A map of "The Sunshine State"
2/10/05
I sat down the other day and watched a movie called Monster (2003) and I believe it deserves comment. Not only the film itself, which was very good, but, more importantly, the “reality” it creates which is both enlightening and disturbing at the same time. It is “based on a true story,” about the highway prostitute turned serial killer, Aileen Wuornos, who, in the early 1990s, was convicted, and subsequently executed, of shooting seven of her “Johns” in Florida.
Its focus is on the “real” day to day Florida society which, according to this movie, is filled with working class natives and transplants, bikers and undesirables, transients and directionless beach bums whose existence seems to be a malaise of alcohol, drugs, cars, intellectual laziness, sexual promiscuity, moral hypocrisy and, most of all, boredom. These people are not the self absorbed, image conscious, phony, attention craving celebrities and their hanger-ons of the posh, overpriced, over-hyped dance clubs of Miami. This film is populated with characters whose idea of “class” is dinner at Pizza Hut.
Now you see her...
The first thing that needs to be mentioned about Monster is the Academy Award winning tour de force performance of Charlize Theron. She physically transforms herself from the classic statuesque beauty that she is in real life to a rather unattractive woman whose face is weathered and scarred betraying a life of hard drinking, self loathing, hardships and experiences that “fine upstanding” society doesn’t know about, doesn’t want to know about or can not possibly come close to understanding. Visually speaking it is akin to Robert De Niro’s metamorphosis in Raging Bull from a young stealth boxer to a paunchy middle aged slob.
Looking at the movie poster, I find myself staring at the facial features of Ms. Theron. There is no question that she used heavy make-up around the eyes and possibly some kind of prosthetic mouthpiece because, as I mentioned before, there is no way you would confuse the cover girl on this DVD box with The Cover Girl of Vanity Fair and W Magazine which she actually is. I am sure the make-up went a long way in the Academy voting that won her the Best Actress Oscar but to stop there would do her a great disservice.
Theron adopts a whole body language that says everything you need to know about her character and the point in life where she is at. Tall, stooped shoulders and a manly swagger that suggests a life of hard knocks but she also often sticks her chin and chest out suggesting dignity and fearlessness. This is a person who knows she is in the gutter. She knows there is a “normal” happy life out there being enjoyed by others but is unattainable by her. She is also fiercely proud of the fact that she is a survivor in a cold cruel world that treated her like dirt. She will do whatever it takes to stay alive.
...now you don't.
Based on her looks and her celebrity, Charlize Theron is probably used to being treated like a Queen. She probably gets the best tables at restaurants and never has to pay for drinks. I am sure hotels have rooms available even if reservations don’t exist. I am sure her phone calls are taken and promptly returned by friends and business associates. I am sure people are polite whenever she is at a social gathering or making a mundane transaction at the local supermarket. People are probably happy to see her.
Nobody holds the door open for Aileen Wuornos and Ms. Theron is so thoroughly convincing in her portrayal of this person, a character that is so diametrically opposed to her own experiences, that, by definition, she is a great actress and this is a great performance. It is her movie.
In a superficial skin deep world, Aileen’s looks, lack of refine, taste and social standing make it easy for everyday people to dismiss her as “trash.” These same people who judge her, would, for the most part, consider themselves decent folks. They have a job and pay their bills. They go to church on Sundays and believe in an all loving God. They point to their wives, husbands or kids, their tacky house and their meager possessions as symbols of their righteousness and civility. Yet these same people can not see their basic hypocrisy: By relegating Aileen to the trash heap, passing judgment upon her on a daily basis, they demonstrate an inability to see another human being as a person deserving of love and/or respect.
This salient point is beautifully illustrated in a scene that takes place in a roadside diner between Aileen’s (Theron) new, much younger, girlfriend Selby (Christina Ricci) and Selby’s mother, an evangelical Christian who is very upset with her daughter’s “choice” of living a lesbian lifestyle and specifically her decision to live with Aileen. Although Aileen is paying all the bills, Selby’s mother reasons, “You know she is up to no good. She is just using you for money. I know you are feeling all romantic with this woman but she’s not even gay you know. She’s not like she was born a nigger. She made a choice…” When Selby protests her mother’s obvious bigoted racist statements she dismisses her daughter as “being silly…you know I’m no racist” and then continues to try to convince her that “her soul can still be saved.” She is completely oblivious to the fact that her whole philosophy and raison d’être have no connection with her own actual feelings and actions.
