It’s not a coincidence that, when Mattie finally shoots the guy, she immediately falls down and gets bitten by a rattlesnake whose bite destroys her arm.

This movie is not an uncritical celebration of revenge.

I’d also point out that while Rooster is a “go it alone” character, the whole story line is based on him, Mattie and LaBoeuf cooperating to track down and deal with the Ned Pepper gang.

I think Anita’s analysis fails on one major point, which is that she assumes that “True Grit” is a typical Western that valorizes the hyper-masculine, violent, cold-hearted world that it portrays, and that is a profound misreading both of this film and the Coen brothers’ larger body of work.

The Big Lebowski explicitly sets the sun on the concept of the cowboy archetype of American masculinity, and does so graciously. The Stranger accepts, with only minor bemusement or bitterness, that The Dude is the new ideal of (exaggerated) masculinity.

You’re dead-on in your interpretation of the Coen Bros’s view of violence and what it does to those who indulge in it or—more importantly—to those who even accept its primacy in American life.

A very thoughtful reading of the movie. Thank you.

Damn I need to see this movie.

Agree with the whole post. I loved No Country for Old Men as a deconstruction of action/horror movies, and True Grit is a similar deconstruction of Westerns. It’s not the first movie to pry into the ways that Westerns portray violence, but it is the first one to do so with such a strongly feminist eye.

Generally, assuming that the Coen brothers are playing their chosen genre straight is a mistake.

Loved that you reference Fargo because that’s one of my favs.  It really is a celebration of the feminine in both men and women.  Marge has all the characteristics of Minnesota nice but rather than do the expected and portray her as a yokel, the Coens constantly show her as perceptive, intelligent and witty.  This “feminine” qualities of cooperation and kindness are an asset.  And that gets exemplified in the men of Fargo.  There is a strong contrast to her fellow police officers and her supportive husband and the “masculine” criminals.  And guess who comes off smarter?  The kind ones who have compassion.

One of the first things that the Adult Mattie says in the voiceover at the beginning of the movie is “Nothing is free in this world but the grace of God.” This sets up for the end of the movie when everyone, including Mattie, has paid for their actions in some way. The value of revenge is questioned in this movie up front, and is carried throughout.

But, at the same time, what was going to happen to a woman of Mattie’s smarts anyway? Was how she ended up any different than should would have anyway - just maybe with an arm intact?

It should also be noted that the Coens hew way more closely to the original text than the John Wayne version. In Portis’s book, Adult Mattie is shown as she is in this film—armless, brittle.

I have to argue for Mattie’s feminism based solely on her interaction with the horse trader. She refuses to accept anything less than her father would get, even though as a ‘mere girl’, she’s expected to shut up, take what’s offered, and go home. In the book, she’s actually kind of judgy about her mother, whom she views as way too weak for the west, by describing the behaviors of the kind of women we usually see in westerns—teary, fearful, and waiting on some dude to save the day.  Mattie knows she can save the day her ownself. 

That ‘save the day’ means revenge, not justice, is a point well addressed in the post.

I loved Fargo - definite classic. I also think True Grit will hold up over time. After watching it, I suspect the Coen brothers struggle with their atheism. True Grit glorifies Christian ethics, primarily Jesus’ proclamation that the rule, “an eye for an eye,” is no longer just.

Mattie was likely taught by her mother and father to be tough and stand up for herself. That, combined with her intelligence, makes her a fierce young lady.
Comment #10: Tyler on 03/21 at 02:12 PM

Jesus Christ, literally.  “Christian ethics” are a mishmash of whatever makes people feel good about being themselves or feel good about persecuting others, depending on whom you ask and where you look.  Whatever “Christian ethics” you think are displayed in this film can be held by atheists without needing a sky daddy to hang it all on, let alone junior and the spook.

Jesus said to share.  Great.  Jesus said to turn the other cheek.  Fine.  Jesus said to get up and leave your families.  Wait, what?  Pay your taxes, but then turn over the tables of the moneychangers.

Before you go into how you reconcile all this contradictory bullshit, please note that you have your own blend, and others have theirs, and there’s no one “Christian ethic” any more than there is one “best dance mix.”

I didn’t listen to her because I’m at work and in a location right now where can’t bother others with sound, but did she just make the argument that, because a character in a film isn’t a feminist, it’s not a feminist film? 

I really don’t think we need to make everything an after-school special where everyone learns the lesson and makes the change to a better tomorrow.  Sometimes people don’t learn.  Sometimes it’s not possible for them for lots of reasons beyond their control.

Thanks, Oldfeminist, for beating me to the punch on that bit of theist fatuity.

I suspect the Coen brothers struggle with their atheism. True Grit glorifies Christian ethics, primarily Jesus’ proclamation that the rule, “an eye for an eye,” is no longer just.

A Serious Man covered the Coens’ atheism—the only god they can see any intelligent modern-day person believing in is the capricious and all-powerful arsehole from the Book of Job (AKA Old Testement God o’ Wrath). Psychopaths excepted, their take is that few intelligent people in the modern world are willing to worship that kind of god without serious (and in the movie very funny) attempts at pretzel logic.

The ethics and morality that True Grit glorifies are known to atheists (of Jewish heritage like the Coens or otherwise) as human decency—as OldFeminist says, the various flavours of Sky Daddy and their self-appointed mortal reps are optional, certainly to the Coen Bros. So no, no struggle for them.

Amanda: “She ends the movie as a broken shell of a person who will disappear from the face of the earth having done nothing of value with her life.”

benvoilo: “In Portis’s book, Adult Mattie is shown as she is in this film—armless, brittle.”

