NEW VOICES: Charlize Theron Criticizes Death Penalty After Her Movie Role

Charlize Theron, who recent­ly won a Golden Globe Award for her por­tray­al of exe­cut­ed Florida death row inmate Aileen Wuornos in the movie ​“Monster,” has stat­ed that mak­ing the movie made her more aware of how ​“inef­fec­tive” cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is. Theron, who is opposed to the death penal­ty, was only 15 when her own moth­er shot and killed her drunk­en father after he threat­ened to kill his wife and daugh­ter. ​“I don’t think con­demn­ing peo­ple who mur­der and then killing them nec­es­sar­i­ly sends out the right mes­sage. And I have a huge prob­lem with the way these peo­ple are used as polit­i­cal pawns,” said Theron, a native of South Africa. Theron’s por­tray­al of Wuornos showed her as a home­less pros­ti­tute who was sen­tenced to die for a series of mur­ders she com­mit­ted after a killing in self defense. Theron has also been nom­i­nat­ed for a best actress Academy Award. (Reuters, February 8, 2003) See New Voices and Women and the Death Penalty.