The film Monster, directed by Patty Jenkins (2003) and starring Charlize Theron as infamous serial killer Aileen Wuornos perfectly lends itself to a feminist criticism of film. In a documentary on Aileen Wuornos, filmed by British documentary director Nick Broomfield (1992), there is a final quote from Wuornos who was convicted of the murders of seven “johns” in Florida and put to death in 2003. While male prison guards roll their eyes and snicker behind her, Wuornos tells Broomfield, “A raped woman got executed and was used for books and movies, ladder climbings and re-elections,” (1992). Wuornos’ comments are not far from the truth and in Monster, director Patty Jenkins films the story of her murderous days as a prostitute with such empathy that many audience members find themselves rooting for Wuornos.
If audience members are rooting for Wuornos during the film, it is because all of her life what she most wanted was to be loved. In the opening scenes of the film, Theron’s voice-overs as Wuornos are spoken over images of Aileen as a young, cute blonde girl dancing in front of a full-length mirror. As she tells us, “I always wanted to be in movies,” (Jenkins 2003). Instead of being in movies, Wuornos is molested as a child, become pregnant by age fourteen and is thrown out of her home. Eventually drifting into a life of alcoholism, substance abuse and prostitution, Wuornos never stops being a fool for love. Uneducated, unskilled, white-trash, Wuornos is often at the mercy of the “johns” in her life to have money to eat and survive on the streets of Florida’s seedier towns.
When the film opens, Wuornos’ pain, substance abuse, and no-options lifestyle has her on the verge of suicide. She refuses to commit suicide and instead spend her last $5 on cheap beer for one reason alone. If she kills herself before she spends the $5 she just earned giving a “john” a blowjob, she will have prostitute...