Mel Gibson’s "The Man Without a Face": A Cry against Discrimination

Mel Gibson’s The Man Without a Face is a touching story about a boy chasing his dream and his strange yet brilliant mentor, McLeod. In the film, Chuck Norstead is a troubled young boy from a broken home who finds a friend in the town outcast, McLeod. When the town discovers this friendship, they are quick to separate the duo and brand McLeod as a child molester, despite Chuck’s fervent denials. While this seems unjust and heinous, I cannot help but recall a certain story by the name of The Scarlet Letter. Hester Prynne was also viewed with as much hatred and unwarranted hostility as McLeod: her scarlet letter became his scarred face in my mind. When comparing Hester to McLeod, however, I noticed a connection in their desire for chosen isolation.

In comparison, Hester and McLeod both lived on the very outskirts of their societies; McLeod in his seaside woodland lodge, Hester in her simple cottage. While they could have blended and moved closer to society, which would have eventually gotten acclimated to them, they decided to stay on the edges of civilization, provoking gossip and scorn from the locals. They chose to remain aloof and distant from the rumors and lies, preferring the quiet solace of peace and home. It was a personal decision, made in the reason of pure atonement. McLeod mourned, tormented by the memory of his late student that he accidentally killed in a car crash. Hester worked, proving to herself and others that she deserved penance and solace for her adulterous sin.

However, in there was some contrast to both situations. McLeod, while mostly by choice lived alone, had a degree of forced isolation. Near the end of the film, he was separated from his pupil after an allegation of false charges, leaving McLeod alone in the world once more. Hester, however, was able to remain with Pearl and Dimmesdale, however for the short amount of time. As McLeod’s infamy grew and exacerbated over time, Hester became known as a saint to those she helped.

Gibson’s Man Without a Face is a cry out at injustice and discrimination in the modern era, while The Scarlet Letter shows us the hypocrisy and judgmental character of the Puritan society in early American.