4.12.11

Really? All ten?

There are a large number of things about the movie Episode 50 that don't make any sense. For example, every single thing that happens in the course of the movie. Really, every moment of its running time refuses to make sense. I'd like to focus on one particular sequence from the film, however, more for brevity's sake than anything else.

After a brief introduction suggests that the movie is about a show so boring that it could never have made it past the pilot stage, let alone to episode 50, the gang meets a ne'er-do-well who's dying of cancer. Before he goes, he'd like to know whether or not he's going to hell. Why is he so concerned? Well, in the following clip, he explains why he feels he's earned god's punishment.



Which brings me to my question: really? You've broken each of the ten commandments ten times each? Is that really plausible? Let's look at them one at a time.

1: I can't believe you were worshiping gods other than Yahweh. Let alone putting ten different gods before him. That's just crazy.

2: Did you spend a lot of time making carvings of gods or heaven? Did you then worship those idols? I'm guessing no on both counts.

3: I don't think you ever took the lord's name in vain. That may seem like a stretch, since 'god damn it' and 'god bless you' are both in the common parlance, but when we talk about the ten commandments, we mean serious lapses. When they say 'taking the lord's name in vain' they mean having the hubris to assert that you're speaking for god's will. Not just saying 'god damn it', but full-on saying that you have the authority to say definitively that god will damn something. Since you've presented yourself as an Agnostic, I doubt you had enough faith at any point in your life to honestly claim authority over god's decisions.

4: I will completely give you this one. There's no way that you kept the Sabbath day holy even once in your life. So that's 1/4 so far. Not a fantastic record, guy.

5: Since you were obviously never cut off, and don't seem to have killed your parents, I find it hard to believe that you failed to honor them in ten separate instances. You're still living a life of luxury despite your crimes, so I'm going to guess that your parents were rich scumbags as well, and you honored them by carrying on the family tradition of excessive scumbaggery. So that's another failed category.

6: You killed ten people? That seems excessive to me - I mean, you were in jail until very recently, so I don't doubt that you killed someone... but ten people? No way. Maybe if you were a mob boss or something I'd believe it. Even the head of a large corporation, where profit-inspired negligence could have led to plenty of deaths, that I would buy. According to your intro, though, you're just the scumbag scion of one of America's richest families. I doubt you've been dropping bodies left and right.

7: Were you ever married? I don't doubt that you've had sex with married women, but that doesn't really count on you so much as it does on them. Since we don't know your marital history, we're going to call this one UNDETERMINED.

8: Did you ever have to steal? You're a rich scumbag. Anything people don't just give you you could afford to buy. I'm going to say probably not to this one as well.

9: If we were reading this one in the common colloquial "Don't Lie", then I'd say sure, but the proper text is much more specific - the commandment concerns not just lying, but lying to implicate a neighbor in some way. Yes, you're a man of low character, and I'm sure you'd be quick to lie to ruin someone's life (while bettering your own), but how many opportunities are you going to have to do something like that? Certainly not ten, so you're not getting this one either.

10: You were a rapacious consumer of all life's pleasures - of course you coveted everything in sight, all the time, no matter who it belonged to. This one's all yours.

So, in the final analysis, despite your claim to have broken each of the ten commandments ten times, only two of those are actually plausible, and one inconclusive. So there is no way you broke seven of the commandments as frequently or excitedly as you claim. What are you so worried about?

More importantly, why are you crying about the existence of demons, rather than running to the nearest cathedral to repent your sins and get baptized?

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