Jeffrey Dahmer. Ed Gein. John Wayne Gacy. In terms of modern American history, these names suggest human behavior at its most extreme: individuals plagued by intense and disruptive psychopathologies who went against codes of morality and decency, leaving behind a slew of victims. They are names familiarized through publicized manhunts and images of mutilated corpses, echoing on pop culture shows like America’s Most Wanted, and made infamous through films depicting their countless acts of sadism, torture, and rape. These are the names of the kind of people most of us would never want to meet. And yet, when it comes to fictionalized versions of these types, we are all eyes and ears, unapologetically drawn to them — and perhaps even titillated — through a fascination with the aberrant.
Over the past few decades, the worldwide cinematic market has produced innumerable films detailing humanity’s dealings with violence. Everything from the historical to the invented has been mapped out and projected onto the screen: Westerns, war-themed action films, science fiction, horror, dramas portraying interpersonal abuse — the permutations have been endless. As time progresses, the demand for such fare has not diminished. Box office records in the United States show that the most popular films contain violence: Titanic (Cameron, 1997) and Star Wars (Lucas, 1977), the two highest grossing films of all time (Internet Movie Database), feature scenes depicting human casualties in historical and fantastical contexts, respectively. And even hard-nosed critics seem to view violence in films as beside the point; instead, as indicated by the recent acclaim given to David Cronenberg’s aptly-titled and at times graphic A History of Violence (2005), the critical assessment is based more on how violence is used in a film, as well as what comments the film makes about it. Our propensity to drift toward these accounts leaves one to wonder: why are we so attracted to something fictionally, when, in reality, most of us abhor its physical, moral, and social consequences?
In his essay titled “Gangsters, Cannibals, Asthetes, or Apparently Perverse Allegiances,” theorist Murray Smith attempts to answer this question. Instead of focusing on cinematic violence as a whole, however, Smith zeros in on our attraction to morally bankrupt, villainous, or what he deems “perverse” characters. After all, the violence depicted in film, as in real life, is often dependent on the action of an individual (or groups of individuals). Smith’s concern, though, is not with the stereotypical movie villain (the one with the secret lair and the plan for world domination — or at least the plan to possess a grand sum of money), but rather with characters who mirror the accepted conception of an actual human being. These characters live within the bounds of a somewhat if not completely recognizable reality, and their distinctive traits lie in their dysfunctional pathologies.
In an attempt to show what “perverse allegiance” encompasses, Smith cites many examples, including Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992), where the spectator finds him- or herself rooting for Eastwood’s rogue cowboy, and Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994), where the spectator delights in carnage carried out by witty hitmen. He also analyzes The Silence of the Lambs (Demme, 1991), and focuses on our preoccupation with Hannibal Lecter. Why, Smith seems to ask, are we not repelled by a character like Hannibal? He has all the makings of someone we should wholly loathe, detest, and fear, and yet, there is a part of us that refuses to shy away from his horrific characteristics. Why do we find difficulty in passing judgment on this morally abject character when, if he were to exist in real life, we would not hesitate to toss him into the same pool as Dahmer, Gein, and Gacy? Through both this essay and his Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema, Smith proposes answers to these questions and others like it, and constructs a method by which spectators eventually wind up in seemingly forced and uncomfortable positions, such as the perversely committed.
In the following pages, Smith’s ideas will be outlined and scrutinized using two cinematic examples, The Silence of The Lambs and Seven (Fincher, 1995). These films, chosen because of their serious tone and similarly detective-themed narratives, involve what might be the most confounding aspect of Smith’s “perverse allegiance” theory: the audience’s identification with serial killers. As stated in the opening and previous paragraphs, we find ourselves attracted to such characters, yet would probably balk at the opportunity to be in the presence of one in real life. Why is this? And are we, as spectators, positioned by filmmakers to respond in such a way, or are we free agents with the capacity to respond flexibly to texts? The goal of this paper is to examine the theory of “perverse allegiance” for what it is, as well as what it could be.
“Gangsters, Cannibals, Aesthetes, and Apparently Perverse Allegiances” begins with the question of how to define “perversity.” According to Smith, in keeping with common definitions and the filmic understanding of the concept, perversity should be viewed as “the deliberate violation of moral precepts” (217). Smith also suggests that perversity is a kind of measuring of the taboo and how it is represented and perpetuated, and goes on to reveal his interest in audience response to such portrayals of the bad and/or corrupt. This definition, however, is simply the tip of the iceberg. To fully understand Smith’s use of the term, one must grasp his previously formed theory of the spectator’s emotional identification — or, as he calls it, “engagement” — with cinematic characters.
