Helena Rindone
Sociology 360
Rudes
0 December 2007
Monster
In the film "Monster," Aileen Warner is a hooker walking the highways in Florida. She has been prostituting since she was thirteen years old. Severely abused and unloved, Aileen immersed herself in the dangerous world highway prostitution. Then she met Selby Wall, a naïve girl who was Aileen's last chance at a normal life. But nobody imagined the nightmare that awaited the seven men standing in the way of her happiness.1 It is a tragic story of a woman who just wanted to be love. It is a tale of a woman who felt trapped in a world held down by men who just wanted out. Unfortunately her way out was through her gun.
Aileen was accustomed to her way of life as a hooker. In the film she said most people think that it is an easy way out, a cop out basically. But what people do not understand, she says, is how strong she actually was. She trained herself to be able to do what she did. Imagine how a person must feel knowing at the end of the day they had to sell themselves in order to make a living. I do not think a person like that is weak. Rational choice was her means of device. Simply put she needed money. In a world that shut her out when she tried to get right, her only way to survive was the one thing she know how to do; prostitute.
Everything changed the night she got in the truck with the man who raped and beat her. Aileen was a prostitute. She was willing to give her body up to anyone for some cash. The idea that someone would rape a prostitute seems almost incredulous. According to the text Violence: From Theory to Research, "...rapist may include seeing sexual coercion as a positive thing that a real man should do when confronted with resistance to his sexual advances."2 The irony in this is that Aileen made no resistance to him. She was beaten almost to death and raped ...
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Everything changed the night she got in the truck with the man who raped and beat her. Aileen was a prostitute. She was willing to give her body up to anyone for some cash. The idea that someone would rape a prostitute seems almost incredulous. According to the text Violence: From Theory to Research, "...rapist may include seeing sexual coercion as a positive thing that a real man should do when confronted with resistance to his sexual advances."2 The irony in this is that Aileen made no resistance to him. She was beaten almost to death and raped while unconscious. Rational Choice Theory, as also stated in the text, "...treats at least some violence and crime as an irrational response to aversive stimuli. According to frustration-aggression approaches, people lash out after experiencing stress, pain, failure, or suffering of any sort."3 Staring down at the barrel of the gun, Aileen had two choices; kill or be killed. The man took advantage of her, raped and beat her. I personally can not say that every woman would feel this way, but when in this type of pain, with this aversive stimulus, killing the other person makes sense as the only rational choice. An aversive stimulus leads the person to experience negative effect, which instigate "reactive" or "expressive aggression." Expressive aggression satisfies an innate desire to harm others when one is feeling bad or frustrated. So this may explain why she killed the first one. Does explain the other six?
Being raped in the woods can ultimately explain what set Aileen off, but why did she continue? One might be able to theorize this way. Aileen was control of her life. She chose to prostitute as her way of living. She did not have much of anything but what she did have was her own. Men who rape women want to show their dominance and that they are in control. The text states that, "men who rape or assault their wives are attempting to dominate them or display their power.."4 Aileen went from being in control to being taken over by a man. Aileen in the movie said she did not like the prostituting but that she more or less sucked it up. Aileen was not even romantically involved with a man. When she started the killings she was dating a girl whom she said she was in love with. For a woman who is not into men to be violently controlled by a man, one can say justifiably that after this Aileen lost it and wanted revenge on any other man that tried to get some from her.
The feminist theory applies not only to the reasons why men assault women but also why women assault and even kill men. Traditionally violent behavior, defined, did not include sexual assaults. Now however because of the frequency of death and rape, its is most certainly included. The text states, "feminists have emphasized victim's perceptions and experiences as well as the consequences of particular actions, instead of solely using legal criteria.." 5 For example; a young girl is repeatedly raped by someone in her family, like her father. As she grows up her perceptions on men will always be jaded and her behavior towards them will be different because of her traumatic experiences. She may think that all men are evil. Aileen, after being raped, thought that all men who were looking for prostitutes wanted rough sex, to be aggressive, and hurt the women. She wanted to rid the world of these men. She thus lured to men to a secret place, on the basis of sex, and proceeded to execute them. In the movie she states how she was always right with God. She states how people could stop her from getting jobs and being a part of the society but that they could not stop her from killing; that it was her job to get rid of these men.
Aileen never specifically talks about her upbringing but leads us to speculate that is was not good. As the text states, "criminologists have found a correlation between female's violent victimization, especially during childhood, and their subsequent involvement in crime, including crimes of violence."6 One thing that Aileen knew was violence and although she tried to change she ultimately fell back to what she knew.
In the end of the movie Aileen screams out, "I'm a good person, I'm a good person!" One can no doubt argue that she was a good person. She just happened to make bad choices. Were they justified? One can also argue both ways. Was it wrong of her to want to rid the world of bad men?; especially after her experiences. With all the pain she endured in her life it is no wonder the events that occurred in her life. Unfortunately in our society her choices simply can not be rationalized.
Works Cited.
"Monster." Columbia Tri Star Entertainment. 2003
Zahn, Margret A. et al. Violence From Theory to Research, Anderson Publishing 2004
Back of the movie cover
2 pg.25
3 pg.71
4 pg.81
5 pg 133
6 pg.138
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