Circumstance and the Average Person

Tonight SD and I watched Monster -- we had been putting it off for a while. Actually I should say that there was something in the concept and the concept promotional pictures that didn't really appeal to me

It is a very well-acted film -- Charlize Theron gives the performance of her career as "Lee" -- and Christina Ricci is very solid as the young impressionable Selby -- very solid all around, and great performances all around

That being said, I am left with the feeling that this movie is dubious -- if I were to grade it out just on acting, story, pacing, drama -- it's an all time classic, it is fabulous

Here I am questioning whether I am a prude or not -- not because of the sexual situations or graphic violence -- for me, right now I am grappling it with what was this movie for?

I don't believe it is about "understanding" the late Aileen Wuornos -- I believe the writer/director wanted us to understand AW

As much as I love it as a movie, it's really hard to match up the dramatic and problematic love story feel of it to, I assume, understanding the humanity and the circumstances that underlay the dark choices of AW

Yes, I understand that "fucked up" people make fucked up choices and end up often with other "fucked up" people -- and then make bad choices together -- I had this odd feeling that the important thing to realize about AW was that she was trying to be loved and accepted by a world that dealt her a totally shitty hand

If one does not accept the premise that she is somehow mentally ill (or at worst, a very unintelligent person), this whole understand her thing falls apart like a house of cards -- Why???

It becomes this collapsing argument of "Which Victim to Blame?" -- We can't blame Selby for being gay and looking for the acceptance she received from AW -- We can't blame AW for being molested, battered, and rejected as a child -- We also can't blame AW for being victimized by a rapist who she later kills in self-defense

It simply does not follow -- a non-sequitur if you will -- that we can't blame AW for killing several men --

Especially when PROBLEMATICALLY these killings were in part to support her relationship with Selby who from the movie was the only one who stayed with her as she was -- and later Selby too (if you follow the film's logic) SOLD HER OUT -- the movie selling Selby's testimony and participation in a sting on AW, seems almost to point to ... yet another person who sold AW down the river

The hard part for the viewer to accept then is the essential part of the movie -- THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE BASED ON TRUE EVENTS -- you cannot create a story for people to "understand" AW when the perspective of the story is NOT TRUE to the real life events

The problem then is in the DRAMATIZATION, as a viewer you feel sad for this woman who in so many ways is the victim of circumstance -- and only seeks the acceptance of people --

In the end, as a viewer, you go -- you know, they really minimized the deaths of AW's victims -- in many ways, it was a means to an end -- so that she could run away with Selby, set up the life she dreamed of, etc. etc.

It's really hard for a viewer with minimal morals to go -- oh yeah, she murdered a lot of people for cash and cars so that she could support herself and her lover -- but it's "understandable" because she was raped, molested, rejected

People like AW deserve compassion and help to rehabilitate themselves, mentally, physically, and emotionally -- but that is not the same as "understanding" why she murdered several men in cold blood after luring them with the promise of sex -- that shows a level of sinister calculation that no decent person can relate to

I liked the movie, then I realized -- THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED -- and I didn't like being manipulated by the dramatic direction of the film -- This honestly is a A++ quality film, it's just that afterwards you feel like you've been wading around in shit up to your nose -- and can't understand how something so good can smell so bad