Monster

The film, Monster, which is based off a true story, depicted the life of Aileen Wuornous (played by Charlize Theron), one of America’s first female serial killers. Though she was born in Michigan instead of the rural south she definitely embodied qualities of “white trash” mentioned within Price’s article, White Trash: The Construction of the American Scapegoat. In Price’s article he mentions that “one class gets the sugar and the other gets the shit,” and in Aileen’s case this was unfortunately true. Firstly, Aileen was clearly “poverty stricken and powerless” (Price), her father was a child molester and spent most of his life in and out of prison. Aileen never managed to receive much education and succumbed to using drugs at a very young age and even became a prostitute at the mere age of 15 when she became homeless.

In the movie, Monster, she clearly embodied the biological differences of a working class white as she was portrayed as being “less intelligent, unattractive (In fact, Charlize Theron had to undergo an extensive make-UNDER in order to play her character, which included gaining a lot of weight, wearing false teeth to make her teeth look more crooked, making herself appear more unkempt and dirty), poor, sick, lazy, dirty” (Price). Furthermore, she embodied moral differences such as being “trashy and violent” (Price). Aileen began having sex with multiple partners at a young age, even including her brother and became pregnant at the mere age of 13 after claiming to be raped by an unknown man. She then became a prostitute and experienced the most violent period in her life when she killed 7 of her clients. She lived in various motels from day to day and often had to shower at gas station bathrooms.

Here is a picture of Charlize Theron before her make-under to look more like Aileen Wuornous:

In Price’s article he mentions that “the working class white is burdened with all the crimes and guilt of the white race over time”, and Aileen’s murder rampage only goes on to reinforce this ideology. It is unfortunate that this is the case as many of these working class whites do not have any control over the life that they are thrust into; some of them just don’t have enough money to afford education even if they want to and their only means of survival is through menial labor. It’s unfortunate and society should focus on helping them out of this plight instead of creating them as scapegoats for the rest of society’s problems.