Why FARGO Is My Favorite Film (Part 2)

“Nice” People Have Plenty of Evil in Their Hearts Too

One thing that has drawn me back to Fargo again and again is the way it reveals (not unlike Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People”) how “nice” people have plenty of evil in their hearts too. Jerry Lundegaard, his wife Jean, and his son Scotty look like any other Midwestern family. You wouldn’t pick Lundegaard out of a crowd as a likely actor in a criminal plot. But of course we know Lundegaard’s whole plan gets rolling because he has engaged in some illegal behavior, and he’s desperate to get out of trouble. Most “nice” people will never tell you the battles with darkness they have lived through, nor the times they have succumbed. But one thing we have discovered as a ministry family is that darkness absolutely often hides under a “nice” exterior. At first, I was terribly shocked at what I would discover about the nature of evil in people. I’ve become less shocked. People are a broken lot, and for all of the good they are capable of, they are also capable of great evil. Nice people, too.

For me, all of this has absolutely become an argument for original sin. What Fargo shows us (in an extra dramatic way) is what is true in the lives of ordinary people in general. Even our greatest heroes turn out to have clay feet. In recent years, distressing revelations have emerged about Gandhi, Mother Theresa, and Aung San Suu Kyi, to name a few. The founders of our country, whom we admire for all their accomplishments, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, were slave owners. And who can count the number of Christian leaders who have fallen into moral decay and deeply harmed the faith of their followers? This is not a “religious people” thing or a “nonreligious people” thing. This is a human thing–the capacity for sin and evil and self-seeking and darkness. It is not the totality of our being, but it is an inextricable part of it.

Part of the reason I feel many reject Jesus bringing salvation to human beings is because we don’t think we are that broken. We don’t think we need it. We think evil and sin and darkness are what is present in other people, not in us. Well, based on living in a ministry family for about a decade and coming to know the inner lives of many people, I can say that if you think that, you are probably deluding yourself. Again, sin is not all we are, but it is a significant, entrenched sickness in the human condition. As long as we remain prideful Lundegaards, we will never really be free. That’s what Fargo says to me, anyway.

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