I disagree with this reading for both the movie and the book. Adult Mattie is stern, uncompromising, unmarried as much by choice as by circumstance, and wealthy by virtue of her own skill in managing her father’s estate. At the conclusion, Mattie confronts the two surviving members of the James-Younger gang, insults one of them, and defies community norms to bring Rooster to the family graveyard.

I don’t think she’s destroyed so much as hardened. And in fact, I think that if she had been destroyed, reduced to the madwoman ward of her younger siblings as an example, “True Grit” would have been diving right into the pit of melodrama.

So I think the critique of violence is a bit more subtle. Especially when you look at Judge Parker who’s given a full chapter as foreshadowing and parallel development of the theme.

The Constitution is less self-contradictory than the Gospels, so we have a better shot at coming up with coherent interpretations of it. I don’t believe that there’s exactly one correct interpretation of the entire Constitution, I’m not even sure what an interpretation of the entire Constitution would look like. I do think you can go to the Constitution and get reasonable answers to some questions.

Unlike the Gospels, the Constitution isn’t a series of stories about some guy who may or may not have existed, stories which can be read as literal claims about magic and miracles, or parables intended to illustrate some larger moral point, or metaphors for something else entirely.

Great analysis, Amanda. Coens have built up a huge body of work that has been very thematically consistent - they repeatedly look at the cost of violence to the person who perpetuates it as well as the victim. And they are also very consistent at deconstructing the genres and tropes that they play with. So to do a straight reading of any Coen “text” without looking at the themes they repeatedly engage with, how they subvert gender roles, and how they employ symbolism is, quite honestly, silly. Anita really goes off the rails here right off the bat, when she says that this is a remake of the John Wayne film. It makes sense that someone who thinks that the Coens are doing a straight remake of a “classic” Western would also think that they are reinforcing rather than subverting traditional gender representations.

When you mentioned Marge, I immediately thought “ah, but Marge is about justice, not revenge,” so I was glad to see you go into the distinction - I think it’s really key to how Coens approach the question of violence.

Oldfeminist at #14, nice! And, it seems to me that Coens are much more into using Old Testament-type language, so not really “christian values” that you so nicely deconstructed. They obviously utilize religious symbolism/mythology/language in many of their films. But it’s a huge leap from using cultural symbols that would be shared by the characters during the time period of the film as a framework to help the audience make meaning of the key themes, to uncritically accepting, yet alone “glorifying” anything. And not to mention that Coens are Jewish, so to suggest that they are simply “glorifying” Christianity while “struggling with atheism” is just plain fucking offensive and erasing of their very obvious non-christianity. Tyler’s post was bullshit on a bajillion levels, really.

“And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! (and she bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing her tremendous muscular power). I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear de lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen chilern, and seen ‘em mos’ all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?” —Sojourner Truth, circa 1850.

I’ll stake a claim to the argument that Mattie is a feminist character because she acknowledges the historical reality that many 19th-century women were put into the position of becoming the head of household. (19th-century women also managed factories, ran businesses, and were employed in back-breaking manual labor.) Part of Mattie’s motivation is that her father’s death thrusts her into the role of de facto head of the family. Her mother is illiterate and grief-stricken, her brother is too young, and the family lawyer needs direction.

For her to be opposed to the death penalty would have been a historical anachronism given her politics, culture, and religion.

I don’t think she’s destroyed so much as hardened.

“Hardened” is a better term, I’ll agree. Grown-up Mattie has allowed her unhappiness, her dissatisfaction with life, and her awareness of the lack of justice in the world to bake into her over the years. Those trait arguable had their genesis in the events of the book/movie and in the nature of the time and place (violent, patriarchal, lawless, priest-ridden), with her own natural stubbornness serving as a matrix.

That said, for the Coens that sort of hardening is tantamount to self-destruction. Rooster let that shell crack enough to save her and, in the process, gained a measure of satisfaction, justice, and even happiness. Years later, however, Mattie herself might as well have died given what she’s become.

oldfeminist,

Do you believe there is no such thing as a correct interpretation of the Constitution?
Comment #17: Tyler on 03/21 at 03:13 PM

The Constitution was written as a founding document of law by a contemporaneous group of men who shared that purpose and all signed it at the end.

The Bible is compiled from a bunch of stories, laws, observations, maxims, prophecies, poems, songs, fiction, parable, and oral history, written over thousands of years, selected by various people with various motivations from a larger group of such works, then translated from the original languages multiple times by multiple people with different motivations.

Which do you think is more susceptible to interpretation? 

The Constitution is hard enough, and it’s meant to be interpreted as law.

@24: I still disagree with that, although I must admit that a fair chunk of my bias comes from having an overabundance of Matties in my family folklore, and some of those tough old birds were wonderful people in the little time I had to get to know them.

I think the Coens are interested in the Old Testament morality that says “Nothing is free but the grace of the Lord.” I’m a non-violent, non-vengeance-oriented atheist, but I won’t deny that there’s something viscerally compelling about Young Mattie and her unflinching pursuit of a simple and ancient concept of justice. The Coens want you to feel that, and then they want you to think about what the real consequences of rooting for Old Testament justice would be.

There’s a lot of irony in Young Mattie’s situation. She takes these ideals of honor so seriously that it never seems to occur to her that they are any less relevant to her because she’s a female child—even though the hyper-masculine honor system tells her that it’s absurd, if not impossible, for such a lowly person as herself to demand justice or live with honor.

