Living in a Gray World, by Travis Fishburn

Over the Christmas season, the primary gift I received was a nice collection of blu rays. One of them happened to be Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class. Upon this most recent viewing of it, it reminded me of how much I love the X-Men franchise and how compelling the character of Magneto/Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) is.

What makes the story so captivating is that the film doesn’t regard Erik Lehnsherr as the villain he inevitably becomes. When we see the murder of his mother by Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) and the way his former life is irrevocably torn from him, we find ourselves compelled to get on board with Eric’s pursuit for vengeance. Erik has the on-screen presence of a protagonist, but his inability to change his perception of the world based on his experience ultimately leads him to becoming the villain and adopting the same philosophy of the man he hated.

Breaking Bad has followed a similar character arc with Walter White (Brian Cranston). For the first few seasons, I anticipated the show was going to depict Walter White eventually helping Jessie Pinkman (Aaron Paul) turn his life around. As the series has progressed, and his life became more tumultuous and dark with every selfish decision he made, it became abundantly clear that Walter was not taking the journey of the heroic protagonist that we’re so accustomed to. His quest to eliminate Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) has done more harm than good in his life, Jessie’s life and in the life of his own family.

Neither Erik nor Walter believe that they are the bad guys, nobody does. We all like to think of ourselves as good people, we have good intentions. But can we all be good guys?

Recently, I’ve been questioning myself, the way I’m perceived by the rest of the world, and the very nature of what makes a person good or bad. I know I have flaws that I see in myself every day; I’m often selfish, jealous, irritable, and can be very judgmental at times. I know I have good qualities too, but I seem to question what parts of me influence the majority of my actions throughout each day.

I think that I can judge myself by looking at other people and comparing how I measure up against those standards. This mode of thinking never leads me anywhere good, and rather than helping myself, I end up judging others. My moral barometer can’t be based on what I see and how I perceive the world around me, otherwise I end up justifying many of the decisions I make for personal gain based on flawed examples of the rest of the world.

We can watch characters like Erik Lehnsherr and Walter White make bad decisions and call out when we know they’re heading in the wrong direction. We can perceive their decisions from a view that’s outside of their own and can see when those flawed choices are made, but it’s hard for us to step outside of ourselves and determine what is the best course of action when we can’t escape our own emotions and history.

Film and television make it easy for us to point out who the heroes and villains are, but reality isn’t like that. We don’t live in a world where the good guys wear white hats and the bad guys wear black hats. If we were to look at ourselves based on the ideal qualities and values that we want to represent, and the transgressions that we want to separate ourselves from, we would find that the majority of the world is probably clad in gray hats. How can we judge others, when our views of ourselves are so biased?

Both Erik and Walter deem they are more entitled to what they pursue on their path of destruction. Their actions are justified because what the other side is up to is so much worse than what their intentions are, but in the end they both end up becoming the figures that they despise so much.

The only one we have the right to judge is ourselves, and the only truly subjective way to do that is if we do so not by our own standards, but by God’s. He is the only one who has the right to judge us. This doesn’t mean that we’re alone and without help on the moral front. God gave us the ability to judge right from wrong, and we should use it to help others and ourselves in times of need or doubt. If we start using that ability to justify our condemnation of others, we’ll soon find ourselves bitter, miserable, and alone.

“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” –Matthew 7: 1-2