TEACHING PHILOSOPHY THROUGH FILM:
SIGNS AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
One of the ways to test whether films can be genuinely philosophical is to teach them in
undergraduate philosophy courses. I have done so in several of my classes, and have found the
results to be particularly satisfying in my introductory Problems in Philosophy course. Films can
be at least minimally philosophical in the sense that they can provide particularly apt illustrations
of key philosophical concepts, operationalizing theoretical ideas, and M. Night Shyamalan’s
Signs is just such a movie. The fact that he intended it to be an explicit response to the problem
of evil makes it all the more compelling (Shyamalan himself describes Signs as “a dialogue
between one man and God” in a DVD feature on the film).
I will argue in what follows that Signs is a profoundly philosophical film because it
embodies a particularly apt statement of the Divine Plan response to the Problem of Evil
argument, which questions the existence of a perfect creator God. There is much of philosophical
value in the lucid and detailed Christian response to the problem of evil that is expressed in Signs.
At the very least, the film is a useful pedagogical tool to concretize some pretty abstract concepts.
I will discuss its utility as a teaching device in some detail, and conclude with a few remarks
about Tom Wartenberg’s article “Beyond Mere Illustration: How Films Can Be Philosophy”, and
its relevance to my account. Most significantly, I will argue that the philosophical content of
Signs makes it a much better motion picture, so that appreciating that content is crucial to an
adequate evaluation of the film.
Since Shyamalan’s third major feature (after The Sixth Sense and his underrated
Unbreakable) depicts an alien invasion, it is natural to think of it as science fiction. But Signs has
much more in common with horror films. In addition, if one looks closely, one realizes that it is
essentially about religious belief and the supernatural.
As A.O. Scott bemoaned in his
disparaging review of the film for the New York Times, “the message is faith”1.
As Signs opens, the Reverend Graham Hess (Mel Gibson, in one of his best and most
heartfelt performances) is grappling with a crisis of conscience, in which he doubts the goodness,
and even the very existence, of God. His wife had been killed several months previously while
walking at night, by a driver (played by the director himself) who fell asleep at the wheel.
Graham has ceased his ministry, and retreated to his home to care for his asthmatic son Morgan
and hydrophobic daughter Bo. His brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), a ball player who never
made the big leagues, and who retired with the minor league record for both home runs and strike
outs at his level of play, has also moved in to help him through this difficult time.
Early on in the story, Graham explains to his brother that there are two types of people: those
who see only chance and coincidence in the universe (atheists and agnostics), and those who have
faith that everything happens for a reason. Graham can no longer sustain his faith, in the face of
the apparent gratuitous evil of his wife’s undeserved death.
The problem of how a perfect God would allow so much evil to exist in the universe has
always been a thorny one for Christian apologists. Two of the most convincing responses thus far
offered are that God permits undeserved misfortune as a test of our faith (to deepen and perfect
it), and that all apparent evil helps create a greater good in the long run (Divine Providence). By
the end of Signs, the Reverend Graham has returned to his ministry, his faith having been restored
by how he comes to accept these responses.
To appreciate this aspect of the film (which I largely overlooked the first time through), one
must pay particular attention to the many “coincidences” that converge upon a single moment to
insure the success of the Hess family in its final confrontation with the alien presence. It is the
unlikely nature of these “coincidences” that leads Graham to reaffirm his belief that everything
happens for a purpose according to God’s Divine Plan. Like A.O. Scott, I am an atheist who does
not believe in Divine Providence, but unlike him I can still appreciate the beauty of the
conception, and how illustrating it can make for compelling narrative.
It is interesting to note in this connection that I found Signs to be aesthetically unsatisfying
the first time through, because it is simply not as scary as Sixth Sense (I wonder how often the
director has heard those dreaded words). Perhaps because I am one of those people who only see
chance and coincidence, I did not take the fortuitous concatenation of events at the end of Signs to
be particularly significant. Consequently, I had overlooked how brilliantly the film illustrates the
problem of evil, and had also failed to appreciate how, by the end of the film, Graham had
convincingly recovered his fervent belief that God has a plan for all His creatures, in which
nothing happens without some purpose. As Hamlet put it in his crucial embrace of Divine
Providence in Act V of Shakespeare’s masterpiece, “There is divinity in the fall of a sparrow”,
and few art works have illustrated those immortal words more eloquently and convincingly than
Signs
The catalyst for the Reverend’s crisis of faith was an accident, in which his wife Colleen
(Patricia Kalembert) was run over by local veterinarian Ray Reddy (Shyamalan) while taking her
nightly walk. What is particularly ironic is that the poor man fell asleep at the wheel at precisely
the right instant to mow her down; a single minute either way and he would have harmlessly
ended up in the ditch. Reddy, consumed by guilt ever since, admits as much to Graham: “It had
to be at that right moment, that 10-15 seconds when I passed her walking. It’s like it was meant
to be…I know what I’ve done to you…I have made you question your faith.”
The details of Colleen’s demise are revealed slowly, as required by the narrative. At the
climactic moment, Graham reflects back on what she told him: “tell Bo to listen to her brother.
Tell Graham to see. Tell Merrill to swing away.” If my interpretive hypothesis is correct,
Colleen had to die for several reasons. For one thing, Graham would have been at his church
attending to his flock had he not been dealing with such an intense personal crisis. Her death was
necessary to insure that he would be at home when his family needed him.