She gets what she wants, but at a terrible cost. The movie leaves it ambiguous as to whether the whole thing was worth it /to her/. I get the sense that she’d do it all over again. Hence her statement, “Nothing is free but the grace of the Lord.” We don’t really know why she seems so sad and lonely at the end of the movie. I wondered if it might have been the constraints of a sexist society that eventually broke her spirit, rather than guilt over the killing, or ostracism because of her missing arm. In some ways, it seems like she’s clinging to the memory of going out and avenging her father’s murder as one of the best or most meaningful things she ever did.

And, Gracchus, at 3:53 p.m., I think grown-up Mattie would probably take it as a compliment if you told her that.

“Hardened” is a better term, I’ll agree. Grown-up Mattie has allowed her unhappiness, her dissatisfaction with life, and her awareness of the lack of justice in the world to bake into her over the years. Those trait arguable had their genesis in the events of the book/movie and in the nature of the time and place (violent, patriarchal, lawless, priest-ridden), with her own natural stubbornness serving as a matrix.

If you want to bring theology into it, you’d have to point out that Mattie lived up to the sort of old school fire and brimstone theology (except for the part about keeping her ass in the kitchen) about as well as anyone, but has not particularly lived a happy life because of it.

A concept which she’d probably scoff at.

Christians believe “an eye for an eye” is unjust because Jesus said this in the Bible, they considered it, and decided it makes great sense to them. What I gather you are saying is that Atheists believe “an eye for an eye” is unjust because that is just common decency. It is reasonable to believe that this particular form of common decency became common because it was proclaimed by Jesus.

You’re confusing “became common” with “was popularised.” This particular form of common decency was common long before Jesus was born, both far outside the Mediterranean rim and within.

Limiting ourselves to the former (and eventually to “Christendom,” and eventually to the West which was influenced by it), what Jesus was doing was rejecting a particularly ugly aspect of the Old Testament, one which a lot of Jews had already been rejecting out of human decency in practise for a long time.

Jesus’ argument, as a Christian scholar like yourself should know, was not with atheists, or with his fellow Jews, but with the fundamentalist hierarchy of the Jewish priesthood and with the occupation government it enabled (the state religion of which also incorporated “eye-for-eye” justice) in what we now call the Holy Land.

This essay has an interesting take on the “Nothing’s free except for the grace of the Lord</a> line.

“A third sentence, left out of the film but implied by its dramaturgy, tells us that the latter reading is the right one: “You cannot earn that [grace] or deserve it.” In short, there is no relationship between the bestowing or withholding of grace and the actions of those to whom it is either accorded or denied. You can’t add up a person’s deeds — so many good one and so many bad ones — and on the basis of the column totals put him on the grace-receiving side (you can’t earn it); and you can’t reason from what happens to someone to how he stands in God’s eyes (you can’t deserve it).”

If you want to bring theology into it, you’d have to point out that Mattie lived up to the sort of old school fire and brimstone theology (except for the part about keeping her ass in the kitchen) about as well as anyone, but has not particularly lived a happy life because of it.

Exactly. Where’s the justice and satisfaction all of that old-time religion promises? She’s seen a bad man killed in exchange for a good man per her goal, but she’s lost another good man in the process. She’s accepted that hard fact and incorporated it into herself.

I still disagree with that, although I must admit that a fair chunk of my bias comes from having an overabundance of Matties in my family folklore, and some of those tough old birds were wonderful people in the little time I had to get to know them.

I’ll agree with witless chum that she would take my description as a compliment. I’ve known some tough old birds myself, and they’d be the first to happily explain that happiness is far from the be-all and end-all of life. That is not the Coens’ viewpoint, however.

Christians believe “an eye for an eye” is unjust because Jesus said this in the Bible, they considered it, and decided it makes great sense to them. What I gather you are saying is that Atheists believe “an eye for an eye” is unjust because that is just common decency. It is reasonable to believe that this particular form of common decency became common because it was proclaimed by Jesus.
Comment #22: Tyler on 03/21 at 03:47 PM

Are you really so ignorant of non-Christian philosophy? 

Ethics, atheist or otherwise, don’t depend on some waffly notion of “common decency,” there is actually such a thing as ETHICS which one may derive not from noodling around for half an hour but studying and thinking and conferring with people who also study and think about it.

This is insulting not just to atheists but to other religions.  You think all other religions evolved from Judaism which preaches an eye for an eye?

<quote> I’ll agree with witless chum that she would take my description as a compliment. I’ve known some tough old birds myself, and they’d be the first to happily explain that happiness is far from the be-all and end-all of life. That is not the Coens’ viewpoint, however.</quote>

I’m not convinced that the Coens place a high value on happiness either. Even in their more optimistic films, the protagonists never get what they want. They get a measure of satisfaction within the constraints of the roles they play in society, and perhaps a minor epiphany. Then you have Burn After Reading, The Man Who Wasn’t There, and Fargo where the pursuit of happiness utterly destroys those who go grasping after it (albeit via a series of completely absurd screwball complications.)

The problem is, I can’t imagine a different life for Mattie, except, perhaps with the dubious consolation of marriage and children.

This is the Cohen brothers so it has a relevance and ‘reality’ that speaks to adults. It takes what could have been a ‘myth’ and places it within our context - for example, Mattie’s constant reference to legalisms and the fine points of horse ownership with the horse dealer - and her constant reference to the ‘good lawyer’ she has back home (this is spite of the way that the archaic language seems to distance us from the era).

You don’t see much of that in ‘Westerns’ because they’re supposed to be elemental - Good vs. Evil - rather than about sovereignty and states’ and who has the right to arrest whom for what crime. These sovereignty issues were a big part in the film (remember how the Matt Damon character wants to arrest him for another crime in Texas).