In his introduction to Engaging Characters, Smith points out that “[o]ur propensity to respond emotionally to fictional characters is a key aspect of our experience and enjoyment of narrative films” (1). Smith places great emphasis on characters, even more so than the narrative, as is made evident when he claims, “…Characters are central to the rhetorical and aesthetical effects of narrative texts. Character structures are perhaps the major way by which narrative texts solicit our assent for particular values, practices, and ideologies” (4). In other words, a screenwriter can concoct the greatest story in the history of cinema, but if the characters are unbelievable or do not carry a certain amount of emotional or intellectual weight, a spectator is less likely to be moved by the narrative. Smith spends a portion of Engaging Characters ruminating over the psychological processes of spectator perception or recognition of character and spectator imagination, but a full summary is unnecessary. It is key to note, however, that Smith believes “when we engage with a fiction… we do so on the basis of knowledge developed in a much broader sphere than the merely fictional” and while “we need our experience of the world to ‘get into’ the text…the text itself may transform the way we understand and experience the world” (54). This is why forming an allegiance with a filmic serial killer is so confounding: it suggests that film may, indeed, manipulate us into changing our views of what is or is not morally acceptable.
Smith adamantly does not believe in “identification” with characters. Citing Richard Wollheim’s theories of imagination, Smith argues that the concept of “identification” would require us to “centrally imagine” (the spectator places him or herself within the imagined scenario, from the point of view of someone in that scenario), and while there are certainly aspects of central imagination that come into play while watching a film — Smith points to emotional simulation, motor and affective mimicry, and autonomic responses like jumping at a loud noise on the soundtrack — the overall experience of viewing a film is dictated by “acentral imagining,” where the spectator entertains an imagined scene, but not from the specific point of view of a character (76-77, 80-81). Identification, Smith says, would require us to “mistake ourselves for the central character… imagine the events of the narrative from the (physical and mental) perspective of the character… or imagine ourselves in the exact situation of the character” (80). For instance, if a building were about to collapse on the protagonist of a film, identification would require us to exhibit the exact same physical and emotional traits as the character in the film — probably those of intense fear, anxiety, and disbelief at the prospect of being crushed and killed. Since this, according to Smith, fails to happen, he argues that whatever emotional response the spectator has to the filmic scenario is one of “engagement” (93). The engaged spectator is a knowing agent, who yields to his or her emotions during a film, but does not lose sight of the fact that he or she is viewing a fiction.
Smith argues that empathy, too, does not exist. He names this idea the “Structure of Sympathy.” Sympathy, in Smith’s book, is in no way, shape, or form the twin of empathy, but rather, a call to recognition of character. His “Structure” is comprised of three parts: recognition, alignment, and allegiance. Recognition, “the perception of a set of textual elements, in film typically cohering around the image of a body, as an individuated and continuous human agent…” (82), is the first step to understanding character. When we see Hannibal Lecter, we recognize him as a character because of his bodily structure, his ability to verbally communicate with other characters onscreen, and his possession of what seems like real human emotion. The next step, alignment, is “the process by which spectators are placed in relation to characters in terms of access to their actions, and to what they know and feel” (83). Alignment is further dictated by its own structure, or a “systemic regulation of narrative knowledge” (Ibid.). The positioning of character in terms of narrative is important here, and how little or how much we know about characters determines how aligned we are with them. In The Silence of the Lambs, due to the amount of information we are given in regard to character (through visual cues, dialogue, etc.), it is safe to say we are aligned with Clarice Starling. Finally, the last and most important step is allegiance, which is the moral evaluation of a character based on reliable access to a character’s mind, the context of a character’s actions, and the extent the viewer has of this knowledge (84). Allegiance is not always present. It is crucial to realize a film may align a spectator with a character, but not give rise to an allegiance between the two.
