Idol, Champion, Femicidal Killer: An Intersectional Analysis of the Series Monzón

The television series Monzón, released in 2019, is a loose adaptation of the book Monzón, Secreto de Sumario by María Adelina Staiolo. In addition, according to the title card that appears at the end of each episode, it is based on real testimonies, graphic and audiovisual archival material, and publicly available information. From its promotional material, the creators make clear their intention to focus on the investigation and trial surrounding the femicide of Alicia Muñiz in February 1988. However, when watching the series, it becomes evident that the true protagonist of the fiction is the man who gives it its name: Carlos Roque Monzón. Beyond his role in the crime, across 13 episodes we learn about his childhood, his beginnings in boxing, his rise to fame, and his relationships with his partners and children.

It could be said that the story adopts a holistic approach to portraying the femicide of Alicia Muñiz in fictionalized form, taking into account the life trajectory of the perpetrator. This makes it possible to move away from a single, linear analysis of the story’s outcome and instead adopt an intersectional perspective that allows us to observe how race and gender interact, generating different dimensions of the protagonist’s experiences. These categories function as basic organizers of the distribution of social resources and produce observable class differences.

In 2018, Judge Alicia Ramos Fondeville explained in an interview why, despite the case being classified as simple homicide and the prosecutor requesting an 18-year sentence for Carlos Monzón, the court ultimately imposed a sentence of 11 years. Her explanation was that violence was viewed as a mitigating factor due to the environment in which Monzón grew up and the sport through which he achieved fame.

Like any social behavior, aggression can be understood as being shaped through the process of socialization. Socialization is the result of interactions among individual, group, and social factors. While the family is one of the primary agents of socialization, others include peer groups, schools, and the media. This means that violence responds to a particular “learning matrix” that cuts across individual development and group dynamics and is deeply embedded in local culture.

Under patriarchy, the idea of the superiority of stereotypically masculine qualities—such as strength and aggressiveness—pushes men to demonstrate them. Machista behaviors are compelled by the need to prove to oneself and to others that one is a “real man.” In the socialization of boys, many of these attitudes are imposed even against their peaceful preferences or calm dispositions. In adulthood, this demonstration of “being a man” can become expressed through violent domination over women, as reflected in the series.

Monzón came from a working-class family in Santa Fe, which meant that by the age of eight he had to leave school to work and contribute to the family’s income. In addition to working as a shoeshine boy, one scene in the second episode shows him being forced to steal food at the age of nine to satisfy his own hunger and that of his siblings. Proudly, he serves himself a larger portion than the others, explaining that he is “the manliest.” This phrase reveals his early identification with an ideal of masculinity tied to strength and dominance over those who must be subordinated—within a context of upbringing marked by violence and neglect, as is reinforced moments later when he is punished by a police officer who burns his hand with the stolen pot.

At eighteen, violence remains a constant in Monzón’s life. After being involved—once again—in a street fight, a police officer gives him an ultimatum in the series: either begin training with Amílcar Brusa or serve a six-month sentence. Once he chooses boxing, his new trainer asks why he wants to enter the sport. Monzón’s answer is blunt: he needs money, and he was told that “boxers get the best women.” Violence thus represents, for the character, both a means of social mobility through sport and a way to reaffirm his masculinity and attract female attention.

Understanding the boxer’s origins also allows for an analysis of how the series portrays racism. On more than one occasion, Monzón expresses discomfort at being referred to as “negro” or similar terms. In Argentina, this word is not used solely to describe Afro-descendants, but is often applied more broadly, regardless of skin color.

This phenomenon can be linked to Achille Mbembe’s concept of the “becoming-black of the world.” The figure of the “black” was invented to signify exclusion, brutalization, and degradation; with the fusion of capitalism and animism under neoliberalism, the systemic risks once faced only by enslaved Black people now threaten all subaltern groups. This produces a form of “racism without races,” in which “culture” and “religion” replace biology. In Argentina, this racism is visible in terms such as cabecitas negras, negro de alma, morocho, and similar labels applied to members of the working class.

One revealing moment occurs when Monzón meets Susana Giménez and she calls him “negrito.” Although her intention is affectionate, Monzón reacts angrily. This contrasts with his habitual use of “negra” to refer to his first wife, Pelusa, who was raised in circumstances similar to his own. The difference lies in context: when spoken by a woman from Argentina’s upper-middle class, the term reinforces a stigmatizing system of contrasts that can function as a harsh insult. This highlights how even acts of self-identification or reappropriation by stigmatized individuals must also be examined as part of broader discriminatory discursive practices.

