How Seven reflected fears in the US in the 1980s

On the other hand, President Reagan criminal justice reform – harsher penalties, Expansion of law enforcement authorityand the rise in incarceration was wrapped in uncompromising rhetoric. “The American people want their government to be resolute and go on the offensive.” the president said In 1986, the drug control bill was signed into law. “And that’s exactly what we intend, more ferocious than ever.”

The character of John Doe in Seven satirizes such attitudes, but Andrew Hartman, an academic historian and expert on the subject, culture war As a late 20th century film, he told the BBC that it would be wrong to suggest that the film takes sides with either right-wing or left-wing parties. “Seven itself is not preachy,” he said, noting that when Democrat Hillary Clinton was first lady in the 1990s, she “took a tough stance on crime.” In 1994, Mr. Clinton declared: “We need more police, we need harsher prison sentences for repeat offenders…We need more prisons to hold violent criminals for as long as necessary to keep them off the streets.” And Clinton had little to do with the Reagan right. “These ideas about crime wax and wane between political parties,” Hartman said.

In creating John Doe in Seven, Walker drew on the concepts of sin, damnation, and divine punishment that were becoming increasingly common in public life. Notable evangelicals are Jerry Falwell Sr.For example, a Baptist minister and founder of the Moral Majority; with handrail Against “pornographers, obscenity dealers, and those corrupting our youth.” On the other hand, Mr. James Dobson, founder of the worldwide Christian missionary movement “Focus on the Family,” strove as follows: restore God-fearing obedience of children through corporal punishment, based on the theory that “pain is a great cleansing agent.” And televangelist Pat Robertson predicted impending Armageddon It is based on “certain signs or clues that God’s coming is near.”

Getty Images

Hartman believes there are similarities between this language and the language of The Seven, but they are as exaggerated and distorted as they come from John Doe. “As the religious right reasserted itself as the center of culture and the American spirit, it blamed a culture of permissive hedonism for destroying families and igniting wars. aids crisisand unleashed delinquency,” he says.