What does this mean in the context of Smith’s perverse allegiance theory? The Structure of Sympathy is applicable to perverse allegiance because of our eventual identification of said allegiance through it. Further defined in “Gangsters, Cannibals, Aesthetes, and Apparently Perverse Allegiances,” allegiance is “the way in which, and the degree to which, a film elicits responses of sympathy and antipathy toward its characters, responses triggered — if not wholly determined — by the moral structure of the film” (220). Smith also adds that “allegiance often takes place on the basis of traits that we wish or desire to possess, rather than those we actually do possess” (221). For example, if a filmgoer that views him-or herself as weak watches American History X (Kaye, 1998) and, through filmic flashbacks, views Edward Norton’s skinhead as a strong individual, he or she may form an allegiance, despite the atrocities the character commits. This is not a given, however, since alignment does not necessitate allegiance. Smith writes, “…[T]he contrast between alignment and allegiance is one between the narrative information that a text provides us with and the way a text directs our evaluation of this information” (220). A film like Mike Nichols’s Closer (2004) may align us with its four morally ambiguous characters, but the constant verbal and emotional abuse they subject each other to is reason enough for a viewer to reject allegiance.
Another component of Smith’s perverse allegiance theory is the degree to which a spectator engages with a perverse character. As has already been established, Smith’s theory is based on a definition of moral perversity. Under this umbrella category are two distinct traits, first-order perversity and second-order perversity. The former “involves the direct taking of pleasure in that which is morally or socially proscribed” and “recognizes the existence of impulses and desires not morally or socially sanctioned” (119), such as necrophilia, cannibalism, etc. The latter “involves taking pleasure in some action because it is so proscribed” (Ibid.); this form of perversity caters to the self-aware pervert — a person who knows the difference between right and wrong, but who purposely seeks out transgression. In terms of film, a spectator who forms a perverse allegiance embodies a cognitive combination of the two traits: the excitement or arousal conjured as a result of the morally corrupt action in the film (like, say, Hannibal Lecter’s cannibalism) exemplifies first-order perversity, while the unapologetic awareness of this excitement exemplifies second-order perversity.
According to Smith’s definition, “perverse allegiance” refers to “responses of sympathy to characters on the basis of their embodiment of socially or morally undesirable traits” (222). In order to have true perverse allegiance, we must “take pleasure… in that which we know causes suffering (first-order perversity), perhaps because we know that it is transgressive of ordinary social and moral conventions to do so (second-order perversity)” (223). But how often does a spectator behave in such a way? And even if a spectator derives pleasure from a villainous character’s actions, is an allegiance actually being formed?
The Silence of The Lambs is a film firmly implanted in our pop cultural psyche. Just hearing the word “Chianti” might bring to mind a mild-mannered psychopath with a taste for classical music and the occasional human liver. But beyond the fact that it is almost impossible not to smile in recognition when Hannibal Lecter appears for the first time, The Silence of The Lambs is a completely relevant example to use when investigating Smith’s claims for and about his theory of perverse allegiance. Smith even looks at the film himself, and while his analysis is genuine and contains many good points, its brevity ultimately exposes holes in his argument.
While the action of individual human beings seems to be director Jonathan Demme’s focal point throughout the film, his decision to open The Silence of The Lambs with a shot of nature is significant. With the camera placed in somewhat foggy woods, the shot can be understood to represent the hazy and complicated nature of humans in relation to one another, and also of humans attempting to break away from (or give in to) the boundaries of their natural instincts. That Clarice Starling, the headstrong FBI agent, is running through these woods is both an obvious foreshadowing technique (she will have to confront countless individuals who do nothing but give in to their natural instincts), and an allusion to the time when she, herself, attempted to break the instinctual cycle of violence and save a lamb from slaughter. But this allusion is not meant to point out her frailty, and it is only later that we make the connection. Instead, we are immediately introduced to Clarice as a student and a smart and dedicated individual. She dresses like a woman, but her voice is husky and serious, and she breaks down stereotypes by training just as hard as her male companions. We like her because she can hold her own in an elevator full of tall men, and because she dispels the assumption that she is attending a “charm school.” We like her, we align with her, and we form an allegiance with her. This is why we are initially able to perceive her running in the beginning of the film as movement toward the future, rather than away from the past — we do not view Clarice as weak.
