#a reading i'm all for but there are pitfalls to be wary of before baselessly praising media

[pissmd]

i just finished rewatching the film copycat, a film i used to adore and rewatch a lot in my early to mid teens, but irks me as an adult now that i finally have the ability to spot concealed allegory.

on its surface it’s a decent, well-made thriller, but beneath that surface its message is an insidious indictment of those supporting, and that supports consequences, of eschewing capital punishment.

helen, our ‘misguided’ would-be victim and longtime sufferer of paranoia, is the consequence of supporting the abolition of capital punishment. her agoraphobia is a direct result of her fear of a repeat attack, a fear reinforced by the ineffectual imprisonment of her would-be murderer, who has escaped confinement once before. helen is first introduced advocating the use of studying serial killers to prevent the fostering of others in their wake, but will all too soon be victim of that same belief. she survives the first attempt at her life, but instead of daryll’s imprisonment bringing the foresight and wherewithal to prevent future serial killers, and that safety promised with it, he becomes a leader/teacher for his disciples, one of whom is our copycat killer.

we then have monahan and goetz, monahan represents helen’s point of view, as demonstrated by her belief in incapacitating criminals rather than goetz’ strategy, which is barraging a criminal with bullets until they’re no longer a threat. we’re offered a counterpoint to the effectiveness of goetz’ strategy by monahan, who warns him against the dangers of accidentally murdering an innocent, but the film never challenges this potential. the only deaths caused by cops are those that are indisputably guilty.

these opposing points of view first come to the test in the form of goetz’ murder, where monahan’s technique of incapacitating criminals instead of killing them directly leads to goetz’ preventable death. it acts as an event to shake her belief, which will be tested again when she comes head to head with the copycat killer. this time, she uses the lesson learned from the death of her partner to ensure the death of the copycat, lest helen be killed like monahan’s partner before her.

the repetition of events serving as a correction to misguided beliefs isn't only portrayed through monahan's 'heroic journey', but through the films climax, and the cyclical nature of it. the copycat's death itself is the correction of the prior mistake made from sparing daryll of capital punishment. if the copycat represents all serial killers and their propensity of learning from those before them, then his belief that he is serving as a revision of where daryll failed, is the inverse of the film's message. which is that the copycat's death is the rectification of where the law had failed daryll.

this message is demonstrated most clearly by the open ending, where daryll continues leading more disciples down the same path that the copycat had taken, and failed, before them. if daryll had received the capital punishment that the copycat had ‘rightfully deserved’, then the law would have prevented his further nurturing of aspiring serial killers.

copycat never openly rebukes the abolition of capital punishment, it only ever disguises its beliefs in the consequences of abolishing it through choices made facing immediate threats. but it’s hard to ignore the parallels drawn between the two, and the implications it has on cops as infallible moral enforcers of the law.