Death Cult

Death Cult - While part of Hollywood (presumably the part that's not busy counting receipts) is busy yammering about the "gore" in the Passion of Christ, another part of Hollywood seems to be quite blind to bloodshed.

"Monster", starring Charlize Theron as the title character, female serial killer Aileen Wuornos, is technically an excellent movie. Theron is a wonderful actress, the last woman on earth I'd ever have expected to say that about.

But, as Michelle Malkin notes, the movies has a subtext. The movie is, and traffics in, a rather abusive set of fictions, treating Wuornos as a victim both of her targets and of the system. The movie portrays many of her victims as johns, but...:

As her biographer Sue Russell noted recently, Wuornos ruthlessly gunned down complete strangers, some in the back as they tried to escape. "I'm one who seriously hates human life and would kill again," Wuornos coldly bragged. She fantasized about a Bonnie-and-Clyde-style life of crime, cunningly covered her tracks, and nonchalantly made off with her victims' belongings to bring home to her lesbian lover. The entertainment media routinely lump Wuornos' victims together as her "johns." But Russell concluded that "it's just as likely that some were simply good Samaritans lending a helping hand, since Aileen's modus operandi was to hitch rides, claiming her car had broken down. These men have been demonized in a way in which we would rarely demonize female homicide victims. And that has brought incalculable pain to some of their families."

But focusing on the devastation that Wuornos caused to her victims' wives and children wouldn't play well in Berlin or Berkeley. Championing the crime victims instead of the criminal wouldn't have allowed a starlet such as Theron to bask in the spotlight and further the leftist agenda.

That is why Susan Sarandon won an Oscar for "Dead Man Walking," but Charles Bronson never got a nod for "Death Wish."

And why a grotesque musical drama on the life of serial killer Andrew Cunanan is in the works, but not on the life of his most prominent victim, fashion designer Gianni Versace.

The death penalty is at a bit of a low ebb in the US right now, and I'm not entirely broken up about it. I don't especially support the death penalty - partly on religious grounds, partly because people are inherently corrupt and stupid, and juries and prosecutors are no exception to that rule.

But when I see who is on my side, and why, I tread very lightly on the issue.

Posted by Mitch at February 27, 2004 03:38 AM