Even though the film’s pop culture status allows room for a personal opinion of Hannibal Lecter, how we regard him is almost entirely defined by Clarice’s viewpoint. Because Clarice is in nearly every scene of the film and she appears at times to be the guiding force in the investigation to find Buffalo Bill and the senator’s kidnapped daughter, the film’s perspective may be aligned with her own. The first meeting with Hannibal inspires a mixed sense of calm and subdued anxiety: calm because Clarice is calm, and anxiety because Clarice knows what the serial killer is psychologically and physically capable of. Arguably all of the feelings a spectator experiences during Clarice’s first interview with Hannibal mirror Clarice’s own feelings. Because we have formed an allegiance with her, we share the slight excitement Clarice feels when she sits down to speak to Hannibal: she has been waiting for this moment for a long time, and we, in effect, have too. When Hannibal skirts around her questions, we feel the same frustration she feels, and when Hannibal calls her back to his cell after she is sexually humiliated by Miggs, we do not become fearful that Hannibal will attempt to eat her — instead, we are as relieved as she is that he has agreed to help her find Buffalo Bill. We view Hannibal as a kind of mentor, but only because Clarice sees him in this light. If Clarice were out of the picture, Hannibal would probably be nothing more to us than a ruthless killer, given the countless attempts by other characters to describe him as such. The information we would have about him would be influenced by our own social and moral codes (that he is a psychologist-turned-cannibal, and his actions are not only perverse, but wrong) and negatively subjective (Dr. Chilton, who views Hannibal as nothing more than an animal, would not hesitate to expose his patient’s overt psychosis). Because we share Clarice’s emotional and intellectual perspective, however, we can be just as fascinated by Hannibal as she is.
One of the main questions Smith poses in “Gangsters, Cannibals, Aesthetes, and Apparently Perverse Allegiances” is whether we form allegiances with perverse characters because of their morally opposable actions or in spite of them. In his analysis of The Silence of The Lambs, Smith claims that we do, indeed, form an allegiance with Hannibal Lecter because of his ability to be “charming, witty, urbane, genteel, and learned” (226). While these traits are “[o]ften… co-present at the very moment the repellent traits are given expression, eliciting a decidedly uneasy, ambivalent response from us” (Ibid.), we do not forget these positive aspects of his personality, and thus, we hope good things eventually come to him (227). However, Smith does not limit sympathy between spectator and villain to emotionally appealing traits. Instead, Smith seems to argue that sympathy occurs in league with moral actions, and because of this, it can just as well be theorized that while the spectator is undoubtedly aligned with Hannibal, he or she does not form a consistent allegiance with the doctor. He may seem more attractive to us because he does not treat Clarice as a sexual opportunity (like Chilton) and is not seen in numerous stages of holding his victims captive (like Buffalo Bill), but these instances are contrasted with scenes like the one where he violently kills two police officers and hangs one of them — parts of the man’s body without skin and/or eaten — from the bars of his cell.
There are certainly times when we feel sympathetic toward Hannibal, such as during his conversation with the distraught senator. Even before he interacts with the politician, Hannibal is filmed from head to toe strapped to a dolly, as though he is nothing more than a refrigerator being carted around, and his face is encased in a muzzle reminiscent of something a ferocious dog might wear. When the senator eventually tells the guards to “take this thing back to Baltimore,” the view that Hannibal is below human is solidified and the explicit use of the word “thing” reinforces a hierarchy of moral and social power. In this scene, Hannibal is clearly looked at and treated like an animal, and we feel sorry for him because Clarice, who interacts with him as a human being, would be bothered by the lack of respect. Through allegiance with Clarice, we understand his intelligence as the young FBI trainee understands it, and even though he makes inappropriate sexual comments while supplying false information to the senator, we quietly smile because he is toying with the senator and exploiting her condescension. The possible desire to exact psychological vengeance on powerful public figures is one way in which we form allegiance with Hannibal, but, as aforementioned, this instance is an anomaly within the larger context of the film and within the larger mythology of who Hannibal is.
There is little doubt that we respect and admire Hannibal Lecter. After all, Clarice does, and, since we share her viewpoint, why shouldn’t we? But Clarice is also determined to become a revered FBI agent, someone the Bureau can count on, and while she sees the doctor as someone who is worldly and possesses the aforementioned positive traits, she also sees him as a job. Throughout her interactions with Hannibal, she treats him with courtesy — he makes mention of this upon their first meeting — but she is also not afraid to lie in order to coax information out of him. When Hannibal tells her, “Memory… is what I have instead of a view,” Clarice offers him an ultimatum: if he gives her correct information leading to the capture of Buffalo Bill, she will arrange for his transport to a jail facility on a tropical island. This is, of course, a set-up, and Hannibal eventually catches her in the lie, but, at the same time, it shows her dedication to the cause, and, in effect, prompts us to believe we would do the same thing if in her shoes. This essentially means that we, too, see Hannibal as a tool in helping solve the mystery of the whereabouts of the kidnapped woman, and in viewing him as an assignment, we are able to look at him from an objective, rather than sympathetic, standpoint.
