Essay 1: You Really Don't Know Jack

You Really Don’t Know Jack

“Dr. Death!” they yelled out, while judgmentally pointing their fingers at him. In 1994, protestors crowding the Michigan Court House were waiting for the verdict of Dr. Kevorkian’s first of many trials. This pathologist had assumed a new practice: assisted suicide, also known as human euthanasia. His quest to relieve patients of their suffering in order to allow them a dignified death struck inevitable controversy. Was this man playing God by doing more for his patients than what was written on his resume? Society could not digest Dr. Kevorkian’s defiance of law-imposed and religion-imposed limitations on medical practices; this was clearly demonstrated in the movie You Don’t Know Jack (2010). This film poses the formidable question: Which is more important – the ending of a person’s suffering or the continuation of a God-given life? Analyzing this film and Al Pacino’s portrayal of Dr. Kevorkian’s actions, I have found that as a society we have stripped terminally ill patients of their right to die with dignity by mixing the two polar concepts of religion and medicine.

Beginning with the movie poster, this film conveys the very debatable topic of assisted suicide and addressing this issue from both sides. The scaling of the movie poster is completely directed on Dr. Jack Kevorkian (Al Pacino)’s face. The background is a circular gradient where the center (around Al Pacino’s face) is almost white and as it progresses towards the outside it goes from grey to black, suggesting light from the darkness.  His eyes seem sympathetic and full of wisdom and above him is the question: “Is this the face of a killer?” The text is in white, suggesting purity, not evil. “Jack,” written in red, contrasts with the white title symbolizing the “blood” Dr. Kevorkian has on his hands. Underneath the title is written, “The Life and Deaths of Jack Kevorkian,” also in red. Because we associate the color red with murder and death, the first judgment we make of Dr. Kevorkian is a negative one, full of angst and terror.

The secondary posters are each of a main character from the movie. The writings on each poster not only hint at each person’s story and how they were a part of Dr. Jack’s life, but they address the wickedness of human euthanasia. Each poster is formatted so that the negativity of the bold and capitalized words overwhelms the viewer and refutes the positive connotation of the smaller words below. These posters form solid biases towards the cons of this controversy through the powerful font and font size of the writings on the posters.

There are a total of five secondary posters (one for each main character). The first one is of Jack Kevorkian (Al Pacino) and it says, “THIS MAN WANTS YOU TO DIE on your own terms.” By referencing the fact that Dr. Jack euthanized or assisted in the suicide of terminally ill patients, this poster is putting a very negative connotation on the procedure. The futile rebuttal of “on your own terms” may become invisible to the viewer who is against human euthanasia, but to a viewer who is pro-human euthanasia these small words will form the desire to see the film. This is true for all of the secondary posters. Each poster follows this pattern of capturing the attention of audience members from both sides of the argument. Because this film addresses such a controversial topic, it uses this technique in order to gather a wide variety of spectators. Instead of implicitly stating what is right and what is wrong, it very slyly points out both the pros and cons of the argument in order to capture the attention of a diverse audience. By emphasizing the negatives (that Dr. Kevorkian and his colleagues are ‘murderers’), the posters use controversy and bias to lure in viewers to watch the film.

When watching this film you feel as though you are watching a documentary even though it is not entirely nonfiction. This aspect of the film makes it very unique and groundbreaking. You Don’t Know Jack addresses the debatable topic of assisted suicide by addressing the societal and religious issue of, “Is Dr. Kevorkian playing God?” The response to this question given in the movie by Al Pacino is the response that Dr. Kevorkian had given in real life interviews. His reply was that all doctors are playing God. In 2010, on the show Anderson Cooper 360, Dr. Kevorkian responded to the questions, “Are you playing God? Who gave you the authority to take away a God-given life?” by stating, “anytime you interfere with a natural process, you’re playing God” (CNN). He analyzes the fact that any procedure being done on a patient is interfering with their natural process, and yet, if a procedure is going to prolong the person’s life the government and the church won’t interfere with allowing or disallowing the procedure to be completed. On the contrary, because this person is physically suffering the church and state cannot allow him to end his life; many terminally ill patients are being tortured by being forced to live. Whether the viewers are for or against the topic of argument, in this case human euthanasia, they enjoy watching films that address these controversies because they gain a sense of satisfaction from seeing the two sides argue, then debating about it themselves. Films like this induce topics of conversation and will give people something to debate. This striking challenge to one’s beliefs only makes the audience want to view the film even more because they want to gather more evidence that their opinion is more accurate than the opinions expressed by others and in the film.

