An Evaluation of the Crimes of Aileen Wuornos Movie and the Need to Consider Her a Victim
A serial killer is often defined as a criminal that kills multiple people. In the case of Aileen Wuornos only half of this is true. Indeed Wuornos was someone who killed multiple times, but was she a criminal? Some may argue that Wuornos's acts alone deem her a criminal, but by looking deeper into her case, it is obvious she is not. Due to her broken past Wuornos should be considered a victim rather than a criminal. Wuornos was a victim her whole life, and created an altered state of reality as a result. She saw men as the enemy and in turn acted upon her natural instincts. Granted Wuornos's killings are still not justified, but she cannot simply be looked at as a criminal, instead she must be looked at as a victim.
When discussing the facts of Aileen Wuornos's case, many state she is simply a criminal. It is argued that if a person kills someone out of cold blood then they are a criminal, but what is a criminal? Often a criminal is someone who obtains this label by committing a heinous crime such as robbery or murder. It is a person that's actions are unfavorable by society at a high standard and who commits these crimes out of cold blood. In the case of Wuornos many believe that several of the facts lead to this label.
When looking at her case it is often pointed out, that she had several characteristics of a predatory serial murderer. A predatory serial murderer is someone who, goes after a select group of people with the plan to kill them. These killers are said to share several defining traits. In studying these traits, some of them match Aileen's personality. "Minimal or absent displacement of the target of aggression... private rituals following the predatory aggression... or heightened self-esteem" Each of the three listed, match traits that Wuornos displayed. Given so Wuornos is often listed as a criminal, and in these cases her social background and history are disregarded. Many argue that the history of one cannot be an excuse for the future acts of that person, and just because Wuornos had a rough child hood is no excuse for the actions, that she committed.
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Granted Wuornos cannot be excused for the murders that she committed, but her past cannot be simply over looked, and conclusions cannot be drawn that classify her. The whole picture needs to be looked at in order to judge Wuornos of her actions. The fact that she had a working relationship, an unstable childhood and fear and anxiety, allows a different outlook on Wuornos; an outlook that no longer deems her a criminal, but rather a victim.
In looking at the case of Aileen Wuornos, many factors played into her anger, and killings. The beginning of these factors occurred before she could even have control of them. As a child Wuomos's childhood seemed hopeless from the beginning. Her father Leo Pittman was a convicted felon and her mother a young girl only 15 years of age. Her mother had no ambitions of keeping her child and Leo was in jail for rape. When Aileen was just a baby, she was left crying while her mother laid passed out drunk on the couch. Eventually after only a year of caring for Aileen her mother ran away for the second time leaving Aileen, with her grandfather, Laurie.
At the time it seemed as if things couldn't get worse, but as Aileen got older her grandfather began to beat her and her step brother Keith. "Aileen described sadistic abuse committed by her grandfather. She recounted numerous beatings with a leather strap on her bare buttocks."(Arrigo and Griffin 383) These gruesome beating continued for several years, and until the age of 11 it was believed that Laurie and Britta (Laurie's wife) were the maternal parents of Keith and Aileen. Britta was described as women with a kind Demeanor, but lacked parenting skills. (Arrigo and Griffen) These facts of Aileen's life are evidence of her broken childhood.
In looking at the past of Wuornos, the attachment theory comes into mind. The attachment theory is the thought that a child's relationships shape a child's future. Bowlby the creator of the theory; focused his research on "The attachment patters of infants formed, attenuated, or severed through interaction with the mother arguing the relationship was pivotal to the social, emotional, and personality development of an individual" (Levy and Blat, 1999).
In other words Bowlby studied the ways in which attachment at a young age affected someone's, emotional and social development. Ultimately Bowlby's findings, discovered that a child with little attachment or abusive attachment resulted in an individual that had insecure anxious and ambivalent attachment patters. (Arrigo and Griffen) When looking at Aileen's past, almost every event tied into the detachment side of the studies.
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An Evaluation of the Crimes of Aileen Wuornos Movie and the Need to Consider Her a Victim. (2023, Jun 27). Retrieved from https://phdessay.com/an-evaluation-of-the-crimes-of-aileen-wuornos-movie-and-the-need-to-consider-her-a-victim/
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