Glorified Crimes

Does remorse, blurt out the secret sin. And yet, I think the opposite is worse: Crime detected, glorifying crime.

Antigone, a Greek tragedy, presents an interesting dilemma which is not exclusive of our time, but which seem to have expanded in our time. We have, contemporarily, grown to love the thrill of crime. It is all around us. But, as I said, it is not limited to contemporary stages but has been around forever. Still it seems that it has grown by "leaps and bounds" during the past few decades. We see this exaltation of crime in all of the art forms but more so in film.

How to Steal a Million with Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole was later restructured in a similar (not identical) refilming titled The Thomas Crowne Affair (with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo). Another film of the same calibre would be The Italian Job with Charlize Theron and Mark Wahlberg. Or if not we could go through all of the Ocean's series with George Clooney and Brad Pitt (without omitting, of course, the original Oceans 11 with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr.). But all these criminals are of a more up to date nature. We could go farther back and try out the Bonnie and Clyde films. Or, the one that sparked this controversy for me (and the one I want to see), Public Enemies with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. If we wanted we could head back to the wild wild West days and talk about the Jesse James movies or even Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. If that's not enough we also have the Robin Hood controversy.

Do you see the pattern? All of these films create an appreciation for the antihero. The bad guy is the one we cheer for and want to win. The crook, scoundral, killer, and perpetrator are now the ones we want to protagonize our screen. It's no longer about Prince Charming or the white knight. No, now it's all about the dragon and the black knight. It's not about the hero, it's not even about the victim. No, it's all about the bad guy now. The Bible speaks of this, rather it warns us of this. It say's that towards the end there will be a triumph of evil over good. It say's that what is good will be bad and what is bad will be good. Have we begun to open the doors for that with what we choose to watch for movies?