The End of the F***ing World at Another Side of the World
Disclaimer: I tried to write this piece without ruining the show for new viewers, but I found some spoilers were simply necessary. Sorry about that.
Content/trigger warning: While never graphic, this piece deals with shootings and violence.
The growing Netflix favorite, The End of the F***ing World, is as delightful as it is depressing. The coming-of-age theme combines with soft, pleasant aesthetics which sent me back to seeing Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom over five years ago, when I exchanged my first kiss with the partner I’m grateful to still have by my side. The troubled thoughts of misunderstood teenagers resulting in violent desires, however, transported me back to only a few days before I started watching — specifically, to February 14, when Nikolas Cruz opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, killing seventeen and injuring fourteen more.
The entirety of that day, in fact, seems to summarize the conflict of emotions I felt while watching TEOTFW. I tried not to check for updates in an attempt to delay reality. I checked anyway, because I couldn’t help but feel worse without knowing if the monster had been caught. I looked forward to the dinner I had planned with my partner to get my mind off of fear and anger, to escape that sorrowful loop of natural curiosity and preferential ignorance. Then, dinner came, and while we felt relieved to be encompassed in one another’s love, Parkland’s truth still weighed on us both.
We watched the show two days later, and emotional déjà vu overwhelmed me. I loved the characters. I loved their love. I felt their pain and wished them growth. I saw kids whose actions would never be understood, let alone excused. But I also had flashbacks of headlines describing Cruz as “troubled.” Of stories detailing his family trauma. Of the legislators who pointed fingers at his mental state. My mind drifted from Cruz to the other white boys and men whose smiling faces are always on the TV when addressing their crimes with empathy, while black boys and men are pictured in loose clothing and obscene hand gestures that paint them only with guilt.
I wondered, is my emotional reaction to knowing someone’s full story only enabling the societal reaction of excusing white boys and blaming black and brown ones?
TEOTFW’s main male character James (played by the brilliant Alex Lawther) is initially a self-diagnosed psychopath until he concludes that the pain from his childhood trauma had controlled him for too long. He loses urges to hurt and kill after realizing he was just looking for an escape from feeling so, so alone. In fact, it becomes clear to the viewer that he never truly wanted to kill anyone; committing a murder was just a fantasy played out in his mind that he thought would relieve him of some pain. Every instance he thinks about finally acting on his violent “urge” against his counterpart Alyssa (played by the incredible Jessica Barden), he finds an excuse. (At one point he claims he can’t kill her in a certain circumstance because he could be linked to the crime, even though earlier he seemed ready to kill her in his own home with no cover-up set in place at all. Many more of these quirky moments happen early on that, upon second watch, make it clear he never actually wanted to hurt her at all.)
Nikolas Cruz witnessed his father’s death as a child. James saw his mother die in front him around the same age, and eleven years later still feels so empty that he thinks only acts of violence will make him feel anything at all. They also both have histories of hurting and killing small animals. Later, Cruz lost his mother, just after reaching adulthood. He was reported to have still been going through grieving depression, and frequently talked about wanting a girlfriend. His caretaker simply said, “I think he was lonely.” James never loses another parent. Instead, he meets Alyssa near adulthood age. James’ loneliness suddenly had relief, while Cruz felt more isolated upon every change of school and caretaker.
With the many parallels in their youth, why do I see James as good, and Cruz as bad?
Well, Cruz also had a Nazi symbol and “I hate n***ers” drawn on his backpack. James clearly had no discriminatory tendencies. Cruz was repeatedly suspended from schools for engaging in fights, and the police were called to his house numerous times for punching walls, hitting his family, and even pointing guns at them. James had only ever hurt himself. Cruz had training with and access to rifles. James had a hunting knife. Cruz attacked a school, James attacks a rapist in the act.
I’ll cut myself some slack for feeling a little more empathy for the fictional one.
But there’s something, still, about my eagerness to justify my care for James. I came to the conclusion that there is a reason the show is British and not American. Early in the show, Alyssa narrates in a humorous fourth-wall break, “If this were a film, we’d probably be American.” I laughed when I heard it. Now I feel a twinge of pain. This cannot be an American series because this is already an American reality with a much, much worse outcome.
In the American version of The End of the F***ing World, James can join rifle practice in high school. James would wait patiently for his eighteenth birthday, on which he would purchase the firearm appropriate for his goals. He would not have had a severe criminal background to prevent the purchase, nor any professionally-diagnosed mental health problems. James would have the access to cause any harm his empty heart felt it needed, whether toward himself, Alyssa, or his entire school. With a knife, the moment never quite felt right — it was always too personal. With a firearm, well, we can only hope that James would maintain that restraint. The American version of TEOTFW is simply Nikolas Cruz’s story culminating on February 14, 2018.
There is no shortage of empathy for “troubled” white men, and I feel I should not be contributing. But I am starting to question the American interpretation of the word “criminal.” It is what leads the right to find justification for Eric Garner’s death; it is what leads the left to advocate for the castration of Brock Turner. Vilification of criminals leads to a cartoonish notion of “bad” meaning “pure evil.” We must remind ourselves that criminals are humans who should be held responsible for their actions without losing their humanity.
It is okay to feel pain, worry, and love for anybody, simply on the grounds that they are human. The deputies who did not go into the school when they should have are human. The student youth fighting for legislative reform are boldly, beautifully human. James, while fictional, is human. Nikolas Cruz, while catastrophic, is human. You can — and should — feel pain, worry, and love for each and every one of them.