Another striking moment occurs in the final episode, when Alicia Muñiz insults Monzón using the term “negro” during a fictionalized argument prior to the femicide. This illustrates what Blázquez calls the “metonymic/aggressive” position in racist common-sense discourse, where behaviors deemed negative in subjects associated with certain phenotypes or class positions are interpreted as inherent traits—“things blacks do.”

Class is also marked through Monzón’s manner of speaking. As his first wife explains, people noticed that he did not pronounce certain letters “correctly” because he never progressed beyond second grade in school. For this reason, in the film La Mary, his voice was dubbed by actor Luis Medina Castro.

When, in episode eight, his daughter corrects his speech, the series reminds us that Monzón’s life embodies the success of the meritocratic dream: a journey from extreme poverty to millionaire contracts in the ring. While he could not continue his education, his children grew up well educated and without the need to work to survive, and thus did not inherit some of the stigmatized traits associated with their parents.

Returning to the series’ promotional poster, it is clear that the production team sought to market the show by strategically referencing the crime that shocked Argentina in 1988. This makes it necessary to reflect on the complexities of that crime.

Violence against women is understood as any sexist act that results in—or may result in—physical, sexual, or psychological harm, including threats, coercion, or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life. These acts are committed by men in the name of a privilege or power perceived as constantly at risk unless control over a woman—understood as their possession—is maintained. One of the most dangerous moments for victims is when they attempt to separate.

It is important to note that men, too, are subject to cultural norms and are prisoners of the dominant social system—patriarchy. Tendencies toward domination are not inscribed in male nature, but are constructed and learned through socialization. Men are taught to assert superiority, strength, leadership, and control in order to achieve what is equated with virility, often defined by sexual capacity and aptitude for violence.

The character of Monzón repeatedly reacts violently when he feels a woman challenges his authority—whether by disagreeing with him or criticizing him. He assaults his daughter when she brings bad news about custody of his son; he hits Susana Giménez for criticizing Tito Lectoure; he attacks his wife Pelusa for scolding their daughter; and his final argument with Alicia Muñiz begins when she criticizes his spending. Many of these scenes involve alcohol, a detail often used to excuse his behavior—an explanation later echoed by Susana Giménez, who described him as “wonderful” except for drinking and retiring from competition.

When recounting the events of February 14, 1988, Monzón claimed Alicia had “annoyed him” and insisted he “never meant to kill her,” appealing to what Azpiazu calls male corporatism: a patriarchal complicity among men. Such complicities are often invisible because they are embedded in common sense and socialization. When Monzón explained that he slapped Alicia to “calm her down” because she was “hysterical,” he sought the understanding of police and lawyers, assuming shared norms.

This complicity was publicly acknowledged by Ernesto Cherquis Bialo, then director of El Gráfico, who admitted journalists had ignored Monzón’s violent behavior to avoid disturbing the idol. Similar attitudes appear in Susana Giménez’s recollection of their first meeting: after Monzón kissed her without consent, her boyfriend excused it by saying, “Let it go, he’s the world champion.”

Silence is the most common form of male complicity, along with the difficulty of understanding the criminal nature of the act committed. The femicide of Alicia Muñiz appeared in the news of the time as a “consequence” of “arguments” and “couple’s fights”—a tragic event, but not an unusual one. It is worth noting that, in a very similar way, on February 19, 1980, in Mar del Plata, actor Alberto Locati beat his wife, attempted to strangle her, and threw her out of a window. The difference between this episode and the one committed by Monzón is that Eva Cielito O’Neill survived, and the situation was popularly viewed with humorous overtones. Likewise, in 1986, the boxer Andrés Selpa shot his wife twice; despite her injuries, she survived. Although he pleaded guilty, like Locati he later had further problems with the justice system for other cases of violence against women—perhaps foreshadowed by what he stated on the TV program Yo Fui Testigo: “a woman is an object for a man.”

