Evil

I don’t really have much to discuss because I already blogged about Funny Games, but Rachael touched on a very important theme of Funny Games so I thought I’d expand on that.

People generally believe two comforting ideas: a) evil is segregated and b) evil is rare, uncommon, and easily recognized. This is why it’s easy to sit back and watch a movie like The Unborn (horrible, horrible movie) without being too afraid because there’s no way that a ghost would try to take over your twin’s body in real life. Funny Games challenges these ideas—the two villains in Funny Games were not ghosts, seemed intelligent and rational, and had the exterior of ordinary human beings. I’m sure if Jason had come knocking on her door asking for eggs Naomi Watts wouldn’t have let him in. However, Paul and Tubby seemed so normal that Naomi Watts failed to detect any hint of evil. Funny Games most definitely sends the message that a) evil is ubiquitous and b) evil is commonplace, ordinary, and often unrecognizable. Now this is a thought that would cause me to lose sleep.

Side note: evil intruding into ordinary people’s lives is a common theme of Alfred Hitchcock, a well respected director. I studied him briefly last semester and that’s actually where I got the comforting ideas/challenging ideas.