Keep in mind that the mother never talked to or even met Aileen, the new love in her daughter’s life. She just caught a glimpse of her the first night the couple met when Aileen snuck out of Selby’s bedroom window. Selby’s mother has no need to talk to her, she knows that Aileen is no good because she looks like a bad person and the church tells her so. Her attempt “to save” her daughter, with sermonizing and vague threats involving Selby’s authoritarian pious father, actually drives her away. Her actions producing a result that was the exact opposite of what she had intended to happen.
All of society is against Aileen, a situation that is hammered home in a sequence of scenes that show her attempting to go “straight” and get some kind of office job even though she has no experience whatsoever. The prospective employers are extremely rude openly mocking her when she asks them for a job. The movie shows 3 different interviews each one progressively worse than the last, with Theron, having no resume or appropriate clothes, doing some scenery chewing, alternating between begging for a chance and verbally abusing the interviewer.
These scenes play very false to me. I understand it is not a far stretch to think that the interviewers do feel and think what their written dialogue has them saying but they are so rude and belligerent toward Aileen they border on caricature. People in human resources are generally very conscious of outward appearances. Although they certainly are not going to hire this applicant, they are not going to let them know so bluntly. There are reasons “Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” and “We’ll be in touch,” have become clichés of rejection. Then when you consider this story takes place in 1989 or 1990, an era of Clarence Thomas, P.C. and anti-sexism litigation, these supervisors’ behavior would probably be considered unacceptable. Maybe things were done differently in Florida.
To put a punctuation mark on “the world is against me” theme, this sequence ends with Aileen, walking on the street outside the office where she has just been humiliated, being harassed by a beat cop who forces her to perform oral sex on him in his patrol car. Afterwards, on returning to Selby, who by this time, has ran away from her parents and is living with her in a cheap hotel room, she decides to go back to hooking on Interstate 95 because there is no other way to make money. Aileen, in a monologue that is part confession and part declaration, says, “Who am I kidding? I’ve been hooking since I was 13, I don’t know anything else. And besides, I don’t really mind ya know. I don’t care. I only quit because I was afraid of being caught…” She was not afraid of being caught prostituting herself. A week before her speech to Selby, she shot a man to death in a deserted area off the Inter-State and stole his car.
Selby, Aileen’s girlfriend and recipient of her heartfelt words, is one of the more despicable characters put on celluloid. It is Aileen’s faith and trust in Selby that ultimately brings her own downfall. Aileen sees her as “a last shot at a normal life” and welcomes a chance to love and take care of her like a combination lover/mother. I understand her need to care for and about somebody. I understand her need to have somebody, anybody, care about her. In short, I fully understand Aileen’s need to be needed. But, like the Great Gatsby before her, she chose the wrong person to adore and fulfill these needs.
Well portrayed by Christina Ricci, Selby is a whiney, selfish little brat. I am not sure how old she is supposed to be but I would guess in her early 20s. When we meet her she is shy, awkward, still sponging off her parents and has no prospects. She runs off with Aileen and almost immediately starts complaining about money. When Aileen informs her that she wants to stop hooking, Selby doesn’t understand why and gets upset. Upon hearing of the plan, Selby breaks out into a hysterical crying fit and actually says, “But how are you going to take care of me?” While most people her age, on their own for the first time, revel in their new found freedom and responsibility, Selby has no intention of supporting herself. And then she has the audacity to portray herself as the one who is being taken advantage of.
At this point Selby doesn’t know about the murders. Over the next year, whenever Aileen comes home with another car, she is told that it is “borrowed” from a friend. When she eventually finds out the source of these automobiles her behavior is quite curious. At first, she is horrified but then, it seems like the next day, she is egging Aileen on to, “get another car” knowing damn well how she’s getting these cars. When their police sketches appear on TV, Selby only thinks of herself and gladly accepts all of Aileen’s money and gets on a bus to an unspecified location.
