MovieChat Forums > Pretty Persuasion (2006) Discussion > Thoughts on Mr. Anderson's guilt

Thoughts on Mr. Anderson's guilt

posted 17 years ago by malkatz
6 replies | jump to latest

Although, from what we can tell, he is not guilty of the assult charges, and therefore innocent in that sense, I don't think he is innocent of the implications of the charges. He and his friends clearly thought about their students- in general and Kimberly specifically- sexually.

This leads us to an interesting question: if a pedophile doesn't act on his feelings, is he guilty? Can you hold his thoughts against him?

Personally, I think if these people are teachers then the answer is yes because of their positions on authority over childen.

I also think that Mr. Anderson's friend was more guilty and more of a potential pedophile because:

A. The conversation he had at the multicultrual thing
B. His sitting in the back at the scene where the girl masturbated on stage.

PS: As for the latter scene, Mr. Anderson did the wrong thing. Even though it was an acting excercise and she chose to do that action, he should have stopped it because she is a minor and it is an obscenity and took place in a private school.

[–] ns_garcia 17 years ago

I think it would be an unfair assessment of guilty.

As in: If you are angry at someone than you are guilty because you thought of murder for a second.

Compared to: If you are attracted to someone than you are guilty because of a potential harrassment that never happened.

People can't control their feelings, but they can control their actions. We can't say someone is guilty for something we just *think* is inside their minds. And, everybody is *potentially* atracted by everybody else. Potentially.

[–] malkatz 17 years ago

Playing the devil's advocate:

But pedophilia is more than a second's worth of thought. And if you masturbate to a pedophilic thought, is it acting on it?

[–] ns_garcia 17 years ago

It is unfair to judge someone's thought exactly because we can't know them.

In the specific case of the fictional Mr Anderson one could interpret that he thought that that skirt would be fabulous on his *wife*. It was! That could have come out of a pedophilic thought, but that was not a pedophilic act.

Someone else on the movie plot actually did commit that crime, but here we are trying to indict on thoughts.

[–] alveolate 16 years ago

i think it depends on what you understand by "guilty".

if you mean the legal/indictment/verdict type of guilt, then that can only be judged through proven actions. nothing less should be accepted in a court of law. on this definition, Mr A could be guilty or not guilty - depending on how you interpret the ambiguous moments of the film (e.g. was Randa molested after he closed the blinds? did his failure to stop Brit's expose constitute harassment?). based on his actions, his legal guilt is quite ambiguous - probably deliberately left that way by the director.

if you mean the moral/personal/character type of guilt, then Mr A is quite obviously guilty of indecent thoughts. indeed, he may have been carrying this guilt all throughout his teaching career - and it certainly did't help to have Mr Nicholl as a colleague! i'd go as far to blame his wife Grace for indulging his fantasies (instead of raising alarm bells and discussing the moral implications with him). but of course, ultimately it boils down to him having entertained those thoughts, and like Randa's dad said, he should have had the strength to resist - even if he's not a Muslim.

then, there is the question of causality.

you say that "people can't control their feelings" - which is at least partially true, imho. but from "feelings" to "actions" - that's quite a gap still. if you got angry and all you can think is "I wanna burn him" (like Brit) but you ultimately do not act on the thought, you may not be legally guilty but i would still say that is a character flaw. granted, not everyone can be Mother Teresa and really live a life of love (and even Mother Teresa has her fair share of critics), but we try to do what we can, yes? so while an angry person thinking of murder may not be legally "guilty", that person is still morally "guilty" - different types of guilt. it's like "enjoying" kiddy porn: the state may not be able to convict you, but morally you'd still have committed pedophillia. the point is that even if one has a tendency, compulsion, habit of indulging certain "feelings", one can still choose to struggle against it. Mr A could've been an indulgent fantasizing pervert; or he could've been struggling to avoid those indecent thoughts his whole career. both ways, he'd be morally guilty when he indulges/fails to restrain himself - but if he was struggling against it, he's at least still human. and perhaps even courageous.

of course, if in the heat of the moment (and other circumstances), that "feeling" DOES translate into actual "action", then you become "guilty" in both senses of the word. while legally, your culpability could be mitigated (i.e. excused by proof, resulting in reduced sentencing, etc.); morally you would still be fully culpable, for you did ultimately choose to act.

to summarise, the semantics of the word "guilt", and the understanding of free will and causality, is what has led this thread to have some overlaps in statements. these vague and intangible terms simply need to be addressed more precisely.

p.s.: anger does not automatically lead to murderous thoughts (it could lead to frustration, annoyance, disappointment... etc before any thought of action even surfaces), and neither does attraction necessarily lead to "potential harassment" (altho to be honest, i guess such fantasies still flood most minds to the point that they consider it "normal"). what thoughts SHOULD these feelings lead to? that would be an interesting question to address, wouldn't it?

[–] ns_garcia 16 years ago

Nice posting Alveolate.

My initial standing remains, we shouldn't formulate guilty based of another persons thoughts because we never know fully about them.

A married person may be guilty of being attracted by someone not his/her spouse, it even possible to be attracted by many different people at the same time, but in the end a honest person will make a "choice". A single person chooses to marry, married person choose remain or not married. His/her ultimate actions and standing are what should count.

[–] geronamo2002 16 years ago

this being a movie is the only way we know that had unpure thoughts about these teenage girls, In real life settings we would not hear or know his thoughts unless we were there in the group, so therefore it does not have a bearing for legal presence. If he said it out loud and then was heard and then later acted on it, it would be called premeditated or admission before the fact, or his friends could possibly be charged for accomplice before the fact as they knew his intentions, this is ONLY if a police or detective needed the witnesses, they will pull any act or clause out of the juristiction they can.

But in response to the OP, we know from the evidence we see in this movie, that the teacher/teachers had thoughts about teenage girls, but in life how many men actually do have thoughts of girls under 16 or under 18, Id say heaps, but that does not brand them pedofile as they have not commited the crime, but to answer your question, you as an individual hearing and knowing what you know in this movie can come to your own judgement and you may hold it against him and call him pedophilic, that is your right if you must, but it will not and does not hold grounds in a legal proceeding.

Hope that covers it.