(Originally Published February 2016)
Deadpool is a Marvel Comics character whose film recently came to theaters. It features gratuitous gore, sex, nudity, and language, and despite these things justifying a hard R rating from the MPAA, I have a number of students who have gone to see it. Some with their parents. Awkward. This is in no way a film that I could show in class, or even one that I would encourage my 14-year-old students to see, but given that our current unit is focused on how directors use cinematic techniques to convey complex messages to audiences, it seems that I might be able to borrow Deadpool's present popularity for educational purposes.
With this in mind, I want to consider one of the final shots of the film - not the Ferris Bueller allusion or the make-out session amidst the wreckage of the climactic battle. No, the particular scene I want to examine is the one in which Deadpool finally kills the antagonist, super soldier/evil scientist Ajax. This is not a spoiler. The entire movie is about Deadpool wanting to kill this man, and he kills many people to get close enough to kill Ajax's mercenaries to get close enough to kill Ajax. There is a lot of killing. Killing is arguably the point of the movie and it is literally the purpose for which Deadpool was created.
Not only does the character exist to kill, but the film glorifies his many fatalities. The camera captures decapitations, eviscerations, and gooifications (yeah, that's in there) at close range and plays this violence for a joke. The expectation is that the audience will experience the absolute joy of Deadpool's many kills in the same way he does; and he really does revel in all of this killing.
What makes the final kill of the film so interesting are its presentation and witnesses. Where nearly all of Deadpool's other many kills are gleefully shown, the killing blow of Ajax happens just off screen; instead, the camera focuses on Deadpool, his body and face (such as it is covered by a mask, however expressive it may be) revealing nothing about how the moment affects him.
The X-Man Colossus is present when Deadpool pulls the trigger and Ajax is killed just out of frame. Colossus is a man made of metal, nearly impervious to injury. Yet this physical strength belies his aversion to violence, and when Ajax is fatally shot in the head, Colossus, a man nearly incapable of physical weakness, immediately begins to wretch. This death is too much for him. What's more, after an entire film of gleeful, non-stop death, the response to a killing blow that the audience doesn't even see is played for laughs. The sudden cut from Deadpool cooly murdering Ajax to Colossus throwing up is so sudden that the juxtaposition is jarring and the audience is expected to laugh. And the audience does laugh.
Taking a step back, the director has - intentionally or not - made a statement about how we experience violence. We, the audience, can enjoy violence. We can laugh at violence. We can anticipate and be rewarded with violence. And when we see a response that represents a real-world emotion to that violence (revulsion), we can laugh at it because that distaste for killing is outside our experience as an audience. There is an absurdity in laughing at a person for being sickened by murder, and the joke is on us. Further, the fact that we do not see the killing blow and only witness Deadpool's absolute nonchalance does not allow us to feel anything for the death itself. This is not a death that is celebrated.
Deadpool feels nothing for Ajax's murder. The audience feels nothing for Ajax's murder. The one character who does, Colossus, is the punchline to a joke that we didn't know we were a part of. We are a society of rule, of law, of - theoretically - peace. We claim to abhor violence against others. This scene seems to suggest that violence is not what we struggle with; we accept and understand violence without question. Rather, what we don't understand and cannot take seriously is the view that violence is a problem, that it isn't satisfying, that it should disgust us. We are too comfortable with it to think otherwise.
Now, does this bit of analysis mean that my young, teenage students should flock to see Deadpool? No. Absolutely not. But if they want to get something out of it besides gratuitous violence, really naked people, and some inventive swearing, there is analysis to be performed, should the interest arise.