Two for the road.
The next time we see her she is sitting in a room filled with police and recording equipment, on the phone with Aileen, who has been arrested, tricking her into making a confession. Selby testifies against her and probably, afterwards, goes back home to her parents as if nothing ever happened. And if anything did happen, in her own mind, it had nothing to do with her anyway. This character is disgraceful and shameful. Aileen’s last chance at redemption turns out to be yet another shrill and hollow person. The world’s betrayal of Aileen is complete.
The Florida of Monster is shown to us as a very grim, very dark place. Every scene seems to be shot at night or mid afternoon with characters waking up in tacky rooms that are a complete mess. Floors and tables are littered with empty beer cans and bottles. Ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts are visible in every shot. After awhile the sets, lighting and circumstances create a realistic look at the fringe of society which is rarely depicted on screen and, with it, the distinctive feeling of an accelerated alcoholic daze that has no beginning and no end.
The exterior shots are mostly on I-95. Car headlights pass by at high speeds as the dimly lit form of the pathetic Aileen stands on the side of the road with her thumb out. Other cars slow to a stop and offer Aileen “a ride” at which time she goes into a tired spiel of being a mother whose truck broke down, she trying to get money to help her kids (She even has a picture), she looking for work, etc. etc. The men driving know this is a load of bull but play along by acting sympathetic and “offering help” etc. etc.
Although the situation is standard, the needs of both the prostitute and the John are straightforward and the outcome of their meeting painfully obvious to both parties, they perform this ridiculous ritual anyway. Social custom requires it. Although what Aileen is doing is called “the world’s oldest profession,” proper society pretends these meetings never occur, so, to do their part, the participants pretend they don’t happen either. Is it really a surprise the majority of Aileen’s clients are married who, on a deserted stretch of road at midnight, in the back seat of a 1983 Chevy Chevette, would share an extremely intimate moment with a woman who, if they saw again at noon in downtown, the very next day, would cross to the other side of the Street just to avoid looking at her? Like a house of cards, lie is placed upon lie, waiting for a wind to blow them all down exposing the accumulated self hatred and degradation that lurks just under the surface of a proud exterior.
One night that wind does come, taking the guise of a “client” who picks up Aileen right before she is about to “punch out” and go on her first date with Selby, who she met in a gay bar sometime earlier.
Aileen might or might not have “accidentally” stumbled into that gay bar. I believe there is some room for speculation. She says definitively upon settling down on a barstool, “I’m not gay ya know…just my truck broke down.” This of course is yet another lie, and she ends up going home with Selby, a shy girl, who had been buying her drinks all night. If Aileen was in denial or not is irrelevant because she certainly sees her new “friend” as her last shot at happiness. In a voiceover narration, right before she enters the bar, she explains how she was just about to kill herself, “…but I wanted a last drink, asking God for a sign… and then… there she was.”
The client turns out to be a brutal psychopath. He drives her to a secluded spot and after some awkward conversation and playful haggling over price he begins to beat her to a pulp eventually knocking her out. When she awakes she is in the front seat, bound to the passenger side door, bent over with her pants and underwear down. This guy appears through the open driver’s side door and asks if she is awake. He then proceeds to rape her with a tire iron as well as forcibly kicking her in the genitalia. After pouring what I believe to be rubbing alcohol (I can’t be sure nor do I understand) all over her battered body he yells “You better be ready for some fuckin’” and goes to the trunk of the car evidently to get some more torture instruments. Terrified and screaming Aileen manages to wriggle her hands out of the rope and grabs a gun that is in a handbag which I believe was her own. When the rapist reappears in the driver side doorway she shoots him several times, I think I counted six.
She takes the dead man’s car and drives it to Selby’s house who, by this time, understandably thinks she was stood up. Knocking on the bedroom window, accidentally waking her parents up, a bizarre scene out of a 1950s romance comic book plays out. Aileen convinces Selby to run away with her and, as another piece of voice over narration earlier stated, “It seemed that love conquered over all.” The validity (or lack there of) of that statement, which is referenced several times by Aileen (As voice over narrator), will be a running theme throughout the movie.
