She Wore Blue Velvet

In the world, there is clearly both good and evil. Those traits, however, are not mutually exclusive. No one person is all good or all evil. Instead, we all exist in a morally ambiguous grey area where we do whatever we have to do at any given point in time. Take, for example, the film Blue Velvet, one of the few movies that makes viewers confront their own moral ambiguity at an almost uncomfortable level. Frank Booth, the film's antagonist, is clearly presented as evil personified. He kidnaps children, violently rapes Dorothy, the film's "damsel in distress," and freely mutilates people without thinking twice about it. Our protagonist Jeffery, however, is not so clearly defined. At first, he seems like a good all-American guy, and to a less astute viewer, he appears so throughout the whole film. Once one really looks into it, however, Jeffery's entire involvement with the plot reveals that he is not so pure after all. He breaks into Dorothy's apartment in order to investigate a mystery that he has no right getting involved with, and acts as a voyeur, hiding in her closet and witnessing her most intimate moments. Voyeurism is undoubtedly wrong, but when it ultimately brings about the demise of Frank, can it really be defined as such? Later in the film, Jeffery acts violently towards Dorothy, and finds himself, like Frank, aroused by it. Jeffery is just a version of Frank that has fortunately been more restrained by society's definition of basic human decency. In fact, in one of the film's most subtly unsettling sequences, Frank turns to Jeffery, and to the camera, and mutters "You're like me," a look of true madness in his eyes. Frank may be evil, but is Jeffery really any better? And is the audience? If given the chance, would we all be Frank Booths? There is no natural good, and there is no natural evil, only people.