It’s not a ‘feminist’ film in the narrow sense - but it is an ‘adult’ film; and if that means we see concerns about adult issues like sausage factory of laws and the random or absurd ways they are enforced - if enforced at all.

I’m not convinced that the Coens place a high value on happiness either. Even in their more optimistic films, the protagonists never get what they want.

But The Dude abides…

Right, Tyler, everything good in our culture came from Jeezusssss and Teh Wholly Buy-Bull. Not like, you know, xtianity is a syncretic religion that hoovers up everything in its path and takes credit for it…

Sheesh. Did you grow up in a fundie family that forbade you to study any “un-Christian” cultures? Because you’re spouting some really dumb shit and insisting that we accept it.

I’m not convinced that the Coens place a high value on happiness either. Even in their more optimistic films, the protagonists never get what they want.

One theme that runs through all of their movies is the value of finding happiness in the small things, the only saving graces in a chaotic wasteland that, if there is a guiding intelligence, seems utterly bent on quashing happiness. It’s because they’re small that the small pleasures—painting duck decoys, bowling, and always music— sometimes slip through in the bleak Coen universe, which does give them special value. It’s pursuit of the grander or more illusory happinesses (usually involving money or social status) that tends to get the Coens’ protagonists get into trouble.

The problem is, I can’t imagine a different life for Mattie, except, perhaps with the dubious consolation of marriage and children.

I can’t, either. Even without her stubborn streak and sense of adventure and her native wit, the nature of the times might have relegated her to exactly the same fate.

“Are you really so ignorant of non-Christian philosophy?
Ethics, atheist or otherwise, don’t depend on some waffly notion of “common decency,” there is actually such a thing as ETHICS which one may derive not from noodling around for half an hour but studying and thinking and conferring with people who also study and think about it.”

There are a whole lot of (ignorant) people who are completely unable to conceive that most/all ideas presented in the Old and New Testament were not brand-new and exclusive to Jews and/or Christians, and were in actuality old ideas that had been around for centuries previously and were known in many/most other parts of the world.

I know some believe this to be heresy, but wake up.  The world didn’t start the first systems of morals and ethics yesterday, it didn’t start them after the supposed birth of a carpenter in the Middle East, and many of them predate the supposed “creation” some of them think happened 6,000 some odd years ago.

Each of us may bring our own peculiar slant on morality and ethics, based on our upbringing, our culture, and our personal experiences.  But human beings have debated these things for millenia, long before there were Jews or Christians, and they haven’t stopped debating them to this very day.

At a time when our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president has decided to go the full Bush Jr on another oil-rich Arabic country (third time’s the charm!), it’s worth noting that there were people who considered this behavior to be wrong more than 10,000 years ago…

A single quote has been running through my head since comment 10, and after 41 I’m just going to run with it:

“At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

I am saying that Jesus’ influence is great, thus the influence of his proclamation on the law of “an eye for an eye” is great.
Comment #39: Tyler on 03/21 at 04:47 PM

Jesus, or Christianity, or the Western form of Christianity, or the Western form of Christianity that doesn’t call for an eye for an eye? 

Because there’s a boatload of eye-for-an-eyers out there with Jesus fish on their bumpers.  How powerful is Jesus again?

“I have turned my other cheek to you.”

Best Southern belle voice: Well, bless your heart!...

Aww, thanks, Tyler, for that characteristically patronizing and content-devoid response.

Perhaps you’d like to respond to everyone else who’s telling you that you’re an idiot, just in more “civil” language?

I am saying that Jesus’ influence is great, thus the influence of his proclamation on the law of “an eye for an eye” is great.

His influence is great insofar as Abrahamic religious doctrine goes, although of course some Xtian denominations have fallen right back into “an eye for an eye” when it serves their purposes to pick and choose from the more wrathful Testament. So even in the limited sense you discuss, his influence comes out as more of a wash thanks to the Christian versions of the Pharisees and Sadducees who’ve appeared throughout history.

To wrap this up, Tyler, no, “Christian ethics” are not and were not the sine qua non of the rejection of “an eye for an eye” by individuals—religious or otherwise—who are motivated by human decency. And as influential as Jesus was, there are always plenty of so-called disciples ready to reject his message of love and tolerance—some (hi Paul/Saul!) before the body became cold (for the second time, if you prefer).

Tyler, nobody, with the exception of a very small number of Christians, actually practices what Christ preached in terms of “an eye for an eye”, and in fact most would consider it a weakness, close to a sin, to do so.

Christ didn’t say “turn to a secular system of justice which metes out punishments the entire society deems fair, after attempting to objectively determine guilt or innocence”; he said, basically, just stand there and take it. Christ is not speaking of a quest for justice anymore than he’s talking about revenge; he’s speaking of forgiveness. If someone harms you, accept it, and accept them, and do not seek any redress against them whatsoever.

Which, from a spiritual perspective, makes sense. Some of the harm that is done by other people harming us is the way in which it corrodes our soul to harden ourselves against them, to put up our defenses and fight back. If you are entirely concerned with the welfare of your soul and not at all with the welfare of your physical body, this advice makes sense. If, however, you want to actually have a decent life here on Earth, it makes no damn sense whatsoever, which is why almost nobody actually follows it.

Christ did not popularize the notion that taking out someone’s eye because they destroyed yours is overkill and probably not something a civilized society should be engaging in; in fact that wasn’t really a popular belief at any time in the heyday of Christianity. While Catholics lionize saints who simply stood there and let other people kill them, most of the time, Christians (Catholics and Protestants both) in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and in fact pretty much every time period up to now, thought it was a great idea to kill people who’d been accused of murder, rape, and often even theft. That’s not the ideal Jesus preached. It wasn’t until the 20th century came, bringing psychology, sociology, and the idea that you can apply the scientific method to studying human behavior, that it began to be widely accepted that it was a bad idea to kill criminals… and that time period also saw the steepest rise in acknowledged, open atheism.