At the end of the film, when Hannibal is free and calls Clarice from a payphone, she says that she cannot guarantee she won’t go after him. Even though he, in effect, claims he will not harm her (“the world is more interesting with you in it,” he says), there is a part of us that still views Hannibal as a threat. If we are meant to share Clarice’s feelings, and if Clarice sees Hannibal as a threat to the larger population, we recognize his danger, and therefore cannot sympathize with him. While he may be interesting and full of witty retorts, he is still a cannibal, and Clarice’s refusal to grant him permanent asylum does not let us forget that. This is why, while Smith argues we form a perverse allegiance with Hannibal Lecter, it can also be argued that this allegiance is minimal at best. It is not a true allegiance, Smith claims, because we sympathize with Hannibal in spite of his crimes (227), but even our sympathy is diminished, heightened, and otherwise manipulated by Clarice’s own feelings. When she softens to him, we soften to him, and when she sees him as a looming and possibly threatening presence — as indicated by Demme’s extreme close-up shots of Hannibal during his and Clarice’s interactions — we see him as such. But Hannibal himself, for the most part, has little control over whether we feel sympathy for him or not.
From the outset, David Fincher’s Seven appears to be another typical detective film. If seen in a more prudential light, however, it is a sophisticated commentary on what drives human beings to kill one another and, transversely, what restrains human beings from doing so. Seven also meditates on two of the most fundamental elements of drama and human existence: chaos vs. order. Similar to serial killer films like Natural Born Killers (Stone, 1993) and American Psycho (Harron, 2000), Seven tackles questions of innocence, and whether anyone is truly free from the moral pollution of our current world. Unlike these two films, however, the latter is not satire, and, while stylized in its own right, it seems to consider its subject matter with a serious and somewhat realistic eye. This is why it is safe to examine its role in relation to Smith’s perverse allegiance theory: because its characters appear as mirror images of people in our own reality, they can thus be viewed as members of the Structure of Sympathy.
Seven is littered with arguments about morality. Because of this, and because of its genre (detective film), we are immediately drawn to the functions of its characters and the roles they play. Focusing on two polar opposite detectives — the older, wiser Somerset and the younger, hipper Mills —_Seven_ does not attempt to hide its obvious throwbacks to the genre itself. Somerset is on the verge of retirement and set in his “old school” ways of solving cases; Mills is hot off the beat, eager to be in an urban environment, and thrives on colloquialisms and pop culture. They are, respectively, order and chaos personified. Somerset wishes to get away from the city, where the hustle and bustle of everyday life constantly invades his sense of calm: the film even opens with the detective moving through the space of his quiet and organized apartment, only to be directly followed by a shot of a dead body lying in a pool of blood. Mills, on the other hand, seeks adventure, and when he arrives on his initial crime scene and makes small talk with Somerset, he vetoes his new partner’s idea to go to a bar and get to know one another in favor of getting to the precinct as quickly as possible. In a scene later in the film, when Mills and his wife Tracy have Somerset over for dinner, the young couple’s apartment endures a mini-earthquake, a result of the rumbling affect of the subway, and the dichotomy of the two professionals cannot be made more clear.
The spectator is introduced to Somerset and Mills almost immediately, and because of this, becomes aligned with them before the opening credits even roll. An allegiance is then formed based on their professions as detectives, given the principle that cops in our society are “good.” There are certainly “bad” cops, epitomized by characters like Stansfield in Luc Besson’s Léon: The Professional (1994) and the racist cop in Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing (1989), but in a generalized sense, most law enforcement agents are seen as productive members of society. This forces the spectator to recognize their moral judgments as sound. And while there is room for the allegiance to be broken (if Somerset or Mills turns out to be the killer, this would be the case), it remains consistent until the end of the film, when Mills chooses to become the killer’s “wrath.” His hotheaded personality, combined with his decision to disregard both social norms and the police code, causes our allegiance with him to break. His emotional predicament is understood, but there is disagreement with his actions. Given the film’s context, the eye-for-an-eye approach is meant to be repulsive by the end, and considering the illusion that our current generation’s cops are “good” is shattered, this does all the more to emphasize the allegiance with Somerset and his wish for order amidst a world of chaos.