The murder of Muñiz was constructed by the press as a passionate and confusing drama, without addressing its strong characteristics of domestic and sexist violence. In his first statement before Judge García Collins, Monzón said that he had hit “all [his partners] and nothing ever happened.” While it is true that none of his former partners had died at his hands, there had indeed been consequences. To name just a few examples: he was reported to the courts for violence by his first wife and received a two-year sentence that he never served due to a pardon granted in 1977 by the vice admiral governing Santa Fe, Jorge A. Desimonio; Susana Giménez later confessed that she left him because she considered him dangerous and believed she could die if the relationship continued; and Alicia Muñiz had filed multiple complaints against him for physical and economic violence and death threats.

In November 2012, the Chamber of Deputies of the Nation unanimously approved a bill proposing the reform of Article 80 of the Penal Code to incorporate the legal figure of femicide, defining it as a crime against a woman when the act is perpetrated by a man and involves gender-based violence.

Before this historic event, it can be argued that cases such as the crime committed by Monzón, among others, contributed to the process of constructing gender-based violence as a public issue on Argentina’s agenda. After the notoriety of this crime, the number of women reporting gender violence multiplied, in a context in which the police were reluctant to accept complaints and women were hesitant to file them. It is not a minor fact that divorce was legalized in Argentina in 1987, and a major concern for these women was how to support themselves economically in the event of separation from a violent partner. One development that improved this situation was the opening of the first Women’s Police Station in the country, in 1988.

The media of the time covered the femicide of Alicia Muñiz by describing it as “something accidental” or “confusing.” Under this view, neither victims nor perpetrators nor issues associated with gender violence are identified; rather, the event is framed as a tragedy. This was also how Carlos Monzón himself viewed it. When he stated that he had hit his partners and nothing had ever happened, he described how he had assaulted his former partner and later publicly said, “Alicia must have forgiven me by now”—a statement he likely did not make with cynical intentions.

Many men are not aware that actions they have committed can be categorized as abusive or violent. Similarly to an example provided by an author in his text, in episode 13 of the series we see the boxer “force her a bit” to have sexual relations with him despite her refusal. Just as Monzón was not aware that this act constituted sexual assault, his statements suggest that he viewed what happened on February 14, 1988 as a tragedy, yes, but one resulting from yet another couple’s argument. In fact, he publicly stated that “in every couple, one has 50% and the other has 50%.” He explained that Alicia was therefore “to blame for having gone to Mar del Plata,” because he had been alone with his son since early January, and that his own fault was “having drunk so much those days.”

Based on the above, while his actions are undoubtedly condemnable, it is possible to outline an explanation to understand them using an intersectional perspective that takes gender and race into account, as Crenshaw does in her well-known work on the experiences of women of color. Carlos Monzón reflects the qualities of a construction of masculinity specific to his time, his class of origin, and various events that marked his life trajectory through the process of socialization.

The precarization of life among the popular sectors affects masculinity in a pronounced way, because it is grounded in patriarchal values that define roles through certain traits which, when deprived of identification with the group, falter: the role of provider, the dominating management of the household, the respect accorded to being the “head” of the family, among others. Growing up in extreme poverty, as one of the eldest children in a family of fifteen with an absent and alcoholic father, turned Monzón into a premature adult. He did not have a full childhood or adolescence, as he had to become involved at a very young age in solving the everyday problems of his household, in a context of violence and neglect.

This violence that residents of poor neighborhoods face on a daily basis is a “bottom-up” response to the systematic structural violence to which they have been subjected for decades. These young people are confronted very early with a bleak future and a present that demands production and consumption without offering concrete spaces to achieve them. Faced with this reality, Carlos found a way out for himself and his family through boxing.

Within this context of upbringing, the series shows Monzón’s identification with an ideal of masculinity characterized by attributes linked to strength and dominance over those who are to be subordinated from childhood onward. In adulthood, this demonstration of “being a man” becomes evident in his violent imposition over women through different forms of physical and verbal aggression.

This way of interacting with women is not unique to the boxer. His life, as well as those of Locati and Selpa mentioned above, are merely examples of a systemic problem that runs through society; gender-based violence is not random, isolated, or explained by abnormal characteristics of the abuser or the victim, nor by family dysfunction.

Returning once again to the series’ poster, we might say that today Carlos Monzón is perceived by many as an “idol, champion, femicidal killer.” However, based on the bibliography and the graphic and audiovisual archives of the period reviewed in this article, a more accurate statement is that he was a man profoundly shaped by a socialization and upbringing that imposed a masculinity rooted in violence—an imprint that explains the way he treated his partners.