The strange ethics of movies

[brown_bear]

Often in the movies the main character wreaks havoc on the Ten Commandments and doesn’t make a problem of it.

Then - it’s just one example out of a thousand - it happens that he has to change city for a new job and, there, his son is hit by a car and dies.

The rest of the film will be marked by the atrocious feelings of guilt of the protagonist who feels responsible for the death of his son for changing the city and his spouse doesn’t help making him feel guilty.

Does it only happen in movies or does it also happen in real life?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I think when it’s a situation like a sudden unnatural death of a loved one, especially a child, it’s normal for a person to engage in guilt and self-blame, “if only I’d done this, or hadn’t done that, then X would still be alive…”

If the loved one had died as a result of the main character breaking one of the Ten Commandments, for example if the main character’s kid died as a result of the main character telling a lie, cheating on his wife, stealing something etc then the movie is basically illustrating the old cliched trope of punishment for sin. This was done many times already in the movies and is still done sometimes but it often makes the character unsympathetic to the audience and makes for a less interesting movie than if he’s racked with guilt over some morally neutral choice.

Also, from a standpoint of realism, we often don’t suffer many or any earthly consequences for sinful behavior, and many people do a lot of things that Catholic teaching considers sinful but the secular public at large does not.