Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers: The John Tanner Remark Fueling Misogyny Accusations

Netflix just dropped a new Aileen Wuornos doc with a sensational title, but the real gut-punch here isn’t the murders you already know about. It’s the way the system talked about her, tried her, and labeled her — and how much of that came down to pure, old-fashioned misogyny.

The case that defined the narrative

The documentary zeroes in on Wuornos’s 1992 trial for the murder of Richard Mallory. She said she shot him in self-defense after he assaulted and raped her. Here’s the part that will make your eye twitch: Mallory had a prior record for sexual assault, yet Florida State Attorney John Tanner kept the jury’s focus squarely on Wuornos’s sex work and “morality,” not on Mallory’s past.

Tanner, who stepped into the job after publicly pushing an anti-pornography agenda, framed Wuornos as inherently corrupt — the kind of person who couldn’t be a rape victim because she sold sex. His courtroom posture boiled down to this:

"You offered to have sex, and you’re laying there naked on your back. And the man paid you. And you say it’s rape when he’s kissing and getting on you?"

That attitude wasn’t happening in a vacuum. Wuornos was a rare woman in a category the media usually reserves for men, and coverage gleefully reduced her to the “hooker from hell.” The doc reminds you how much of the spectacle was about judging her as a woman first and a defendant second.

The hypocrisy that’s hard to ignore

One of the stranger details the film surfaces: Tanner was a born-again Christian who spent hours praying with Ted Bundy as part of his prison ministry. Grace for Bundy, condemnation for Wuornos. If you’re feeling whiplash, same.

What the film actually does

Director Emily Turner isn’t trying to canonize Wuornos. The movie uses archival footage, prison interviews, and audio to explore her trauma, her relationships, and the legal and cultural pressure cooker around her — without pretending she didn’t do horrific things.

"There are some people who talk about whether she’s a feminist icon. I think the truth of what she did is brutal."

Turner also says the team kept close contact with victims’ families and refused to mine their grief for drama. And the doc includes a raw, previously unheard conversation with filmmaker Jasmine Hirst where Wuornos shrugs off the idea of being a victim — a posture Turner found devastating, because of how casually Wuornos references what she grew up enduring.

The outcome, and what the doc asks you to sit with

Wuornos was found guilty in Mallory’s case and later pleaded no contest to the remaining first-degree murder charges. The film isn’t arguing she didn’t kill; it’s asking whether the courtroom ever gave her a fair hearing as a victim of violence herself — or whether her gender and job made that impossible from the start.

• Title: Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers
• Focus: The misogynistic framing around Aileen Wuornos’s trial and public image, alongside her crimes
• Key players: Aileen Wuornos; State Attorney John Tanner (anti-porn crusader, prayed with Ted Bundy); Director Emily Turner
• Notable angle: Mallory’s prior sexual assault record contrasted with Tanner’s decision to center Wuornos’s sex work
• Materials: Archival footage, prison interviews, never-before-heard audio
• Release: October 30, 2025
• Where to watch: Netflix (US)
• Crimes and charges: Wuornos was convicted of killing seven men in Florida between 1989 and 1990; convicted for Mallory’s murder and pleaded no contest to the rest

Bottom line: the film doesn’t excuse her. It just refuses to let the ugliest biases off the hook. If you watched, I’m curious — did Tanner’s approach change how you see the case, or just confirm what you suspected about that courtroom?