Image Credits: “Trap” (2024) Movie Poster via IMDb
When you click on an online news article discussing a grisly murder, what kind of picture do you expect to find attached? A mugshot of the killer, vacant eyes staring back at you from captivity? Or maybe photos from the crime scene, blood spattered walls of what was once a family home, sheets covering what was once a life? If the killer is a white male, studies show that news outlets are more likely to choose a yearbook photo or family vacation snapshot than a mugshot. What motivates this choice? Is it bias? Contrast? Why do we decide to show these particular criminals in upstanding circumstances when we don’t do the same for others? What makes a murderer who served his country, or one who played varsity football in high school, or one who takes his kids to Disneyland any different from any other murderer? Why do we seek to humanize the white murderer?
- Night Shyamalan’s new film “Trap” (2024) drags us along for a nail-biting ride with one of these “upstanding” murderers. Set in Philadelphia, loving father and husband Cooper takes his superfan daughter to see her favorite pop star in concert. However, when he gets there, he finds that the concert has been infiltrated by an army of cops, the entire event orchestrated to trap a local serial killer known as “The Butcher.” The only problem? Cooper is the man they’re looking for.
What follows is a classic cat-and-mouse thriller, as Cooper is caught between being there for his daughter and fighting to outrun the justice he deserves. With all exits covered by security checks and patrols sweeping every inch of the concert venue, Cooper has to rely on anything he can in an attempt to outrun captivity: from violent distraction, to stealthy identity theft and finally, pure dumb luck. With his next victim chained and waiting for him at home, Cooper is against impossible odds, promising himself that if he manages to get away he’ll give up the knife for good and focus on being a family man so long as he can quench his bloodlust forever by doing “one last one.”
In spite of how he manages to evade expert profilers, an unending supply of SWAT officers and his daughter’s suspicions, Cooper is never portrayed as an especially capable man. Throughout the film most of his decisions seem to be impulsive, most of his escapes seem to fall into his lap and most of his distractions seem to be off the cuff. Despite this, he walks through crowds of armed guards, pilfers IDs and aprons and disappears then reappears next to his daughter — all without anybody noticing. It becomes a source of comedy, with the audience being the only ones who seem to notice how obviously suspicious our main character is. But why is Cooper able to get away with murder? The answer is simple: what we’re seeing is privilege externalized. No one looks twice at Cooper because, despite fitting a possible suspect description, he does not look like the kind of man our society conditions us to be suspicious of.
Shyamalan is all too familiar with the difference identity makes. A native of Pennsylvania, with a love of his home state that goes so far almost every film he’s made since 1999’s “The Sixth Sense” has been set here, Shyamalan is as American as a filmmaker can get — combining Spielbergian inventiveness in camerawork with Hitchcockian thrill-and-chill scripts to create blockbusters for the modern age. Despite this, he’s been the target of casual racism for decades, ranging from the more obvious, such as the “Shyamalamadingdong” epithet making fun of his surname, to the more subtle forms of assuming the comedy in his films is unintentional even at its most obvious. Shyamalan has been treated with a disrespect people wouldn’t dare to treat his white peers with, subjected to petty bullying filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh and J.J. Abrams would never be targeted with regardless of the quality of their art. The knowledge of the untouchability privilege gives you — the power to go unnoticed and be totally unconsidered for a certain kind of scrutiny — is a looming influence on “Trap.”
“Trap” received mixed reviews from critics, praised by some for its comedy and tension but seen by others as being unrealistic and too clever for its own good. It was released on streaming last week — leaving most theaters after being out for less than a month. It’s hard not to consider the role identity played in the critical reception of “Trap” and its rapid dismissal from theaters. Had Shyamalan’s name not been advertised, would the film have done better at the box office, or worse? Would the complaints from critics still be the same, or would they find other things to say without the Shyamalan name attached? If privilege means getting to avoid conditioned scrutiny, pass by unnoticed, Shyamalan is certainly not privileged despite the countless times he has proved his talent. Why? What about the name Shyamalan invokes such a deep hostility? Have we still not outgrown the immature humor and anti-intellectuality of the CinemaSins era of the internet? “Trap” is an answer to what privilege is: avoiding that intense scrutiny. Not because you’re special, or because you’re more deserving, but because the scrutinizer wouldn’t even notice you. “Trap” is about how privilege means being seen as normal.
Elijah Fischer is a third-year English major with a minor in Journalism. AF997636@wcupa.edu