Although that being said, the people prior to the 20th century who were the first to catch on to the idea of human rights and justice being about evenhandedness and trying to rehabilitate rather than punish… were the humanists of the 17th and 18th centuries, people like Mary Wollestonecraft Shelley and John Locke and other such philosophers, and they… tended to be atheists, or at least to believe in a god who was really not much involved in human doings.

So as near as I can tell, while Christ said what he said, his followers have *nothing* to do with popularizing the concept. Inasmuch as the concept is popular at all, it appears to be the preference of atheists and people who believe in separating religion from government to deliver rehabilitative treatment rather than punishment, and *nobody* but a tiny fraction of deeply devout believers actually believes in doing nothing at all except giving forgiveness in the face of harm.

It’s my impression from the novel that the adult Mattie mostly enjoys her role as the rich spinster and historical scold, which isn’t something that comes through as well in the Coen version of the epilogue, although I fail to see how it could be done differently in the screenplay.

I think ultimately what makes the Coens great directors rather than simply good directors is in giving us ambiguity and questions rather than answers.

Christ did not popularize the notion that taking out someone’s eye because they destroyed yours is overkill and probably not something a civilized society should be engaging in; in fact that wasn’t really a popular belief at any time in the heyday of Christianity.

As just one out of many, many examples, ancient Germanic cultures, long before they’d ever heard of Jesus, had the concept of weregild (roughly, “the price of a man”). Basically, someone who harmed or killed another person would pay monetary compensation to them (or their survivors). I personally have qualms with equating money and justice, but the whole point of the concept was to avoid eye-for-an-eye. Because the ancient Germanic peoples, like many others, realized that if you go around plucking out everyone’s eye productivity is going to drop.

Please keep in mind that “eye for an eye” doesn’t mean lawless vengeance. The lex talionis, as used by Hammurabi and picked up by the Hebrews, was a humane and progressive legal reform at the time. In prelegal societies, wrongs (from theft all the way up to assault and murder) were often repaid by an escalated level of aggression. Clan A wounds a member of Clan B and rustles his livestock; Clan B retaliates by killing three members of Clan A and burning their homes.

Early legal codes pretty much came down to “behave or die”, but they were still intended to prevent lawless feuding and vengeance. “Eye for an eye” was a progressive improvement over “head for an eye”, and even (arguably) over other common punishments like enslavement and outlawry.

Needless to say, the idea that Christendom abandoned the lex talionis versus the existing Roman system is ridiculous. Suffice it to say that substituting the breaking wheel for the cross hardly represents a sea change in penal theory, and any society which made systematic use of the gibbet couldn’t be ashamed of their use of the gallows. Christianity certainly has served a role in making the penal system less brutal, but it’s secular liberal theory that has eased it away from retribution.

It seems like every time Amanda posts on this movie the comment thread goes way off the rails.  Nice threadjack, Tyler.

Tyler, most of us are “nice people”, as long as you accept that the definition of “nice” does not automatically require membership in The Christian Club…

Jesus, or Christianity, or the Western form of Christianity, or the Western form of Christianity that doesn’t call for an eye for an eye?

Because there’s a boatload of eye-for-an-eyers out there with Jesus fish on their bumpers.  How powerful is Jesus again?
Comment #43: oldfeminist on 03/21 at 05:07 PM

The whole point of Jesus is the rejection of “an eye for an eye” in favor of “turn the other cheek” and “love thine enemies.”

This is the cornerstone of the difference between Judaism and Christianity. Pretty much the whole new Testament comes down to this. Are some Christian people ignorant or not carrying this practice out? Sure, but that’s not Jesus’ fault. You’re just conflating the New Testament with the Old Testament if you claim “an eye for an eye” is “Christian.”

“What qualifies as hate speech to you?”

Amanda’s definition of “hate speech” allows christianist comments to be challenged, which I’m sure is a violation of free speech somehow, somewhere, but back here on Planet Earth, on a private blog, waving your Christianity flag doesn’t get you an automatic (dare I say Palinesque or Althouseian?) pass.  And since when is being challenged or being disagreed with a form of “hate speech”? 

Sorry, dude, but I don’t understand this philosophy of yours…

Tyler, are you seriously considering suicide because of this thread?  If so, I suggest you stop reading threads like this and seek help.

If not, why are you bringing up this straw suicider?

We thought you were mature enough to handle criticism, especially that based on fact and not “you ugly goober your fat.”

Are some Christian people ignorant or not carrying this practice out? Sure, but that’s not Jesus’ fault. You’re just conflating the New Testament with the Old Testament if you claim “an eye for an eye” is “Christian.”
Comment #56: KingElvis on 03/21 at 06:31 PM

If Jesus is so influential, why do so few people who call themselves Christians follow this tenet?

You say “some Christian people,” but really, how many do you know of that aren’t literally saints who abjure justice in favor of “just taking it,” on a regular basis, on their own initiative?

“If Jesus is so influential, why do so few people who call themselves Christians follow this tenet?”

There were people appropriating the ideas and the (literal or not) words of Jesus (if he existed) for their own purposes almost from the beginning.  In reality, there was always a discomfort among many with ideas like “love your enemy” and “turn the other cheek”.

