In the 2004 film “Monster” directed by Patty Jenkins and based on the true story of serial killer Aileen Wuornos, there is a brief scene where one of the main characters is shown buying what are implied to be stolen baseball cards.
The film tells the story of Aileen Wuornos, a sex worker who murdered seven men in Florida between 1989-1990. Wuornos claimed all the killings were in self-defense. One of the other main characters in the film is Selby Wall, played by Christina Ricci. Selby is a young woman living in Florida who befriends Wuornos.
In one scene, Selby is shown entering a local store that appears to sell various collectibles like coins, toys, and memorabilia. When she enters, there are a group of boys at the counter showing the store clerk a box filled with baseball cards. As Selby browses the aisles, the dialogue implies the boys stole the box of cards from someone’s home and are trying to sell them to the store clerk.
The clerk examines the cards but does not seem interested in purchasing the entire box, believing they may have been stolen. He offers the boys a small amount of cash for just a few rare cards from the box to avoid any potential legal issues. Frustrated, the boys start to leave still carrying most of the box.
Selby, overhearing the situation, approaches the boys and offers to buy the entire box of cards from them for a bit more cash. The boys agree and Selby exchanges the money for the box. She does not seem concerned about the implied stolen nature of the goods. She takes the now purchased box of cards and leaves the store, intending to flip the cards individually for profit or keep valuable ones.
This brief scene serves multiple purposes in the film. It helps establish Selby’s character as someone who will take part in petty criminal acts and questionable dealings to make easy money. As a side character to Wuornos, it shows Selby is also living on the fringes of society and engaging in small illegal acts of opportunism. The scene also suggests the rural Florida town the film is set in has a bit of an underworld where stolen goods may be fenced through stores or individuals.
Legally, if the cards truly were stolen, both the boys who stole them and Selby who knowingly bought them could potentially face charges, though the film does not depict any legal fallout from the transaction. The store clerk avoids culpability by only purchasing a few cards rather than the whole box. This scene remains relatively short in the overall film but provides context for the kind of minor criminal networks and unscrupulous money-making Selby operates in on the periphery of Wuornos’ larger crimes.
In the 2004 film “Monster” it is Selby Wall, played by Christina Ricci, who is depicted knowingly buying what are implied to be a box of stolen baseball cards from a group of boys trying to fence the goods. This brief scene helps establish Selby’s character and suggests the shady underground dealings that may have taken place in the criminal underworld surrounding Wuornos in rural Florida at that time period.