I would like to apologize for my graphic description of the rape scene but I felt it was absolutely crucial for you to understand how graphic and despicable it was. I hope it made you feel uncomfortable and uneasy because that is the way I felt when I was watching it but it is was by no means gratuitous. I think it was an almost expressionist way (No, I am not crazy I know it was shot quite “realistically”) of demonstrating the truly putrid way this person has been treated by life. In her voiceovers and dialogue, throughout the film, the bad things that were done to her as a child and an adult are hinted at and mentioned.
Evidently she was raped repeatedly as a child by her father’s best friend (“Friend” = Lie); She was pregnant and gave up the baby at the age of 13; By that same year both her parents were dead so she already was “working the street” to support her brother and sister; That same brother and sister a few years later were so ashamed (“Ashamed”=Self Loathing) of her “work,” which incidentally kept the two of them fed and clothed, threw her out of the house in the middle of winter (She was originally from the upper mid-west so it was cold and snowing). Throw in the disrespect as an adult she receives from “polite society” and the use and abuse she receives from clients (The “clients” and “polite society” are many times the same people. She is first humiliated and then she used by them making her feel guilt and pain for something they themselves secretly crave and, because of there ability to maintain a reasonable “front,” are free to practice with no serious consequences for the most part. Yet more lies and hypocrisy) as well as the voluntary self pollution for almost 30 years and you have a victim of severe emotional violence with wounds that go way beyond the lines on her face provided by external make up. How does a film maker express these interior wounds that may only manifest themselves when the character is off screen, tossing and turning at night in the dark, tormented about her “wasted life” and the pain of a new day?
I could see the reason for someone not wanting this gruesome scene in the film or maybe shoot it more “suggestive” and less literal. It will probably offend some people. For that matter I could understand Ms. Theron not wanting to be in it. It is frank, raw and exposed. I think the director, Patty Jenkins, made the correct choice shooting it and the actor showed a lot of courage playing it.
First of all, by pointing the camera at such a disgusting crime and not blinking, the Ms. Jenkins plays fair. She is allowing the audience to catch a glimpse of the dangerous world of Aileen Wuornos. She lives everyday with the knowledge that the next car that stops and the next $20 sex act could possibly become a struggle of life and death. Saying this hard simple truth, writing about this terrible circumstance is a lot less effective than showing the actual cold inhuman reality. Events like this unfortunately do happen in this country and do we really benefit if we close our eyes and pretend they don’t?
Secondly, Theron’s expressions are completely believable spanning the entire emotional spectrum during her character’s ordeal. Beginning with confusion upon opening her eyes, she runs the table. Pain, fear, panic, determination, anger and rage are all presented to the viewer in a logical progression of the state of mind of a woman who is under attack. It is a superb performance that demonstrates a complete catharsis, a culmination of a lifetime full of unfair abuse by terrible flawed people, too many to count, a list that also includes herself. I think you could even sense a slight hint of relief and satisfaction right before the scene comes to an end.
The interiors in this Florida are no less forgiving or aesthetic than the highway. Shot after shot takes place in dimly lit apartments, cheap sleazy motel rooms, run down gin joints, the front seats of cars and the cabins of trucks and vans. The characters in these enclosed unventilated spaces are constantly smoking. Even when they are not lighting up, smoke seems to always be visible in the air possibly as a physical manifestation of the metaphoric Hell they inhabit.
"St Peter don't you call me..."
A brief respite from this nightmarish underworld is one of the only scenes I can remember that was brightly lit. Aileen takes Selby to a Denny’s like restaurant to prove to her that she is “…going to get you anything you want. Nice things…” When a waiter tells her that Selby can not smoke at the table Aileen, like a wild dog protecting her pups, jumps up and verbally assaults the man in a profanity laced tirade. They then both leave in defiance and it’s back to the booze, smoke and darkness. It is clear that Aileen will never fit in the World of Light so she is banished back into the shadows. Only in Florida could a Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast with a side of sausage be anyone’s idea of Heaven.