Way easier to just pay lip-service to Jesus and take the fire-‘n-brimstone Old Testament to heart (cafeteria Mosaic Law is so much fun to beat other people with, dontcha think?).  So much more sweet, sweet hate over there, which better serves the needs of rightwing Christian-in-name-only authoritarian worshipers…

“You’re an evil human being. You’re evil. You should be ashamed of what you wrote to me in #63, but you’re not, which is why you are sadistic and evil. You’re an evil person and you need to check yourself.”

...totally not hate speech, unless you think being called an idiot yourself represents hate speech…

[Edward G. Robinson voice:] Where’s your Jesus nnooowwww?

...

Quite a tantrum.  Somebody doesn’t want to share this planet with those of us who think differently…

This critique by Feminist Frequency is both interesting and close to absurd.
FIRST - She is criticizing other critics for claiming that Mattie is a feminist character.
SECOND - She then applies her critque of others as a critique of the movie / book, which is a leap.
THIRD - She makes up a definition of what defines a ‘feminist character’ not taking into consideration that fully developed characters - while certainly welcome - are not needed to define feminity or masculinity. Often archetypes are much more useful rather than fully formed characters.
FOUR - It’s clear she wanted to see a different movie, which makes one believe nothing will please her until she actually makes a movie herself. Maybe she will.

If Jesus is so influential, why do so few people who call themselves Christians follow this tenet?

You say “some Christian people,” but really, how many do you know of that aren’t literally saints who abjure justice in favor of “just taking it,” on a regular basis, on their own initiative?

There are aspects of Christianity that are very…“Bhudist-ish.” They are subtle and nuanced philosophies that actually go against our baser instincts. “Love thine enemies” is the biggest one.

Seems like you are confusing not just the difference between the New and Old Testaments, but the the sin and the sinners in this case.

Now at this point I could travel this trope, which seems to get lots of traction around here…

“DO I HAVE TO WALK YOU THROUGH EVERY BOOK ABOUT (feminist ideology substituted for Christianity)? BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO DO YOUR HOMEWORK TO ENGAGE IN THIS DISCUSSION!”

Nope. I’m not gonna do that. Why? I love my enemies, sister.

“It’s clear she wanted to see a different movie, which makes one believe nothing will please her until she actually makes a movie herself.”

...which is a trap all of us fall into periodically.  Let’s face it, no matter how you present certain kinds of characters (perhaps even all characters that aren’t just background wallpaper), somebody’s going to be disappointed if not outright angry.

It’s easy for us to project our thoughts and feelings onto a film (which is why film is so powerful), but ultimately we are merely the audience for someone else’s thoughts and feelings.  And we’ll never really know for certain what was intended for us to think and feel…

@oldfeminist:

Jesus said to share.  Great.  Jesus said to turn the other cheek.  Fine.  Jesus said to get up and leave your families.  Wait, what?  Pay your taxes, but then turn over the tables of the moneychangers.

Ahem.  Jesus held up a (Roman) coin and said “render unto Caeser that which is Caeser’s” and then he got pre-medieval on the tables of the money-changers in the temple.  No contradiction - he was drawing a line between the matters of God and the matters of money and temporal power - something wingnuts have yet to learn.

Shorter Tyler: Disagreeing with me is so MEAN! Pointing out aspects of my beliefs that are poorly thought through is so INTOLERANT! Strong logical arguments made with biting rhetorical flair is a VIOLATION OF MY HUMAN RIGHTS!

Yawn.

I dunno, I kind of have to take issue with Anita’s whole premise.  Movies aren’t feminist unless the female characters are empathetic and nurturing?  That sounds like the opposite of feminist - more like buying into gender stereotypes.

I see Tyler has taken my advice and stopped basing his arguments on quotations.  That was a sad little tantrum, though.  Dude is seriously new to the internets.

oldfeminist @58, nice reference.  “lol your fat”....Shakesville had its moments. 

reverie, you forgot the “I’m smarter than all of you ANYWAY, neener neener!”

Shorter shorter Tyler: TROLLOLOLOL. I can’t remember ever seeing it done so shamelessly and obviously.

In any case I think he’s pulled that shit before here.

Very nice post, Amanda.

@Emmett - That, and also “I’m especially smarter than Antigone, because girls who think they’re smart are teh most evilest evil things on the planet! My knowledge is too great to be contained by your foolish woman-logic.”

@Alex Weaver

It’s not that masculinity *has* to be equated with violence, but it empirically tends to be within American (and I would say most Western) cultures. Think about it this way - which is the more masculine sport, American football or gymnastics? Which is a more masculine display of emotion - yelling in anger or crying with hurt? Which is a more masculine video game - Halo and Grand Theft Auto or Animal Crossing and the Sims? Which is a more masculine career path - joining the Navy or teaching kindergarten? Etc, etc.

Of course, there’s certainly value to re-conceptualizing masculinity so that it is not integrally tied to violence! It’s just that a more compassionate masculinity is not the dominant model at this point in time…

Okay, to reclaim this thread:
One of the best lines from Fargo—the payoff line, IMHO—is when Marge has the guy in the back seat and she says, “So that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there. And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainard. And for what? For a little bit of money. There’s more to life than a little money, you know. Doncha know that? And here ya are, and it’s a beautiful day. Well. I just don’t understand it.” (Italics for emphasis there.)

Which sums it up, to me.

I was intrigued by the analyses here. I read the book about 35 years ago, so I wouldn’t remember details. But it occurs to me that, in this version of the movie (which I haven’t seen yet . . .) Maddie could be “broken” for any of a number of reasons. One would/could be the effects of revenger on the revengeer; another could be the effects of living in a patriarchy for one’s whole life, even when one has been able to fight it long enough to avenge a loved one’s death. Or, of course, some combination.