One of the most unusual aspects of Seven is the director’s decision to not only withhold information pertaining to the identity of the serial killer until the very end (and even then, his name remains the anonymous John Doe), but the decision to only show the aftermath of his killings. They are graphic, brutal, and disgusting, but, at the same time, meticulous, methodical, and always accompanied by references to literature often ruminated over in college English courses. Somerset, who believes in solving cases by tapping into the minds of those he is intent on catching, reads countless books, and, as a result of his patience (a virtue), is able to find Doe. Mills, on the other hand, believes in obtaining evidence as quickly as possible. Unlike Somerset, he reads the CliffsNotes to Dante and Chaucer, and upon their first violent encounter, almost dies when he hastily attempts to gun down the killer in the rainy urban streets. Again, order and chaos come into play, and when Doe finally turns himself in at the end, he defends his wrongdoings by calling attention to society’s apathy toward chaos. Mills is swift to call Doe a “lunatic,” but Somerset, like Clarice Starling, attempts to understand what would provoke a man to lose all sense of control and boundaries, and refuses to condescend to his criminal captive. Somerset is increasingly bothered by the nature of society (at one point, he says, “I just don’t think I can live in a place that nurtures apathy as if it were a virtue”), and it is this parallelism and our distance from the physical aspect of the killings that causes our sense of both alignment and allegiance with the killer.
During the car ride to find the final victims, Doe delivers a monologue about the lack of innocence in the world. “Only in a world this shitty could you try to say these [his victims] were innocent people and keep a straight face,” he says. “But that’s the point. We see a deadly sin on every street corner, in every home, and we tolerate it. We tolerate it because it’s common, it’s trivial… Well, not anymore. I’m setting the example.”
With this, a new layer is added: Doe views himself a martyr. In order to show the world — or society — how truly decrepit it has become, he must sacrifice himself at the hands of Mills. Often times martyrdom is associated with selflessness, and because the act of selflessness is morally lauded in our society, and because of Doe’s aforementioned reasoning, we are able to view his warped action of killing other people in a perversely acceptable light. We do not condone what he has done, but we have sympathy for his crusade to restore society back to a purer, more educated state. While we do not doubt that he has done the horrible things to his victims represented through brief shots (and one unsettling interrogation scene) onscreen, we are not entirely put off by him for performing these deeds. He is not shown doing them, so he is removed; also, our instinctive response to a detective film is to see the crime solved. While it is possible the killer will be caught before he is able to finish his work, it would be a whole lot less interesting if he was, and we secretly hope he commits all seven murders; thus, we silently egg him on.
There is some question as to whether we can really form an allegiance with Doe due to the heinous nature of his crimes in general and the filmic reality of his murder of Tracy, Mills’s seemingly innocent wife. In defense of the first point, the makeup of the murders is fairly exaggerated, so there is an abstract, almost theatrical quality to them that we are supposed to believe. However, given the low probability that these particular crimes would be committed against someone in real life (e.g. overfeeding an obese man with pasta, forcing a model to choose between killing herself and having her nose cut off, taking a pound of flesh from a lawyer, etc.) we may not, in our emotional mind’s eye, actually respond to the crimes in a way we might in light of something more realistic (like a shooting or stabbing). There is little doubt we are repelled, but we can also recognize the hyperbole, and may accept it as such. To answer the second point, as soon as Somerset introduces religious reasoning as a possible motive for the killer, we begin to view everything in a different context. Tracy, in this way, becomes a sacrifice, and, within the confines of the narrative, we accept it as such. Does this mean we fail to pity Mills when he is faced with the harsh reality that his pregnant wife has been murdered and beheaded? Of course not. As stated before, we are sympathetic with him up until the point when he shoots and kills Doe. But Doe’s murder of Tracy is used as a device to exploit his own sin (envy), as well as help us further understand what he is trying to accomplish through his crimes. In a way, this crime is different than the rest because it is the catalyst for the climax of the film: without Tracy’s death, the seven murders would be incomplete.