The film supports the argument for assisted suicides by informing the audience of the current method of treatment towards terminally ill patients. Instead of humanely injecting a fatally ill patient to end their suffering peacefully, hospitals will force-feed patients until their consciousness evades them and they slip into a coma. Afterwards, they will turn off the patient’s life support (their food and water) until the patient starves to death. To make this issue even more controversial, Dr. Kevorkian labels this process as “the Nazi method of execution,” implying that the hospitals are torturing these patients to death. A large portion of society is ignorant of the medical world and what truly happens in a hospital; therefore, throughout the movie, Dr. Kevorkian uses labels, such as the one mentioned above, in order to draw attention to this issue, and have society acknowledge the mere existence of human euthanasia as a substitute to this horrid process. Most people in our society may not enjoy learning about such a distressing topic; however, a superfluous amount of facts are specified throughout the movie and the audience gains a very large load of information by simply watching the film. As a society, we like to acquire knowledge without putting much effort into studying; therefore, the writers of this film have written the script in such a way that the viewers subconsciously learn a lot about the medical world by merely listening to Dr. Kevorkian’s opinions and the opinions of others. This is another reason this film connects well with its audience.   

The patients represented in this film are what really grasp the audience’s attention. The film captures the pain and suffering of Dr. Kevorkian’s patients very well which leads to a sympathetic audience. This empathy not only transfers over but it also makes the viewer think about how they would feel if they were stuck in this position. As a whole, society is not only very naïve of the magnitudes of pain some patients endure, but it is also ignorant of the number of people who pass away because of these horrid diseases everyday. According to The Seattle Times, about 1,500 Americans die of cancer every day; this statistic is one that few Americans know about. Films like You Don’t Know Jack, touch the audience and make them understand what others are going through. Audiences choose to watch films like this because they want to help others in their communities; by understanding what other people face on a daily basis, viewers feel like they can impact these people’s lives in a positive way.

 This film also puts an emphasis on Dr. Kevorkian turning down many of his clients in order to address the argument society presents of “who’s to judge if a person should live or die?” If a doctor can decide to perform surgery on his patient in order to prolong his life, why shouldn’t the same doctor be able to painlessly take away the life of a person who is not only suffering physically but also has no chance of recovery? As a society we fear that this system of human euthanasia will be abused and doctors will unnecessarily take away the lives of their patients but this fear is illogical. We trust doctors with our health every time we get sick therefore it is absurd to believe that a doctor would take away the life of a patient who has a chance at recovery. A specific example to support this response occurs when a person who has a speech impediment approaches Dr. Kevorkian asking for his life to be ended. Dr. Kevorkian turns him down saying that the patient is merely clinically depressed and is not suffering physically. He refers the patient to a psychiatrist but refuses to end his life. This appeals to our humanity because it shows that Dr. Kevorkian, like all physicians, truly cared about his patients, would not take away lives with potential, and was not just a quack with a medical degree. The audience of this film enjoys this humanistic look on, not only Dr. Kevorkian, but on all physicians because we want to believe that people are innately good. We want to believe that if our lives were on the line, then our physicians would make the morally correct decision that Dr. Kevorkian makes in the film.

Al Pacino’s depiction of Dr. Kevorkian is very authentic. Even when watching interviews with Dr. Kevorkian you sense his intelligence transfer over to humor and sarcasm, and Al Pacino captures this aspect of the character very well. If the actors in the film didn’t portray their characters well, then the audience would not take this film seriously. Because the characters are so genuinely played, the film has a sense of validity that appeals to society’s pathos. Society can be very easily swayed to change their opinion on a subject if you can appeal to their pathos (emotion) and this movie takes advantage of that by addressing this issue seriously yet sparking the humor and, eventually, the humanity in us all.  And, although it is addressing such a morbid issue, this movie is a lot lighter than one would think. Dr. Jack’s intelligence being conveyed through comedy lightens the mood of the film and captures the audience’s attention.

The film You Don’t Know Jack wasn’t created to make Dr. Kevorkian famous or reputable. This film was created to inform the public of the nature of assisted suicide and it’s positive aspects; human euthanasia isn’t the gruesome act that society has made it out to be. Many terminally ill patients are in dire need of a savior like Dr. Kevorkian. By appealing to our humanity and understanding, this film makes us understand the necessity of human euthanasia in our communities. It may seem like a morbid act now; however, many other aspects of the medical world were considered ghoulish and immoral when first being done, too. For example, when transplants were first done, the church was in a frenzy because they claimed it was not God’s intention to take one human’s organ and put it in the body of another; multiple stepping stones were passed in order to legalize and adapt to the thought of transplants. This film is one of the stepping-stones for human euthanasia.

Works Cited

Cooper, Anderson. "2010: Kevorkian Admits Helping Dozens Die." Anderson Cooper 360. CNN. 16 Apr. 2010. CNN. Cable News Network, 16 Apr. 2010. Web. 22 Oct. 2012.

Mazer, Adam. "Scene with Journalist and Interview." You Don't Know Jack. HBO. New York, New York, 24 Apr. 2010. Television.

Huget, Jennifer LaRue. "Report: 1,500 Die Every Day from Cancer." The Seattle Times. The Washington Post, 17 June 2011. Web. 29 Oct. 2012.

You Don’t Know Jack. Dir. Barry Levinson. Perf. Al Pacino, Susan Sarandon, John Goodman, Brenda Vaccaro, and Danny Huston. HBO, 2010. Film.