MovieChat Forums > Monster's Ball (2002) Discussion > my theory about the ending *contains spo...

my theory about the ending contains spoilers

posted 9 years ago by breatheonsister
6 replies | jump to latest

So, I think this movie speaks to the idea that circumstances now are not so different from times of slavery and Jim Crow.

When she sees the drawings and gets angry and agitated, she is realizing that she has figuratively been moved off the plantation field and into the master's house--but she still has second class slave status. Slave owners often had a view they would "take good care of" their slaves.

Ok obviously she is not a slave. But there is an analogy there that resonates. He has been a weapon in the machine of oppression (he also has suffered, and is a sort of slave in his own context). He's been part of the machine that imprisons and kills black folks. Now she's taken into his house. Will it be a life of dignity? Will the bitterness of the fact he executed prisoners, and someone close to her ever go away? Can she really live with that, sleep with that at night? Or will she feel like an Uncle Tom?

I think she is volatile at the end. But then she sits down with him and has some ice cream. There are the gravestones. This is his last pitiful meal in his very own Monster's Ball. Last supper. I think she is planning revenge and to kill him at the end. Or at least, she is sitting with that power. Because of what he symbolizes and he is the manifestation of what has oppressed and destroyed her life until now. I think his gravestone is coming up next.

Not sure if this theory has been out there in reviews and whatnot? I thought it made a lot of sense.

[–] Ceephax 8 years ago

Inteersting theory, I like it. But I'd like to think they lived happily ever after. I think after all the trauma something like that is needed.

[–] Eleo 8 years ago

That's actually not a bad theory, it would make the shot of the gravestones seem a bit more pertinent.

[–] Sandy0095 8 years ago

But Hank isn't a bad man. I get her anger over not knowing but he was doing his job... as horrible as it was. He didn't even know her at the time. Plus he quit.

I saw the ending as positive, or as positive as it could be. I think the ending with her sitting eating ice cream, glancing at the tombstones symbolizes her understanding of Hanks pain. If you notice, Hank is always taking care of her. He drives her to work, gives her his sons car, sends his father away & lets her move in. She's aware of his son's passing but hardly talks about it.

I think the tombstones show how much Hank needed someone too- he needed someone to take care of just like she needed to be taken care of. When she lets him feed her ice cream, she looks almost content. It never plays as mean spirited in my opinion, but more like too people finding themselves & starting over. I never got the impression she was out to get him.

-Who is it?
-It's Grandpa. And it sounds like he's gotten into the horseradish again.

[–] mopsi (4) 8 years ago

I also don't think Hank was a bad person, just a damaged and broken one. This movie has a strong theme of parents-children relationships. And we see all parents being children themselves. Well, at least Hank is especially in focus because the movie tells us where he came from and what he became. There are relationships between Tyrell and his father Lawrence, between Tyrell and his mother Leticia, between Sonny and Hank, between Hank and his father Buck, and probably also between Buck and his own father (which the movie tells us nothing about).
Hank and Leticia are basically doing the same in letting their anger and frustration about their relationships with father and husband out on their children Sonny and Tyrell respectively. Remember when Sonny points the gun at Hank and says "How do you like that, huh? Come on! Are you a tough guy now?" he basically says what kind of adult are you? Because Hank is a lost child himself. Same as Sonny he is never good enough for his father unless he becomes just like him, without questioning. Hank is never accepted by Buck to be anything else than Buck's own image of life / work / attitude / ...

He's not bad in nature, he is just lost and tries to do the right thing - just as he says it himself in the car with Leticia. I personally only have a problem with the "love" thing between Hank and Leticia. It does not feel like "love". It looks like he is trying to do the right thing, to make it up for Sonny, too (remember the scene where he scares away the black kids with gun shots and Sonny is looking at him in shock and disgust). It feels like the late outstanding puberty of sorts, rebellion against his own father and his ideas or beliefs. I really think he is taking care of Leticia because he wants to do something good so that he is forgiven (by whoever) for what he had done to Sonny. But I don't think he really loves her. She's just a friend with the same grieving problem...

[–] Flame (1) 6 years ago

I didn't draw the same slavery conclusions but I did think exactly the same thing about the ice-cream eating scene at the end. Leticia was looking at the tombstones, planning on revenge killing Hank and was joining him in his own monster's ball. All the main characters are sort of victims and monsters trapped in cycles. Both coping with victimhood and abusing power over other humans in many interactions. A fabulous film about human dynamics, so yes, in a way the master/ slave dynamic - most starkly demonstrated at the end where it seems as if Leticia has wilfully succumbed to a position of dependence upon Hank, submitting and giving him infinite power to potentially eventually destroy her like so many other already fallen victims deemed weak in the sorry story - but I believe the final scene shows her engaging her monster side and planning on executing Hank. Strength in being the monster - yikes

[–] Boricanator (1469) 3 years ago

I saw it as the other way around. They were both slaves and are now free.

Both were slaves to tradition. Hank followed his father’s footsteps and became a corrections officer. He was stuck with a father and a son he hated because they represented the tradition that enslaved him.

The same goes for Leticia. She also stuck in her own slavery due to tradition.

And all of this tradition made them miserable. It was only after those people that were making them slaves to tradition were gone, could they be free and happy.

I think she did thought about killing him after finding out that he knew her husband. But she decided not to later. She probably realized that Hank is the best thing that’s ever happened to her. He will care for her and she is not going to mess that up by committing murder.

my theory about the ending *contains spoilers*

my theory about the ending contains spoilers