Why was everyone being horrible to Sera after she was beaten and raped? They kicked her out of her motel, pushed her out of the casino by the skirt, gave her verbal abuse about being a whore and left her with no more clients. Why did they do that?
shareUseful Q. i believe that analysis of art qua art would eschew psychology, sociology, and perhaps even morality, despite various good intentions of the other replies. That rape scene of misunderstanding and lack of flexibility seems to represent the meaninglessness of a professional selling love inauthentically but who needs to love in truth (and how goes your romance or marraige?). Significant that the loving relationship features absence of physical love making, which for Sera substitutes for language. Ben's position, tho perverse is more authentic: to drink self to death. Trying to die would be a simularcum of existence. What does it mean that one IS? What does it mean what one DOES? For that rape scene, note that the hostility is first enacted by the target, too inflexible to think her way thru an emotionally charged situation, to have principles that guide her to notice points of decision or difficulty - in which sense she acts as stupidly as the Micheal Douglas character in Fatal Attraction; both refuse to think. (This amounts to a violation of human functioning contrasted with automatic animalistic routine behavior, which will always invite Contempt. Indeed, her fantasy that she could enter a high pressure system and remain outside of it, free from her own overreactions is a conceit we all share in the overcharged high pressure systems we all are in called family. This works out technically in Existentialism as Bad Faith. Sera demonstrates a Bad Faith position in life by commodifying herself For Others, and separating that from her more authentic self that needs to love and create meaning by giving care. Those reactions of others merely reflect her hostility in this stance toward the world. Ben, on the other hand, does it all to himself and intends to. What dies for Ben is Ben. What dies for Sera is innocence and belonging, which she has killed off already by the position she occupies in life. Altogether a very cynical account of ontological meaning. That it is wrapped in an attractive romantic and escapist package does not change the essential pessimism.
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The real question is why do criminals have a harder time in their day to day lives? Why do drug dealers, three card monte tricksters, fencers, counterfeit sellers, pimps, etc. encounter more regular abuse, crime and suffering than the average, law abiding citizen?
Yes, Sera is a criminal, and crime against criminals is indeed sad, but even sadder is that the decision to become a criminal brings a level of crime as baggage.
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Yes, Sera is a criminal, and crime against criminals is indeed sad, but even sadder is that the decision to become a criminal brings a level of crime as baggage.
Since about the year 1626 according to Meriah Webster.
(1) crim·i·nal adjective \ˈkri-mə-nəl, ˈkrim-nəl\
: involving illegal activity : relating to crime
: relating to laws that describe crimes rather than to laws about a person's rights
: morally wrong
(2)criminal noun
: a person who has committed a crime or who has been proved to be guilty of a crime by a court
Full Definition of CRIMINAL
1: one who has committed a crime
2: a person who has been convicted of a crime
Examples of CRIMINAL
<car thieves, pickpockets, burglars, and other criminals>
Prostitution is illegal in Las Vegas so she was breaking the law, see definition above.
Man without relatives is man without troubles. Charlie Chan
You'll have to excuse my somewhat brusque reply, but I think it was more directed at the statement that she 'decided to become a criminal'.
I, for one, wouldn't equate prostitution as being on par with thieving, certainly any more than the Casinos are thieves themselves. Let's not forget that Las Vegas was founded by thieves and gangsters, so I found it kind of ironic that Sera is considered more of a criminal than anything else in that city.
Although in most cases, prostitutes are the victims of psychological abuse and are often brainwashed by their pimps into thinking that the only worth they have is by selling their bodies and subjecting themselves to the wim of their 'daddies'. See the scenes involving the Yuri character that confirms this.
Limit of the Willing Suspension of Disbelief: directly proportional to its awesomeness.
One of the reasons why the casino was extra nasty to Sera was because that was the casino that she had been banned from due to Ben's meltdown at the blackjack table earlier in the film.
shareShe was a criminal and an obvious prostitute. People like that don't usually get (or deserve) respect.
shareThat is a lot of hate towards girls who might not have the same chances in life that you had. "People like that don't usually get (or deserve) respect" from narrow minded people like you.
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because she is a prostitute and people believe that she got what she deserved. if she was an innocent college girl or the girl next door, they might sympathize with her, but as a prostitute, they would think that this is just karma, or she's used to this kind of treatment, and they don't want to get involved in her drama.
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