This week we're going to watch Dead Man Walking, the movie adapted from Sister Helen Prejean's first memoir of the same name. In the film, Sean Penn's character is really a fusion of two men-- Louisiana death row inmates in the 1980s. Susan Sarandon won an academy award for her portrayal of the nun (Penn was nominated but lost to Nicholas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas). The film is a pretty accurate portrayal of the memoir although at this time, historically, Louisiana executed criminals by electric chair and the Sean Penn character is executed by lethal injection. This might be one of the questions you should consider for the blog this week: Why did they change it to lethal injection in the film? Why did they change it in real life?
Sean Penn's character, Matthew Poncelet, is based on two criminals, Elmo Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie, both who were guilty of murder. In her second memoir, The Death of Innocents, which we'll be reading over the course of the semester, she looks at the case of two men who were probably innocent and yet executed anyway. As we watch the film and read the book, I'd like us to think about how these two texts affect our views of the death penalty.
Btw: What are your views of the dp? What are Sister Helen's and how are they different or similar to yours? How are Sister Helen's views dramatized in the film? New York has abolished the dp, but Louisiana, where the film is set, hasn't. Does it matter that 31 states allow the dp and the other 19 do not?
I believe that death penalty is not a smart thing nor will anyone gain anything out of it. If someone commit a crime, kill a child for example and get death penalty I don't think that's making them suffer because they will be gone. They will be resting and the parents will still remember their child and be heart broke, their child won't come back. I think the best way to make them suffer is to let them be alive and make them realize in someway what they have done. I don't think the answer to that is a death penalty.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Lena's views on the death penalty, nothing will come out from being rational to be irrational. By just executing a criminal would be as the same as murdering someone who is part of a loving family, regardless if it's for justice or not. The better option is to put them in "time-out" from their freedom and have them stay in an isolated area to rethink the actions they've committed.
ReplyDeleteAn example being the film that was viewed in class called "Dead Man Walking", where the protagonist: Sister Helen is to choose to either comfort a man that will soon die by execution in which he was involved in a murder and rape of two young adults, the latter was for her to join the crowd that was pushing forth the death penalty. Among her choices, she learned that both families of the victims and criminal were heart-struck after being forced to accept the death of their loved ones. Though, one of the historical inaccuracy mentioned by the OP was that the state Louisiana executed criminals by the electric chair, while the film showed it by lethal injection. One of the theories of why it was changed was so that it helped dramatized Matthew's (The criminal character in the film) death in a calm but sentimental fashion.
To be honest, the death penalty being present in certain states while not being in others should only matter if the system actually works. As in discouraging the rate of crime where the punishment is to pay up their life in-order to be forgiven, it basically warns the people to behave and follow the norms of society or else. Unlike the traditional method of going to court and then being put in jail to be released again depending of the time given by the judge. The least they did of improving the d.p. was being more "humane" over time, the most known in the past was dislodging a human head from the idea with a large bladed device. Now, the electric chair was to be phased out with the less painful and more clean method of removing someone that wasn't wanted by society.