The Elephant Men...

So we watched the movie The Elephant Man in my Philosophy and Theology of Film class last night and I was heartbroken. That is such a beautiful and tragic and just plain amazing movie. For those of you that don’t know, the movie is based upon the life of a real person named Joseph Merrick (called John Merrick in the movie) who had horrible deformities all over his body. He was nicknamed the elephant man because they say he looked like an elephant, and his mother had been mauled by an elephant when she was 4 months pregnant with him. His life was of course a living hell because of his deformities and he was actually a sideshow freak in the circus for many years. Well eventually a doctor finds him and takes him in to the hospital. The doctor knows that there is nothing he can do to physically help the condition of John, but he tries to give him a more dignified life. At first everyone assumes that John’s brain is in about the same shape as his body, which one character actually comments: “God, I pray he’s an imbecile” because he can’t imagine what it would be like if that man was cognizant for all the ridicule and hatred that he received. The doctor soon realizes however that John is a (somewhat) cultured and smart man. From this point we see the progression of John from being (seen as) a freak, to him becoming a popular guest of many people in high society in England. Throughout the rest of the movie there are people who continue to treat him like absolute trash and I wanted to cry at times. The real hard part came however when my professor asked us “Who are the Elephant Men in our lives?” At first I was convicted by this and then it really hit me: It’s easy to feel for people like the Elephant man, or for the poor and homeless, because their need is easily perceived (once we look through all that extra tissue and skin) but those aren’t our Elephant Men. We are to love those people, but we are also to love those that are hard to be around. The “cool” guy who is really just a jerk, he needs love as much as anyone. The Risk Management lawyer at my college. I could think of plenty more but you get the idea. The Elephant Men of the world aren’t just the marginalized, but they are also those people that we generally don’t like, even if it’s for good reason (at least in our minds). Let’s remember to love our neighbors and our enemies. Well everybody should see the movie, it’s great. Grace and Peace.