I’m not sure I buy either the “hardened” or “broken” by engaging in violence interpretations, given the time we’re talking about. If Mattie’s father had not been killed, she might plausibly have had a “normal” life for the time, marrying the son of some other rancher or farmer and running his household as she was clearly trained to run her father’s, raising children and so forth, with either more or less oppression depending on her luck. Fulfillment the way we think of it today? Who knows.

But as soon as her father was dead, some kind of broken future was pretty much inevitable, whether one of dependency or solitude.

@50: Please keep in mind that “eye for an eye” doesn’t mean lawless vengeance.

Well, I don’t think Mattie wants either. Which is an important but critical note of character development. When Mattie first comes to Fort Smith, she wants civic justice. Cheney and the people of Fort Smith not only are responsible for the death of her father, but also for jilting her family out of embalming fees and the property her father purchased. So her first act in Fort Smith is to achieve some limited form of economic justice. She threatens to use the law to get a desirable price on the horses her father purchased.

The justice Mattie seeks at the start of the conflict isn’t just about religious vengeance, but about her father’s relationship to the State of Arkansas and the city of Fort Smith that failed to protect him. She needs an Arkansas trial to correct that injustice, and so she rejects the idea that Cheney would be executed in Texas by people who don’t know her father, or in the wilderness.

Of course everything goes to hell in a handbasket. The cinematic epilogue glosses over some key details about Adult Mattie’s sense of right and wrong. She makes excuses for Rooster, who finds himself mired in range-war atrocities, but insults Frank James, who she suspects got away with a murder.  Her religious notions about the arbitrary nature of divine grace are mirrored by the arbitrary nature of human justice.

Fuck, I wish this thread hadn’t been hijacked.  Could have been an interesting one.

And it’s interesting to me that few people have noted that Rooster is a fucking monster, a murder and thief by his own admission, and connected with some of the bloodiest gang violence and terrorism of the 19th century.

Amanda, this is the most insightful review I’ve seen yet on True Grit (including my own—I walked into the movie expecting to dislike it and instead loved it, so I talked about my experience in that regard).  Mattie is definitely a feminist character, and anyone who thinks that a woman that embodies masculine traits cannot be feminist fails to understand the aspects of privilege and repression that come to play so deeply in our society.

@nobody all the way back up there at #36 - The Dude abides, but he never got his rug back.  All the Dude ever wanted was his rug back…

I thought they were making the point that hyper-masculinity was a trait more characteristic of children (Mattie), pompous jerks (LaBoef), and amoral thugs (Rooster) than of functioning adult human beings.  True Grit was definitely critical of hyper-masculinity.

I didn’t think that Mattie was destroyed, though.  Hyper-masculinity is childish, and she was hyper-masculine as a child.  She just grew up.  Now she has a realistic world view, is scarred by her experiences but matter-of-fact about them, is financially successful.  She didn’t marry because she won’t fetch slippers for a “baboon” but she’s not alienated from humanity; she takes care of her mother.  She’s succeeded in outgrowing her hyper-masculinity to become an adult where Rooster and LaBoef didn’t.  I saw it as about the most positive ending you could get in that setting.

So I notice the thin veneer of Tyler’s so called christianity was eroded to nothing by someone calling him an idiot. Hmm, seems to me Tyler old boy that your christianity is a little weak if such a small thing can lead you to discard its teachings so very quickly.

Nimravid writes, “I thought they were making the point that hyper-masculinity was a trait more characteristic of children (Mattie), pompous jerks (LaBoef), and amoral thugs (Rooster) than of functioning adult human beings.”

That’s how I read it.

Or, maybe you could say that the code of hyper-masculine honor best suits innocents (Mattie), suckers (LaBoef), and thugs (Rooster). Everyone else gets left out.

On topic; great review Amanda. Took my 89 y o grandma to see this film (she’s a Coen bros fan). She enjoyed it but not as much as she expected to. I found it to be a film that stayed with me. I would find myself musing over particular scenes, particularly the ending which seemed so ambiguous. She seeks, she doesn’t find. There’s a burial (or at least a gravestone), which is a definite end, and yet where is she left? Alone, on a hillside, remembering. How does that mesh with the body of the film? Amanda’s reading feels right to me despite my knowledge of the historical time and place she is living in and the ‘realism’ of that ending for that type of person in those type of circumstances. It’s been a few weeks now. I must ask my Grandma what she thinks of it now that she’s had a chance to digest it a little more.

Tyler, religious claims are just that: claims. They aren’t intrinsic to a person, like orientation or heritage, though religion is inherited, so I can see the confusion. Claims are available for challenge. Since atheists run this site, it’s particularly amusing that you think denials or the existence of your particular god are beyond the pale.

Think about it this way - which is the more masculine sport, American football or gymnastics?

Well that’s a silly question. Did you ever see a film called Footballsu or Tacklekata? I think not. You certainly didn’t see the Tackling Dummy of Justice in a film, but who could forget the epic Pommel Horse of Asskicking?[1]

1. At this point I expect confused looks from anyone under the age of 30 or so. As well as anyone other than the half-dozen or so of us who have not scrubbed that film from their memory.

What the people reading this thread have to understand is that it’s about Tyler.

Oh sure, the site says Pandagon across the top, and it lists a set of authors.

But this thread became about Tyler the moment he said something—and it became about “ganging up” on Tyler the moment he said something obviously false which he chose not to recant after being called on it.

See, conservatives are human beings and liberals are not, so all conservative statements are immune to challenge from liberals.  Indeed, that is the definition of a conservative—someone who is emotionally incapable of handling someone contradicting them.