The dive bars are seen as dying places. People sit around framed between flickering neon beer logos and shabby slabs of wood, listening to bad music, liquoring themselves up so they forget their lot in life. Their demeanors and behavior indicate that they are not there to have a good time but to fill a need or kill a feeling which is only achieved at oblivion. The payoff of these never ending sessions of self mutilation is some sort of meaningless physical exercise. Be it a sexual encounter with a stranger or an outburst of physical violence, the pain these people carry around inside can only be masked and never healed through this regiment of self medication. The truly sad part is Aileen knows this.
I would argue that the only time there is anything that can remotely be called “joy” in this dead end world is when they are regaling each other with tales of how they are smarter than everyone else and their next “plan” on how they are going to be on “easy street.” Observe Aileen’s face as she tells the other patrons about her disastrous job interview. Making it clear that, “…I told him to go fuck off! That’s right. Like I want your fuckin’ job, sit at a desk, answer a phone. Fuck that! Fuck you!” As she continues her story the others nod agreeably and are visibly impressed. Feeling validated she smiles a genuine smile. At that moment, in her triumph, she has no recollection of Aesop’s fable, “The Fox and the Grapes.”
A woman goes out into the “real world” intent on finding a job. She fails so totally that, after a short period of time, she feels that there is absolutely no other choice then to sell her body to strangers on an interstate which can only lead to self loathing and destruction. Utterly defeated she looks to numb her torment with legalized poison. Her only sense of satisfaction is when another societal outcast pats her on the back reassuring her how one day she is going to beat this system. She never understands that her downward spiral into nothingness is the system.
I have no idea if that was the point the storyteller was trying to make in that scene but it is what I took out of it. For all I know, the director wanted this scene to be a stellar positive example of the human spirit. Maybe her moral was no matter how much life beats you down and no matter what obstacles are put in your way, we, as people, have within us the strength to persevere and overcome. We all possess the ability to stand up and say, “I am a human being. I have worth God damn it!” But, then again, there is all that smoke.
The men in Monster’s Florida are sadists, dullards, sleazy, primal and just plain all around assholes. Pretty much every male character is depicted in an extremely negative light. There is the above mentioned rapist, cop and the interviewer who only care about degrading and humiliating women. There are the sleazy Johns who only care about satisfying their base cravings for physical gratification. There is Selby’s father who is portrayed as a dense religious fanatic who is seen once, maybe twice, but whenever his name is mentioned the other characters cringe as if they are going to receive God’s wrath. Then there are all the other male characters that barely have any lines if any at all. Bar patrons and passerbys who are often pictured with leering and devious facial expressions. Bearded and wearing biker jackets they look like fugitives from a 1970s exploitation movie. Even the casually dressed people have an ominous accusatory aura about them.
They DO NOT appear in Monster.
Watch the scenes that take place in the roller rink where Selby and Aileen go on a date. Evidently this is The Place in town that young adults go to have fun but it doesn’t feel that way. The camera follows Selby and Aileen from the dining area where they eat and then, after Aileen coaxes Selby, onto the rink itself. First of all the lighting, like the bars and hotel rooms before, is dim. At the time the story takes place the music being played is probably about 10 years old. The other patrons are all concerned with what other people are doing and look at each other in jealousy and fear. Finally the two of them sneak out into a pitch black alleyway where they make out passionately the only light coming from the entrance door which periodically opens with people leaving the rink who, of course, take a final ridiculing shot at the couple. The director seems to give a joyous Friday night out the real “Florida Treatment.” She paints a portrait of boredom and stagnation, a place which any attempt at joy is met with ridicule and contempt.
There are three exceptions to the “men are pigs” rule that I can remember. One is the guy who runs the storage units where Aileen seems to be living in at the beginning of the movie. An ex-Vietnam Vet (Bruce Dern), he is seen as the only person who has any compassion towards Aileen. This is implied in the scene when Aileen, with no money for the rent, offers “to blow him” but he declines telling her to “just pay me when you get it,” and offers her his sandwich. His character is not fleshed out too much but, I believe, he is suppose to be another person with a good heart that society has steamrolled over and forgotten about. A kindred spirit in this Sunshine Hell.
