Violently Opposed

I was talking to Clemo this evening (thanks for calling!) and the subject of capital punishment came up. Don't ask. It just did. It was on my mind because, in recent memory, a commenter on another blog spoke proudly of his support of the practice. I'm opposed to capital punishment for a host of reasons but I get that it's also a highly emotional issue in ways that make it impossible to change some people's minds. However, on another couple of levels, for me, it's a pretty practical one. On the level of humanity and morality the system is irretrievably flawed so that it simply doesn't make sense to me to kill someone when it's so likely the wrong person will be killed. On that practical level, though, it's more expensive to kill someone within this system than it is to lock them up until they do the croaking on their own. (I don't have the stats to hand just now but I'm certain that any anti-capital punishment site will serve them up to you easily. It's not something I've heard just once.)

Clemo: Blah blah blah* the system sucks blah but blah capital punishment.

Me: As a New Englander I've got one base argument. It's more expensive to kill someone than to keep them locked up.

Clemo: (Beat) Oh.

(Pause)

Clemo: OK but what about the basic human need for revenge.

Me: (beat) Um....Buddhism?

Interestingly enough when Clemo called I was in the middle of watching A History of Violence. I finished the movie when we got off the phone and it's quite serviceable as a mainstream exploration of the aforementioned basic human need for revenge. Viggo does really good work, as do Maria Bello, William Hurt (who I saw on the street the other day) and Ed Harris among others. What I like most about it, though, is the actual violence. This shouldn't be surprising from a woman who watched Xena for years for the stage combat. I don't know enough about the director, David Cronenberg, to say for sure but I think it's a thing of his to avoid gratuitous violence while making extremely violent films. This one is no exception. It's a movie populated with violent people who do violent things and who inspire nonviolent people to violence as well. (Any second now the word is going to lose all meaning to me, what about you?) None of it, however, is made light of nor is it glossy and pretty. I was disgusted on a relatively regular basis. Not one drop of blood, though, failed to be in the service of moving the plot and teaching the lesson.

Here I'm going to talk about the lesson and that's going to involve spoilers in case you don't want some of those.

It's a story about a guy who lived a life steeped in acts of violence against others and made a choice to stop. He worked diligently for years to remove the part of himself who perpetrated those acts and became the local diner owner in a small town, a guy who would never harm another person. The film meets up with him at a time when the life of the original violent guy's world invades the new guy's life in unavoidable ways. The movie is a discussion of how violence impacts a personality, many personalities, and an exploration of whether or not it's possible to fully leave behind violence once you've been exposed to it.

Speaking of which, just after I watched the John Adams series I read a blog entry from a Christian homeschooling mom who had rented the series from their local library and watched it as a family learning opportunity. Apparently they almost stopped after the first episode (here comes another small spoiler) because there is a brief scene where someone is tarred and feathered. The mother seemed to be slightly resentful that the reviews she'd read had not cited the movie as being violent. On the one hand she was showing it to a wide age range of kids so I understand that it may not have been appropriate for all of her children and it would have been nice to have known. On the other hand it's a movie based on the autobiography of a man who not only lived but engineered the Revolutionary War (hello, I'm from New England, that's what we call it). Next to the Civil War this is probably the most violent and turbulent time in US History. I think it's only right that they showed the actual violence of the time. I think, in fact, that it would have been irresponsible of the filmmakers to have removed the violence. A lot of people, myself included, are learning key historical lessons from this movie, to clean it up so that Tipper Gore (sorry, Ms. Gore, I know you've done a lot of good in yoru life but you will forever be the Excessive Warning Label Lady) will give your flick the stamp of approval.

Life is violent. We live in a country that condones capital punishment while using a system that routinely executes innocents is proof of that. Our country is engaged in a war (don't call it a political action) which is routinely blowing the youth of America up into teensy bits. Guns in schools. Death by shitty health care. Michael Vick. To reduce this violence we have to, I think, be honest about it. Pretending it doesn't exist will do us more harm than good in my Vic Mackey-loving opinion.

*No offense to the speaker, here, I just can't remember exactly what we said right before this exchange.