That’s why, in a thread devoted to Amanda disagreeing with someone’s interpretation of a movie, it is wildly inappropriate for every single person on the thread to happen to have the (correct) opinion that Tyler’s attempt to shoehorn the Jewish Coen Brothers’ meditation on the violence which always lies underneath failures of the secular social contract into a “WWJD” narrative of history (whew) is clearly wrong.

But it’s not about us, and our lives and experiences which lead us to these judgments.  It’s about Tyler.  Because to conservatives, it’s always about them.

And yeah, I’ve noticed that it’s always the folks who are the most adamant about teh awesum which is “turn the other cheek” who are utterly incapable of it once they’re questioned in any way.

One of the ideas which really delightfully ambiguizes the ending of True Grit for me is the musing on what Mattie’s life would have been like with and without her father’s death.  Once he was gone . . . yeah.  Does she move East?  There were some women who made lives out there . . .

I know there is no God in the same way I know there are no faeries. I am not agnostic on the question of faeries, Tyler.

Ah, sorry guys.  I was traveling and this troll took advantage.  I should have remembered he’s a hateful wingnut who spends what appears hours out of his day hating me on other blogs.

I dunno, Anita’s argument about Mattie’s exhibiting hyper-masculine traits strikes me as standard anti-feminist fare, where it’s only women that are expected to show the full range of human behavior.  She acknowledges that all the characters seem unaffected by brutality (for convenience, about the 4 minute mark of the video), but only has an expectation that Mattie challenge this.  You can see this same sort of thing when women in business are discussed.  If it’s female CEOs and the like that we’re talking about, the topic will turn to rapacious corporate practices, and women are expected to bring a woman’s touch (read: compassionate, empathetic).  We can usually discuss male CEOs without calling into question the way the entire corporate structure is set up to reward sociopathic behavior.  This places the burden for changing the way the whole system works on the person who is already, relative to the other players (established male business leaders or the men in True Grit) in the most precarious position.  In assessing whether Mattie is a feminist character, I don’t think Anita makes enough of a distinction between Mattie and the film. 

Fargo’s Marge makes for a better feminist character, and I think that might partly have to do with personal preference.  I like my fiction real; I just hate superhuman type characters, like that Goren character of Law and Order CI.  It made that show virtually unwatchable for me.  Haha, looking up his name, I found there’s even a website that mocks how he knows everything:
http://ohreallygoren.tumblr.com/
Mattie’s negotiations with the horse trader just totally ruined it for me.  Self-assurance and cleverness is one thing, but I think that negotiation required a level of experience and knowledge that Mattie couldn’t possibly have.  Marge, on the other hand, doesn’t really do anything extraordinary.  So I give feminist points when female characters aren’t unrealistically good or exceptional:

Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get appointed as an assistant professor. It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel.

Bella Abzug

On characters like Bobby Goren, Raymond Chandler wrote this over 60 years ago:

The master of rare knowledge is living psychologically in the age of the hoop skirt. If you know all you should know about ceramics and Egyptian needlework, you don’t know anything at all about the police. If you know that platinum won’t melt under about 2800 degrees F. by itself, but will melt at the glance of a pair of deep blue eyes when put close to a bar of lead, then you don’t know how men make love in the twentieth century. And if you know enough about the elegant flânerie of the pre-war French Riviera to lay your story in that locale, you don’t know that a couple of capsules of barbital small enough to be swallowed will not only not kill a man—they will not even put him to sleep, if he fights against them.

Chandler’s comment is crap. It’s the the viewpoint of a crime writer who writes a particular type of character railing against those who write about knowledgeable characters, a very American form of prejudice where knowledge and culture must be the opposite of someone capable of functioning in a more rough and tumble setting.

Admittedly, with characters like Goren, who really is only a modern variation on Sherlock Holmes, yeah, they know a ridiculous amount about too much, but that’s the archetype that the character fills. Goren is the Holmes, Eames (or whoever) is the Watson.

Conan Doyle had Holmes display a similar type of contempt for “useless” knowledge when he acknowledged that he knew absolutely nothing about astronomy (to the point he didn’t know if the sun went around the Earth) because it would fill up his precious brain cells with information that didn’t apply to his chosen path of solving crime.  Doyle later admitted the fallacy of that position in a later story when the attitude came back and bit Holmes in the ass as Watson pointed out that the case would have been resolved much faster and easier had Holmes bothered at some point in his life to note that the sun isn’t in the same place in the sky at the same time every day of the year.  The solution depended on the position of the tip of the shadow of a tree, and Holmes was completely oblivious that one couldn’t simply go out at the indicated time and see where it was, even though it was a completely different part of the year, and Holmes ended up admitting he was wrong.

The overall attitude is that a character has to conform to a specific stereotype. The brilliant scientist has to be completely useless when it comes to the “real” world. The tough detective capable of easily smacking around a thug with his fists or plugging him with a gun can’t possibly have anything knowledgeable to say about the Punic Wars.

I guess here again, I object. Mattie’s literacy, numeracy, and the name of a good lawyer are pretty much the only advantages she has, and that doesn’t always work for her. She gets taken advantage of by the landlady and undertaker. Her deal with the stable owner was an easy fight against a malarial carpetbagger, and even there he caved only with the threat of legal action.

And while she’s precocious, it’s not entirely out of historical character. Mattie’s rough contemporary Annie Oakley was supporting her family from hunting and contest prizes in her teens.

But, Mattie can’t load or shoot a gun. She can barely ride. She’s barely competent at camping. Her only virtue in Indian Territory is that she refuses to risk being sent home by complaining.