, Aileen wanted
to stop hooking and tried to secure a legitimate job. She was
humiliated and rejected at every place she applied, and ultimately
returned to hooking, partially motivated by a desire to provide
for Shelby. Even Shelby betrays Aileen out of self-interest.
In the final scenes of the movie, Shelby testifies against
Aileen at her criminal trial, as part of a plea to exculpate
her own knowledge of and complicity in the murders. At the end
of the movie, I almost felt more animosity towards Shelby than
I did toward Aileen: a completely inappropriate response given
the relative weight of their crimes.
Monster ends with Aileen being lead away from
the courtroom and a post-script informs the audience that she
was executed after spending 12 years on death row. Though Aileen's
execution was off-screen, I was left with the feeling that it
was unjust for her to be put to death. My reaction to Monster
stands in direct contrast to my reaction to Dead Man Walking.
At the end of Dead Man Walking I felt that justice was
served by putting Mathew Ponselet to death. My reaction was
certainly not premised upon the relative severity of their crimes:
Ponselet being guilty of an isolated incident of rape and murder,
and Aileen being guilty of seven murders over a period of time.
Objectively, Aileen is more deserving of the death penalty.
However there are two striking differences that effect my assessment
of the culpability of these two characters. First, Aileen was
not just the perpetrator of crimes, she was very much a victim
herself and had been victimized her entire life. Her crimes
were not random; rather, they were the direct result of acting
out against the emotional abuse she had suffered through her
own victimization. Second, Aileen was a victim of sexual exploitation
and degradation, whereas Ponselet was the perpetrator of these
crimes. Though I am arguable displaying a gender bias in this
assessment, I have a disproportionate amount of sympathy for
victims of sexual exploitation and a disproportionate level of
condemnation for sexual aggressors.
The story of Aileen Wornous
is a tragedy. She was a victim, turned victimizer. At the end
of Monster, I felt an injustice had been committed. There is
more than one monster in this film, yet Aileen Wornous was the
only one held accountable for her crimes. A society that allows
women to be sexually victimized is also monstrous and this is
the monster that should be put to death.
Posted November 11, 2005
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