{"id":177,"date":"2011-08-27T20:48:35","date_gmt":"2011-08-28T00:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/?p=177"},"modified":"2019-03-24T07:17:27","modified_gmt":"2019-03-24T11:17:27","slug":"when-movies-arent-bloody-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/when-movies-arent-bloody-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"When Movies Aren’t Bloody Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"

So the other night, I finally saw The Crow<\/em>, the 1994 cult-classic starring Brandon Lee.\u00a0 I found myself rather disappointed with the film by the time the credits began to roll.\u00a0 Given how the typical complaint is that movies like this are too violent and bloody, I was surprised to find that my disappointment was due to the movie not being nearly bloody enough<\/em>.<\/p>\n

To briefly recap the plot, the movie begins with Eric Draven (Lee) murdered and his fiancee, Shelly Webster, beaten, raped, and left dying the day before their wedding.\u00a0 We later learn that they were victimized in order to scare the community that they were trying to rally together against a group of thugs.\u00a0 According to the opening narration, some wrongs are so great that a soul cannot rest.\u00a0 In such cases, the crow that ordinarily takes the soul to the next world instead brings it back to Earth, nigh-invincible, until things are set aright.\u00a0 The returned Draven therefore proceeds to systematically kill each of the men involved in the crime in ways that are both brutal and slightly thematic (the druggie is drugged to death, the pyromaniac is burned, etc).\u00a0 In short, the horrible men die in horrible ways.<\/p>\n

So why weren’t these mildly poetic executions satisfying?\u00a0 Now, I’m not the sort who prefers to dismiss retribution because it has no utilitarian justification (e.g. because justice can’t bring people back from the dead.)\u00a0 Leaving wickedness unanswered because the answer is unhelpful to us is nothing more than dismissing victims as unimportant.\u00a0 The punishment should fit the crime because it is a public corroboration of the value of what was destroyed.\u00a0 The point of retributive justice isn’t merely to punish and vindictively make sure that bad things happen to bad people, but to recognize and demonstrate the value of those harmed in the injustice.<\/p>\n

Shouldn’t I, then, have been pleased that justice was served and the villains got what was coming to them?\u00a0 That’s just the problem;\u00a0 they didn’t<\/strong> get what was coming to them.\u00a0 The punishment did not fit the crime.\u00a0 Visually, the movie is quite impressive, and the audience is treated to brief flashes of the couple’s life together before their murder.\u00a0 The filmmakers were quite effective in communicating that the villains destroyed not only a couple of lives and a chance at happiness in an otherwise bleak world, but an embodiment of values like love, marriage, family, and community.\u00a0 Does scaring the criminals for a few minutes before violently killing them really balance this out?<\/p>\n

Earthly justice is only a shadow of the real thing; it cannot expiate all wrongs.\u00a0 “An eye for an eye” is clearly not ultimate justice because you can only execute a serial killer once.\u00a0 None of us is capable of making up for all the harm we have done to others, so it is no surprise that earthly justice cannot force such a redress.\u00a0 We can only expect so much out of it.\u00a0 Setting aside concerns about the distinction between revenge and retribution, I might see some satisfaction when Benjamin Martin finally kills the man who killed his sons in The Patriot<\/em> or when Frank Castle utterly destroys the man who murdered his family in The Punisher<\/em>.\u00a0 These characters were ordinary men going as far as ordinary men can go in the pursuit earthly justice.\u00a0 But The Crow<\/em> wasn’t just earthly retribution carried out by a normal human being–the heavens sent back a magical juggernaut to right a great wrong.\u00a0 Was this really the best the heavens could manage?\u00a0 It is precisely here, where even killing doesn’t hit the mark, that Hell begins to make a kind of sense.<\/p>\n

As many people point out, eternal torture of bad people merely because that’s what bad people deserve is unhelpful at best and sick & twisted at worst.\u00a0 It is far more sick and twisted, however, to simply shrug off evil–to dismiss a young couple’s rape and murder by saying “it happens; we’ll do out best to avoid a recurrence.”\u00a0 On one hand, Hell doesn’t make anything better;\u00a0 on the other hand, dispensing with Hell for the guilty is treason to the innocent.\u00a0 It is precisely this dilemma that tortures Ivan in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov<\/em>:”<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not worth the tears of that one tortured child who beat itself on the breast with its little fist and prayed in its stinking outhouse, with its unexpiated tears to \u2018dear, kind God\u2019!\u00a0 It\u2019s not worth it, because those tears are unatoned for. They must be atoned for, or there can be no harmony. But how?\u00a0 How are you going to atone for them?\u00a0 Is it possible?\u00a0 By their being avenged?\u00a0 But what do I care for avenging them?\u00a0 What do I care for a hell for oppressors?\u00a0 What good can hell do, since those children have already been tortured?”<\/p>\n

The solution to Ivan’s dilemma is found in the Cross.\u00a0 The forgiveness offered by Christ is free and boundless, but it doesn’t make light of the sin.\u00a0 God does not diminish our neighbors by shrugging off the evil we have done against them.\u00a0 Instead, he punished it to the fullest.\u00a0 However, in order to save us, the punishment fell on God Himself when Jesus Christ took our place before the judgment seat.\u00a0 Every last evil deed has been atoned for–we, as victims, were not dismissed.\u00a0 At the same time, however, we, as the wicked perpetrators, were not punished, but forgiven.<\/p>\n

Movies like this can provide some legitimate satisfaction because they depict the same thing that earthly justice is meant to depict–an image and shadow of heavenly justice and a reminder that we are under authority.\u00a0 Heavenly justice, however, requires a higher standard–one which is met by the Cross rather than the Crow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So the other night, I finally saw The Crow, the 1994 cult-classic starring Brandon Lee.\u00a0 I found myself rather disappointed with the film by the time the credits began to roll.\u00a0 Given how the typical complaint is that movies like … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,38,31],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhen Movies Aren't Bloody Enough - The 96th Thesis<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/when-movies-arent-bloody-enough\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When Movies Aren't Bloody Enough - The 96th Thesis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"So the other night, I finally saw The Crow, the 1994 cult-classic starring Brandon Lee.\u00a0 I found myself rather disappointed with the film by the time the credits began to roll.\u00a0 Given how the typical complaint is that movies like … Continue reading →\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/when-movies-arent-bloody-enough\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The 96th Thesis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-28T00:48:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-03-24T11:17:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Matt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@matt_e_cochran\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@matt_e_cochran\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Matt\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/when-movies-arent-bloody-enough\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/when-movies-arent-bloody-enough\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Matt\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/026b49396f19b6940e8bb4a68d94b5fa\"},\"headline\":\"When Movies Aren’t Bloody Enough\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-08-28T00:48:35+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-03-24T11:17:27+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/when-movies-arent-bloody-enough\/\"},\"wordCount\":965,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/026b49396f19b6940e8bb4a68d94b5fa\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Culture\",\"Gospel\",\"Law\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/when-movies-arent-bloody-enough\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/when-movies-arent-bloody-enough\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/when-movies-arent-bloody-enough\/\",\"name\":\"When Movies Aren't Bloody Enough - The 96th Thesis\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-08-28T00:48:35+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-03-24T11:17:27+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/when-movies-arent-bloody-enough\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/when-movies-arent-bloody-enough\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/when-movies-arent-bloody-enough\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"When Movies Aren’t Bloody Enough\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/matthewcochran.net\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The 96th Thesis\",\"description\":\"The Devil Never Sleeps; 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