How, then, do we form an allegiance with Doe? The only difference between Doe and Somerset is that the latter believes in consequences. The two men are the same in their views of society, but their answers to obtaining (or reverting back to) an ideal society are different. Somerset feels that retirement and physically removing himself from the city will allow him to live the simple, ordered life he wishes to live. But Doe knows better. Doe is, in effect, Somerset’s subconscious — he is the devil on Somerset’s shoulder. He knows moving away from a hectic society will not make that society any less hectic, and he also knows that chaos has the potential to infiltrate all of our lives, no matter where we go. Somerset eventually comes to understand this, and his frustration with the truth is visualized in a shot where he throws his metronome — used to keep ordered time — to the floor, breaking it to pieces. We come to appreciate Doe’s efforts in the way that Somerset does: he can see the vitality in attempting to seek order. But, like Somerset, we also know Doe’s efforts are too drastic to be morally condoned, so we find ourselves in allegiance with him (via Somerset) in spite of his crimes. According to Smith, this would not constitute truly perverse allegiance, and while Seven makes a grand effort to put us in the mind of the serial killer and understand what he understands, the effort is not enough to sway us into truly appreciating him for his morally bankrupt behavior.
To conclude, there should be reemphasis on Smith’s theory of perverse allegiance. While he maps this theory out, showing how the Structure of Sympathy helps one reach the point of such an obscure form of allegiance, he also claims “examples of fictions designed to elicit perverse allegiance… are actually exceptional and unusual” (“Gangsters, Cannibals…etc.,” 222). This would fit well with The Silence of The Lambs and Seven, both of which seem to ask viewers to sympathize with villainous characters in complicated, and, as it turns out, not truly perverse ways. What should be noted, however, is how easy it is to pin this theory on films, especially films concerning complex villains like serial killers. Smith is quick to call our emotional interaction with Hannibal Lecter a “perverse allegiance,” when, in reality, we only form an allegiance with him for short periods of time. Given the previously mentioned evidence, our allegiance with him should not be considered consistent enough to count. When accounting for perverse allegiances, one should take into consideration the consistency of our sympathy for a character. If we only lapse into feelings of compassion or moral understanding for a villainous character for fragmented periods of time, this allegiance seems unreliable, and therefore something we should hesitate to trust. Good manners, in other words, are not the only reason why we should feel sympathy for Hannibal. We need to want him to escape all the time, not just when convenience strikes us.
As Smith points out, it is possible to watch a film that elicits truly perverse allegiances. The Japanese Battle Royale (Fukasaku, 2000) has us rooting for its villainous characters because of their morally objectionable behavior. The film, which is about a group of schoolchildren brought to an island and forced to kill one another in a publicized Survivor meets Lord of The Flies game, establishes violence as a rule, rather than an exception. While shooting someone with a crossbow is undoubtedly reprehensible, we revel in this kind of violence — at least in the context of the film — because it leads to the reward of survival. As a result, we are profoundly disturbed by the pleasure we get from cheering these killers on, but at the same time, we are also extremely entertained. With a world so steeped in violence, it comes as no surprise that this type of reaction occurs. But it must be remembered that despite the possibility, most of the films we watch do not earn us the title of pervert.
Works Cited
American History X. Dir. Tony Kaye. With Edward Norton and Edward Furlong. New Line Cinema, 1998.
American Psycho. Dir. Mary Harron. With Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, and Reese Witherspoon. Lions Gate Films, 2000.
Battle Royale. Dir. Kinji Fukasaku. With Takeshi Kitano and Chiaki Kuriyama. Toei Productions, 2000.
Do The Right Thing. Dir. Spike Lee. With Danny Aiello, John Turturro, and Spike Lee. Universal Pictures, 1989.
History of Violence, A. Dir. David Cronenberg. With Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, and Ed Harris. New Line Productions, 2005.
Internet Movie Database. “All-Time USA Box Office.” Online. 27 April 2007. Available: http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross.
Léon: The Professional. Dir. Luc Besson. With Jean Reno, Gary Oldman, and Natalie Portman. Gaumont International, 1994.
Natural Born Killers. Dir. Oliver Stone. With Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1994.
Seven. Dir. David Fincher. With Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, and Gwyneth Paltrow. New Line Cinema, 1995.
Silence of The Lambs, The. Dir. Jonathan Demme. With Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster. Orion Pictures Corporation, 1991.
Smith, Murray. Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995.
“Gangsters, Cannibals, Aesthetes, or Apparently Perverse Allegiances.” Passionate Views: Film, Cognition and Emotion. Eds. Greg M. Smith and Carl Plantinga. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Star Wars. Dir. George Lucas. With Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher. 20th Century Fox, 1977.
Titanic. Dir. James Cameron. With Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. 20th Century Fox, 1987