Netflix loves to present fans of the true crime genre a new film or show to watch. Often, it breaks down what a serial killer did or the case itself. But with Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers, director Emily Turner allowed her subject to do the talking.
Aileen Wuornos was a serial killer who killed at least seven people from 1989-1990. She was a sex worker in Florida and killed and robbed a string of men up until her arrest in January of 1991. While she is one of the very few female serial killers, her story is a complicated one. Wuornos claimed in many of these cases that she was defending herself despite what the public said and it has made her one of the more infamous killers. And the most controversial for how people react to her story.
Wuornos has a history of being sexually abused, hurt, and abandoned throughout her life. In Queen of the Serial Killers, she talks about how she ended up getting a gun for herself after one of her clients tried to kill her. Originally, she said every man she killed was in self-defense and then the reports change but what the new documentary does is highlight how the system worked against Wuornos at every turn.
Often, men get a way with killing women for years before anything is done. We’ve seen time and time again how many reports go out, missing people are never found, and yet these men are rarely brought to justice in a quick manner. Obviously, with Wuornos, that was different. She was caught quickly and the Florida court system showed her no mercy. But the documentary also shows a sexist system that can act quickly, just when it is men being harmed.
The complicated story of Aileen Wuornos
Wuornos has always been an outlier. For most of America’s history, the serial killers people talk about are men and, for the most part, they’re hunting and killing women. With the exception of men like John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer, these killers are actively searching to hurt women for one reason or another.
And watching as the police continue to fail women and we get to see just how many women have to die before they really care hurts. Especially when, in Wuornos’ case, she was stopped within a year. What she did is always going to be up for debate. She claims she killed one man after he sexually assaulted her and killed the other men right before they had the chance to. That’s her story and one she stuck by until she was executed in 2002.
But I did find this documentary to be a real spotlight on the problems within our system. The police acted quickly and swiftly when men were being murdered but I often find myself afraid watching these true crime stories because women can be murdered and discovered in the same place for years with no one caring.
“She is so confusing and so complex, which runs so in the face of how we like women to be,” Turner told Netflix’s Tudum. “And something that felt really important to me was that we weren’t here to make an apology piece about what she’d done. I hope that people come to really different conclusions.”
Wuornos’ story isn’t easy to watch but Turner did something new with the true crime genre and it is well worth the watch!
(featured image: Netflix)
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