Why Monster (2003) Is a Raw Lesbian Love Story

Monster (2003): A Brutal Lesbian Love Story That Still Haunts Me

I was barely 19 when I first watched Monster (2003) on a cracked DVD a friend passed around our little queer house-share. Everyone warned me: “It’s heavy. It’s dark. Charlize Theron is unrecognizable.” But nobody warned me that I’d fall completely, stupidly in love with the doomed, messy, heartbreaking lesbian relationship at its core.

Yes, I said lesbian relationship. Because no matter how many film bros try to frame it as “just a crime biopic,” Patty Jenkins’ masterpiece is, at its beating heart, one of the rawest queer love stories ever put on screen.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: Charlize Theron won the Oscar, gained 30 pounds, wore dentures, and basically erased every trace of her supermodel beauty to play Aileen Wuornos, a real-life sex worker who killed seven men in Florida between 1989 and 1990. The transformation is legendary. But what always guts me isn’t the murders – it’s the love story between Aileen and Selby Wall (played by a baby-faced Christina Ricci).

Selby is young, awkward, sheltered, and very, very gay. The moment she walks into that bar wearing a silly rainbow shirt (subtle, 1980s Florida), you know exactly what’s about to happen. Aileen, broken by decades of abuse, rape, and survival sex work, spots this soft girl who looks at her like she’s a person – not trash, not a body, not a monster. And something in Aileen cracks wide open.

Their first kiss? Electric. The way Aileen kisses Selby like she’s terrified it’s a dream she’s about to wake up from – I felt that in my chest. That’s the kiss of someone who’s never been loved gently. That’s a lesbian kiss born out of desperation and hope in equal measure.

People love to call this a toxic relationship (and sure, it is). Aileen lies, manipulates, kills to keep Selby close. But watch it again through a queer woman’s eyes and tell me you don’t see the layers. Aileen isn’t just “crazy.” She’s a woman who was pimped out as a child, raped repeatedly, thrown away by every system meant to protect her. Then finally – finally – someone wants her. Someone chooses her. And she will burn the whole world down before she loses that.

Selby, for all her naïveté, isn’t just a victim either. She’s drawn to Aileen’s danger, her rawness, the way Aileen makes her feel alive in a town that wants to pray the gay away. There’s a scene where they roller-skate together under neon lights, laughing like teenagers, and I swear I’ve lived that moment – that fleeting joy when you find another dyke in a world that hates you both.

Patty Jenkins never shies away from the ugliness. The sex scenes are clumsy, frantic, sometimes almost violent – because that’s what happens when two women who’ve only known trauma try to touch each other softly. But there’s tenderness too. The way Aileen brushes Selby’s hair. The way Selby cries when Aileen says “I love you” like it’s the first time anyone ever meant it.

And let’s talk about Christina Ricci for a second. Babygirl gave one of the greatest queer performances of the 2000s and nobody ever talks about it. Her wide eyes when Aileen comes home covered in blood, the way she flinches but still reaches out – that’s the push-pull every lesbian who’s ever loved someone “difficult” knows too well.

The tragedy, of course, is that their love was never going to survive the world. Not 1980s Florida. Not the cops. Not Aileen’s rage. Not Selby’s fear. When Selby finally betrays her on the stand, it’s not just plot – it’s the oldest lesbian story in the book: one of us always gets scared and runs back to safety.

I re-watched Monster last week, almost 20 years later, and I cried harder than I did at 19. Because now I’ve lived long enough to know how rare it is to see a lesbian love story this unfiltered – no soft lighting, no coming-out speeches, no happy ending. Just two women trying to hold on to each other in a world that wants them dead or invisible.

Charlize Theron has said in interviews that she felt protective of Aileen, that she saw her humanity. I get it. Because when you’re a queer woman who’s been called a monster for wanting too much, for being too loud, too angry, too needy – watching Aileen love and be loved, even for a moment, feels like someone finally saw us.

So yeah, call it a crime drama if you want. Talk about the makeup and the Oscar. But for me and a lot of other lesbians who grew up with this movie, Monster will always be the story of the only person who ever looked at Aileen Wuornos and said, “You’re not a monster. You’re my girl.”

And honestly? We all deserve someone who loves us like that – murderous tendencies or not.