So, here maybe is a good point of clarification. If we're talking about people who are identifying with D-Fens, that's different than D-Fens himself. By the time the movie starts, yeah, D-Fens is already a rotter who has bullied and terrified his wife and child. He's already in need of serious rehabilitation, restraining orders, possible arrests, etc. If we're talking about a theoretical real-life version, we'd have to go case-by-case, but I still say that reformation is the best way forward. Punishment is sometimes, regrettably, necessary, but again that would be on an as-needed basis. I believe in justice as well as mercy, and paying for crimes just like I believe in rehabilitation, forgiveness, and redemption.
I identify with people - humanity. I want to see justice done, I want to see mercy and forgiveness, and I want to see all people cared for. Victims should be given care, sympathy, and support, but if we don't break the cycles of violence, all we'll do is throw people in jail and then give comfort to the people they hurt. I'd like to try to get above that and reduce the necessity of punishment by providing programs.
Again, I don't know why you're saying this is a "white" thing. D-Fens' case is, yes, and there's a particular brand of perpetrator who is white and who fits that mould. But there are also desperate people of other races who wind up, for example, joining gangs in LA. Should we just call in SWAT and the National Guard to wipe them off the planet? Or should we work on strengthening those communities so that they have concrete support and hope?
I think you're doing a weird thing here where you're implying that when white people commit crimes it's because they're nasty people who deserve thrashings, but when minorities commit crimes it's because they need support? Or else you're just ignoring or misunderstanding what I've been saying?
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Otter (24464)
2 years ago
I'm going to have to come back to this, when I can sit down at a keyboard.
But for now I will say that there is a particular type of asshole that's been allowed to get away with criminal behavior over their life span, from assaulting other kids in school to harassing and assaulting others as a adult, and who receives the "Mustn't ruin his future" treatment from the authorities until he turns into someone like the protagonist of this film. And that not many people of color get that sort of indulgence, so as of now this behavior pattern is fairly specific to straight white men.
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Patman111196 (1775)
2 years ago
That's quite an interesting take. D-FENS never physically assaulted his wife and may not have had a routine habit of being violent outside his marriage and there's nothing that states he has a lengthy criminal record. But I find it hard to believe that he could just turn respond with violence in less than a few seconds to random strangers that he doesn't know without having a history of doing similar things like that in the past. We already know he has a tendency to be rather aggressive with little provocation. Maybe he was juvenile or something.
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Otter (24464)
2 years ago
Do we know that Foster never assaulted his wife? Since there's a restraining order in effect and she's terrified of him, I would assume that he had.
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Patman111196 (1775)
2 years ago
No, she says he never hit him, but feared that he might. The restraining order was because he wouldn't stop showing up on the wrong day and he would repeatedly come in the middle of the night pounding on the door, probably while they were asleep. In other words, he kept on coming over without her permission a bit too much and that freaked her out. She only went through with it after the judge tried to reassure her by telling her "Let's make an example of him". She probably began to sense that might have been the wrong move to make.
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Ace_Spade (9546)
2 years ago
From the footage of D-Fens in his home movies, it looks to me like he was abusive. Not physically - you rightly point out that his wife denies that (although sometimes people lie about that, but I don't think it's a lie in the film) - but I think he was emotionally abusive to the wife and kid. I don't think he always knew he was doing it, he just lost his temper. That's no excuse, but I get the feeling that the video footage is the tip of the iceberg with ol' D-Fens.
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Patman111196 (1775)
2 years ago
Yeah. I'm amazed how many people think the wife was in the wrong for complaining about their daughter not going on the horse as he wanted, when she was clearly freaking out for dear life to not go on it.
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Ace_Spade (9546)
2 years ago
Oh, yeah. This was also a pattern of behaviour. This wasn't D-Fens having one bad interaction with the kid, this was him regularly being a big problem.
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ehewitt (45)
2 years ago
[deleted]
JosephQCat (706)
2 years ago
Different people are used to different things. Everyone losing their temper and shouting was quite normal in my childhood but not everybody went through that. What's really bad is when you hit dating age and everyone around you knows your home life and figure you will carrying the same behavior (I did not). Girls treated me like I was radioactive. I envied the kids that grew up in homes like the Brady (Bunch) kids did. I kind of worry about you if you think blowing up emotionally happens everyplace and all the time.
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Ace_Spade (9546)
2 years ago
That sucks that you were shunned like that, but I'm glad you have broken the pattern. Cycles of bad behaviour need to be broken since they are a major factor in abuse and household trauma. Be proud of being the end of some of that!
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Ace_Spade (9546)
2 years ago
Losing your temper is not necessarily abuse, but it can be, it can lead to abuse, and it can run the gamut from "minor lapse" to "major problem," and if you think that normalizing bad behaviour is acceptable, then you're enabling extremely nasty people. I'd rather err on the side of living under a rock or holding people to a high standard than err on the side of allowing parents to harm their children.
Of course, I don't think I'm living under a rock, I didn't say that just losing your temper was abuse, and I don't really think you'd enable a truly nasty or abusive person, either. But I don't really appreciate having that "under a rock" worldview ascribed to me.
We're talking abstractly right now, though, and my posts on this thread aren't. They're specific to this film and to Bill as a character. The film clearly shows Bill having a pattern of angry, violent behaviour. We see how terrified his wife is of him, how afraid for her child she is. This isn't somebody who's losing his temper once in a while, and these bursts of anger aren't small. They're making his wife and daughter afraid of him. That's clearly a pattern of behaviour which is poisonous and abusive. He needed to get help instead of getting angry.
PS
I recognize that there is a complex conversation about how he also couldn't get help and how society was ignoring him which lead to his major break during the movie, so I'm not saying there aren't other factors.
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