Another is a mentally retarded man who picks up Aileen on the road. Thinking he is “playing dumb” Aileen berates him at first, accusing him of being rapist, and plans on shooting him. When it becomes obvious he is mentally challenged, Aileen shows some remorse, takes pity on him and gives him a hand job.
Her fate is sealed
The third one is the last of Aileen’s victims. The man picks her up on the highway but does not want sex even though Aileen offers. He genuinely wants to help her and offers her a place to stay and get cleaned up. She pulls a gun on him and he begs for his life. He brings up the fact that he has a family including expected grandchildren and Aileen for a moment is in turmoil yelling at him to shut up. She kills him anyway. I think this scene tries to be a counter weight to the rest of the movie which is totally sympathetic to a serial killer.
Throughout the entire film, Aileen is viewed as damaged and justified in her anger which manifests itself in these killings. All of her victims are portrayed as somewhat deserving of their fate to varying degrees. Think of her second victim, a paying client who asks Aileen if she will “Call me daddy.” Aileen then correctly asks, “Why? Do you want to fuck your kids?” Obviously, with her history, the thought of child abuse is very pertinent and the rage begins to build culminating in another shooting. I’m not suggesting the director is saying the man deserves the fate he receives but cold blooded murder is portrayed almost as “explainable.” It is the same as the “she was asking for it” rape defense but with the genders reversed.
She has spent her whole life justifying the poor choices she has made. She rationalizes with her friend, the Vietnam Vet, that she is a “victim of circumstance.” But Aileen’s last victim is not a creep, rapist or pervert. He is simply a good samaritan who saw another person in need and wanted to lend a hand. For this lapse of judgment, Aileen sentences him to death. This act completes her transformation from lost soul to a true monster.
Florida - 1948
There seems, as of late, to be a trend in the way Hollywood depicts Florida in the movies. Not only does Monster see this part of the country as an economically depressed, somewhat backward powder keg waiting to be set off by some arbitrary act of stupidity or boredom, but other recent titles come to mind with the same point of view. Bully is about the murder of a neighborhood jerk by his friends. Sunshine State is about economic and racial injustice in the emerging Floridian underclass. Even Secretary paints a picture of mentally damaged people who escape their problems through sexual perversion.
This is a far cry from the tranquil cinematic depictions of the past. Think of Cocoon’s energetic retirees. The colorful characters and locales of The Birdcage. The gooey sweet wholesomeness of Flipper. The stylized glamor of several noir/neo-noir films such as Body Heat, Get Shorty and Key Largo. There are many words you can use to describe the characters and situations in any one of these films but “pathetic” does not come to mind.
Florida - circa 1986
I, personally, have only been to Florida once in my life and it was for only four days. Not only was my visit such a short one, but I spent the entire time in South Beach so I confess I do not know how “real” people live down there; I only know how they suck the money out of clueless tourists. In other words, I simply can not vouch for the validity or reality of any of these movies.
But there is something I have observed over the years. I know several people who relocated to Florida. They live in varying parts of that state and they are of different ages. Some are older and some are younger. Some are very good friends and some are slight acquaintances. They do not have much in common with each other and have differing political, religious and ethnic backgrounds.
And yet, no matter which one of them I talk to over the phone, no matter what time of the year it is, at least several minutes of each and everyone of our conversations is eventually dominated by my friend telling me how great it is down there and how much they love it. They tell me that, “The weather is fabulous,” reassure me that, “There is so much to do down here,” take the easy pot shot “How can you stand it in overpopulated New York,” and wind it all up with the inevitable question, “So, when are you coming to your senses and moving to paradise?” Their descriptions of Florida are so over the top that I have come to the realization that they’re not doing it to try to sway me over to their point of view. They are trying to convince themselves.
Something tells me the real world down there is a lot closer to Monster than it is to Miami Vice.
Gov. Jeb Bush
Nuff said
Sixth Army
