I appreciate your point, Jay. Still, my earliest memories are of being terrorised, beaten and tortured by those most children would trust to protect them. My father was a violent alcoholic who tried to decapitate me with a spade when I was three-years old for reasons which have never been entirely clear. I WAS bumping my big-wheel against a tree in the back yard and shouting "Boom", but I still feel that he may have over-reacted. I ducked in time. So I suppose you could say, no harm, no foul.
My mother took the brunt of his attentions and elected to have a baby in the hope that it would 'ground' the old bastard. Needless to say, it didn't work out too well. I was a pretty big disappointment to her, and she had no hesitation about expressing the fact in non-verbal means as soon as I was old enough to walk. She became quite well-practised over the years, and I am pleased to say that I have remarkably few physical scars.
If you believe the 'common sense' about the results of such an upbringing, I should be driving a van that smells of bleach, working on my patio at 3am and lovingly compiling a scrap-book entitled 'Milk Maids' - because it's full of photographs clipped from the cartons!
We all have issues, but it's the way we deal with them that counts.
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JayHysterio
8 years ago
We don't know what caused Earl to be a louse. Maybe he was a victim, maybe he was a bully who was racked with guilt. Maybe he had some chemical imbalance in his brain that simple meds might have controlled. Just saying he looked tortured. The begging of his wife for sex, the crying on his knees while at her feet shows this dude was a little dinky dau. If it wasn't his fault maybe he deserves some compassion. The movie didn't really portray him in a sympathetic light, but they needed an antagonist so they made him someone without redeeming qualities.
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