Our BetterMost Community > The Polling Place
Least Favorite Character in BBM
loneleeb3:
--- Quote ---I got a hard time watching it too, but because I lived it, and I know too well what comes later, when the couples part ways and drive home in silence to their resentment and obligation-filled homes. That kind of silence between man and wife can lie so thick on the dark bedroom it seems only a gunshot can break it.
--- End quote ---
Me too.
Itis so true. :-\
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: atz75 on June 13, 2008, 09:51:44 am ---Now that really would be embarassing!! I don't think I've ever bumped into anyone hard enough to actually knock them over... and needless to say, especially not a celebrity. The fact that it was one of the stars of the movie just makes the whole situation even wackier.
--- End quote ---
Though if she'd have stuck around and reached down to give him a hand up, who knows where it might have led! I had a friend in junior high who had a crush on Paul McCartney. Her plan to meet him was to park outside his house and then ram into his car when he came out.
:laugh:
--- Quote from: Marge_Innavera on June 13, 2008, 11:10:14 am ---However, the flashback clearly shows Earl's body just as it was left and it evidently hadn't been found yet. But Ennis' father knows exactly where it is, and makes sure that he takes his sons to see it before it's discovered.
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Good point. Even the best-case scenario -- that he somehow heard of it before the sheriff did but wasn't directly involved -- is still pretty bad.
I did once know someone to make a tongue-in-cheek argument that Mr. Del Mar took his sons to see Earl out of concern for their welfare and safety ("Be careful, boys, this is a homophobic society, so if you happen to be gay, be sure to be discrete!"). But unless you buy that, there's really no way around it -- Ennis' dad was evil. Ennis must have grown up in a state of contant terror.
--- Quote from: brokeplex on June 13, 2008, 11:36:07 am ---Mr Newsome really got on my nerves! He was my one and only vote, I wish I could make it count as 3 votes.
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Nice to see you around these parts, brokeplex! :)
Brown Eyes:
--- Quote from: seriouscrayons on June 13, 2008, 12:27:36 pm ---Though if she'd have stuck around and reached down to give him a hand up, who knows where it might have led! I had a friend in junior high who had a crush on Paul McCartney. Her plan to meet him was to park outside his house and then ram into his car when he came out.
:laugh:
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:laugh: I'm still trying to envision how the situation with Jake took place. I mean, Jake seems like a pretty sturdy boy... to actually bump into him hard enough for him to topple over... it must have been one seriously forceful bump. And the fact that she just high-tailed it out of there is also sort of funny. I keep having Charlie Chaplin-like scenarios run through my head with this story.
--- Quote ---Good point. Even the best-case scenario -- that he somehow heard of it before the sheriff did but wasn't directly involved -- is still pretty bad.
I did once know someone to make a tongue-in-cheek argument that Mr. Del Mar took his sons to see Earl out of concern for their welfare and safety ("Be careful, boys, this is a homophobic society, so if you happen to be gay, be sure to be discrete!"). But unless you buy that, there's really no way around it -- Ennis' dad was evil. Ennis must have grown up in a state of contant terror.
--- End quote ---
Yes, I agee that Ennis's Dad's knowledge of the incident, possible direct involvement and interest in showing off the body... especially to young children who would have been terrified (regardless of their own future sexuality) make him a particularly dreadful character. If nothing else, dragging children to see a murdered body seems to amount to pretty intense child abuse on a psychological level.
Thinking about Ennis's Dad is interesting compared to other characters on the list... because our only knowledge about him in either the film or the story comes through the filter of Ennis's memory/ description. We don't encounter him as a living, active character in the same way that we do other characters on this list. At least we meet OMT "ourselves' in the Lightning Flat scene and can make some judgments independent of another character's perspective. In the film, I think they show Ennis's Dad as headless, faceless and voiceless... because he's only a semi-character. For Ennis as an adult his Father is something of a conduit or symbol that helps carry Ennis's fears along I think.
Marge_Innavera:
--- Quote from: seriouscrayons on June 13, 2008, 12:27:36 pm ---I did once know someone to make a tongue-in-cheek argument that Mr. Del Mar took his sons to see Earl out of concern for their welfare and safety ("Be careful, boys, this is a homophobic society, so if you happen to be gay, be sure to be discrete!"). But unless you buy that, there's really no way around it -- Ennis' dad was evil. Ennis must have grown up in a state of contant terror.
--- End quote ---
Part of the rationalization I read was that this was the equivalent of shooting a dangerous animal in the neighborhood -- i.e., the Ennis' good ole dad had the best of motives in trying to protect his family from a man whom he thought was a threat to them, especially to his sons.
Horse puckey.
I live in an agricultural area -- beef cattle farming, to be exact -- and farmers around here have no compunction whatsoever about shooting a dog, a coyote, anything that's threatening their livestock. And I'm sure some of my neighbors have shot rabid dogs and other animals as well; and if an animal that can give you rabies isn't a deadly threat, I don't know what is.
However, the MO in these cases is you shoot the animal, kill it as quickly and cleanly as possible, get it over with. Anyone who went to great lengths to torture and terrorize and degrade the animal, show the mutilated body to their children and then laugh about it would be regarded by their neighbors, and quite rightly, as a dangerous sicko.
Lureen's father, I've heard suggestions that he might have had something to do with Jack's death. Don't see much basis for that, but I'm sure he would have felt, and expressed, some satisfaction in a circumstance where he didn't think he would be challenged.
Marge_Innavera:
--- Quote from: atz75 on June 13, 2008, 01:16:00 pm ---Yes, I agee that Ennis's Dad's knowledge of the incident, possible direct involvement and interest in showing off the body... especially to young children who would have been terrified (regardless of their own future sexuality) make him a particularly dreadful character. If nothing else, dragging children to see a murdered body seems to amount to pretty intense child abuse on a psychological level. Thinking about Ennis's Dad is interesting compared to other characters on the list... because our only knowledge about him in either the film or the story comes through the filter of Ennis's memory/ description. We don't encounter him as a living, active character in the same way that we do other characters on this list.
--- End quote ---
Yes, we do see Ennis' father only second-hand and it's interesting that he's faceless in the movie, which is just as well -- everything a reader/viewer really needs to know about him is in Ennis' narration (ss) or the flashback (film). But the way the plot unfolds, the biblical phrase the sins of the fathers are visited on the children is pretty apt.
I'm in a strange mood today though, and what came to mind, when I started thinking about this again, was a quote from one of my favorite popular novelists, Dean Koontz:
...There are no explanations for evil. Only excuses.
(Again, not a reference to any comments posted here.)
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