A Monster Weekend…
June 7th, 2004 - 2:35 pm
**My soul aches.** Last night I saw the movie [Monster](http://www.monsterfilm.com/) with Charlize Theron and Christina Ricci and it was truly powerful and moving. For those who don’t know, Monster is the true story of Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute from Florida who was convicted of killing her “customers” in cold blood. The movie is disturbing in many ways. First and foremost it is provoking because it is based on a true story. She was abused as a child and had no one to turn to. This sort of thing happens much more frequently than anyone wants to believe. I have friends that have worked at crisis lines as well as have heard stories from healthcare professionals. Story after story of extremely disturbed women who were molested as children and it has deeply scarred them into adulthood. Sometimes I just don’t know what to think. I don’t understand what is wrong with people, why anyone would have the capacity to harm a child that way.
There is some confusion about how accurate the story is, but even if it does take some artistic liberties, in my mind that does not dilute the movie. For instance, according to [this](http://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/GiveMeABreak/GMAB_monster_040213-3.html) site, Aileen testified that the rape scene never happened. One of the producers rebuts that she attempted to make everything appear to be murder in cold blood to end her life. In fact, according to [this](http://www.chasingthefrog.com/reelfaces/monster.php) site, she was trying to speed her own execution along by writing letters to Florida state’s Supreme Court Justices requesting that they cancel pending appeals. She wrote:
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“I’m one who seriously hates human life and would kill again. So what’s the point! Let’s move on. I am asking here then for the Florida Supreme Court to step in and ‘Do Something.”
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Of course, I have no idea what really happened. I only know that the movie did an excellent job of evoking strong emotion that rocked me to the core. They did not portray her as a “good” person, but they also did not portray her as a “bad” person. She was simply a product of circumstance, and that is what might be the most upsetting part for me.
>She was simply a product of circumstance, and that is what might be the most upsetting part for me.
Yeah, but it could be said that everybody’s a product of circumstance. In fact, I think that IS said. Though it apparently wasn’t mentioned in the movie, I think her remarks about “hating human life” are enough to mark her as a “bad” person, by conventional standards anyway ..
>I think her remarks about “hating human life” are enough to mark her as a “bad” person, by conventional standards anyway ..
Sure, but you have to look at the reasons she got there. From the reading I did, she initially claimed that she only killed men who were raping her or that she felt were going to rape her. Then, when she started asking for the death penalty, she changed her story and said that she hated human life, and had killed them all flat out, cold blood, game over. There’s two ways that I can think of to interpret this:
1. She was initially telling the truth, but after so much pain decided that death was the only escape. In order to expedite the process, she invalidated her previous statements, and essentially tried everything in her power to get the death sentence under way so that her pain would end.
2. She was trying to save her ass at first, but when she figured that there was nothing she could do to save herself, she told the truth so that the families of the men that were murdered could have some sort of closure and not be left to believe that their former husbands/daddies were rapists.
Of course both postulates are simplistic, but plausible. It would be interesting to do more research into this topic, but I’ve got no time and not nearly enough motivation to do so. Regardless of the fact that the story is extreme and may take liberties, the point is that people do live these sorts of lives and its good to raise consciousness about it. The woman was just searching for love and understanding, something everyone has a right to and that she was denied of from a very early age. Through constant rejection and invalidation of her self worth, was driven mad and perverted into a real “monster”.
In the end, I just know that I feel fortunate for the hand I was dealt in the game of life. Of course it was by no means the best hand, but at least I was given enough to work with that I could make something out of myself without extreme difficulty that few people are able to overcome. And for that grace, anyone reading this should feel fortunate. But our good fortune should not prevent us from reflecting on those less fortunate. To turn a blind eye to them and accuse them of being lazy, moral-less, evil, filthy, etc. is to ignore everyone in our lives that have worked hard to ensure our success. Without their contributions, support, love, hard work to keep the roof over our heads and food on our tables, etc. we would not be in the positions we are today.