Reflections on "The Crying Game"

I saw the movie, The Crying Game, when it first came out in 1992. The plot twist caught me by surprise, as it did most people at the time (though not my apartment mate.) Since then, I have only seen the movie once or twice. Recently I found myself trying to figure out what it is about the movie that struck me and makes me want to see it again, since clearly it can’t be the surprise factor.

“I know you. You’re the kind one.”

That’s what Jody says to Fergus, one of his abductors, and that’s the line that always comes back to me, the core of the movie for me. Fergus is the Kind One.

Jody tells Fergus the story of the scorpion and the frog. The scorpion begs a ride across the river on the frog’s back. The frog refuses at first, saying, “You’re a scorpion. You’ll sting me.” The scorpion responds, “If I sting you, we’ll both drown.” The frog thinks about it and says, “All right.” Halfway across the river, the frog feels the scorpion’s sting. As they both sink, he cries, “What did you do that for? Now we’re both going to die!” And the scorpion says, “I can’t help it. It’s my nature.”

Jody is more realistic about the likely outcome of his abduction than Fergus is. He insists that Fergus look at the photo of his girl, Dil, which is in his wallet. He gets Fergus to agree that if anything happens to Jody, Fergus will go and… here I forget the details. I think maybe he just has to buy her a drink, but maybe he is to say that it is from Jody, or say something about Jody. It isn’t huge request, but it would require Fergus to go to London to the pub where she works. And remember, Fergus is one of the men who abducted Jody in the first place. They aren’t even on the same side.

But Jody has identified Fergus as someone who can be relied on, someone he can charge with looking in on his girl. Moreover, he believes Fergus will not make matters worse for Dil, as sending the wrong person might.

Things go badly and Fergus ends up in London. He looks up Dil. He finds himself alternately fascinated, puzzled, shocked, and afraid. Keeping his promise has landed him in a very confusing and eventually dangerous situation. I remain uncertain how to interpret his relationship with Jody’s girl—I’m not sure Fergus himself knows—but one thing is clear. He stays true to his nature throughout.

Of course, this is a movie. There is a school of thought that suggests how real people behave has more to do with seemingly irrelevant details of our circumstances than with any stable character traits. One of the studies often cited is "Helping for a dime." People who found a dime in a phone booth were much more likely to help someone else gather spilled papers than people who found nothing. To take a personal example, I must admit that how generously I tip often has a lot to do with what happens to be in my wallet at that moment and whatever has been on my mind recently, rather than with the quality of the service or some innate generosity or stinginess.

Still, some people are consistently better to be around than others. They are like the frog, willing to help you across the river on their backs. Other people, alas, are like the scorpion. You can be pretty sure that if you are around them long enough, they will hurt you--even if in so doing, they harm themselves as well. (See "Words and Character.")

So that’s it. I like the movie because I like seeing Fergus negotiate situations and relationships for which he has no clear rules, all while remaining himself. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it—maybe twenty years—and it will be interesting to find out if it strikes me the same way after another viewing.

Till next post.