Graham recollects Colleen’s message to Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) at the precise instant
when the memory can do them the most good. Merrill failed to make the major leagues because
he struck out more often than he hit home runs. Had he succeeded, he would have been playing
professional baseball when the invasion occurred. His absence might well have proven to be the
family’s undoing. It is precisely his ability to “swing away” with such force that allows him to
beat the alien to death at the crucial juncture.
Graham’s son Morgan suffers from a debilitating case of childhood-onset asthma. He can
barely breathe when stricken with his periodic attacks, one of which occurs not long before the
final confrontation. Having struggled with asthma myself, I identified with his plight. But in his
case, the condition helped to save his life. The alien invader had hoses coming out of its hands,
which emitted a lethal gas of some unidentified type. Morgan survives the gas because his
bronchial passages are so thoroughly closed by yet another asthma attack that he cannot inhale
the fatal substance. Had he been a healthy boy with no respiratory problems, he most surely
would have been killed.
Graham’s daughter Bo has hydrophobia, resulting in an irrational distaste for water. She is
constantly getting glasses of water which she then refuses to drink, littering the house with her
leftovers. A frequent source of annoyance and embarrassment, her phobia provides a number of
weapons to use on the alien, who, as it turns out, is even more afraid of water than Bo (when it
comes in contact with alien skin, water burns them like acid). In the climactic face off, at
Morgan’s insistence, the family douses the alien with several of these glasses, which would not
have been so handy if Bo had not suffered from her neurotic affliction.
Seeing all these dovetailing events as more than mere coincidences, Reverend Graham
regains his faith. Without a word of explanation, the last scene shows him once again donning
his minister’s collar. The ending is a traditionally happy one, with order restored and the aliens
vanquished. But something important has occurred in the process: a convincing case has been
made for the Divine Providence response to the Problem of Evil.
It is important to point out that, except for the point about there being two types of people,
the Divine Providence response to the Problem of Evil is never explicitly stated in the course of
the film. But the concatenation of events, and how they come together to redeem both the
Minister and his family, are nonetheless both clear and deeply compelling
This returns us to my initial claim that this is a philosophical film, in some important sense
of the term. Were Shyamalan and his co-creators “doing philosophy” (or is it theology) here? I
believe they clearly were. Is the question relevant to our evaluation of the quality of the film?
Well, it was to mine.
The first time I saw Signs, when it was initially released, I was
unimpressed. As a horror film, it leaves much to be desired. A lot of the scares are cheap, the
alien is not revealed until the end, and it turns out to be a less-than-formidable opponent. There is
a bit too much lighthearted humor for my taste as well, especially from Graham, who is supposed
to be despairing and virtually suicidal.
But then I saw it again when it came out on DVD, and put together all of the elements that
converged to ensure that the family would successfully confront the alien at the moment of crisis.
My evaluation of the film changed dramatically, for now it was more than just a vehicle to
frighten us; it was clearly designed, in part, to make us think. Indeed, I might venture to guess
that, for some viewers, it was an inspiration to renew their faith. For me, it was a chance to liven
up my treatment of the Problem of Evil in my Intro to Philosophy course.
Does Signs propose a “new” solution to that problem? No. But it does help clarify the
import of the Divine Plan response to the problem of evil, by representing it in a complex and
plausible manner. I try to do something similar by discussing the controversial claim that there
would not be a State of Israel today had The Holocaust not been the prelude to its founding2, as
well as noting Leibniz’s example of how Judas’ betrayal of Christ led to the salvation of the
human race.3 But Signs shows the notion of Divine Providence at work in the lives of everyday
people. The fact that it effectively delivers the message of faith makes it a better film aesthetically
as well (unless one confines aesthetic considerations to the purely formal properties of works of
art). One must judge any work of art (at least in part) on the basis of how well it conveys its
intended message, and not on whether you agree with it.
Thomas Wartenberg, co-editor of the recent special edition of The Journal of Aesthetics and
Art Criticism dedicated to the topic of film as philosophy, makes a convincing case there for his
position that films can do more than merely illustrate philosophical concepts. Movies can be of
genuine philosophical value, in his view, without having to propose new arguments or pose new
questions about the relevant issues (as Stephen Mulhall seems to demand in On Film4).
Wartenberg’s analysis of Charlie Chaplin’s compulsive arm movements in Modern Times (after
leaving the assembly line, Charlie continues his repetitive, laborious motions) is relevant here:
“…one instance of ‘serious’ philosophical thinking that is embodied in Modern Times involves
the complete visualization of Marx’s metaphor [of the mechanization of labor], a visualization
that makes the metaphor more concrete.”5
Similarly, Signs gives us a convincing set of examples of how apparent evil can turn out to
serve a greater good in the end, and the way they all come together to ensure the Graham family’s
survival makes it virtually impossible for anyone but a committed atheist to attribute their
consilience to anything but Divine Providence. Theologians have posed this response to the
Problem of Evil in abstract terms; Shyamalan has made the abstract vividly concrete, while never
actually stating the philosophical argument in question.
To conclude, a proper critical evaluation of Signs requires us to take its philosophical and
theological content into account, as well as how convincingly that content is represented. Far
from being irrelevant or marginal, the Divine Plan response to the problem of evil is the dramatic
heart of the film, and central to any adequate evaluation of it as a work of art. Furthermore, as a
pedagogical tool, Signs brings the notion of Divine Providence vividly to life, in a fashion that
dawns on the typical student in an “ah, so!” moment when analyzed in class. Together, these two
reasons make a convincing case for my claim that Signs is a profoundly philosophical film.
Dan Shaw
A.O. Scott, “Finding Faith, or Something, in a Cornfield”, review in The New York Times Aug. 2, 2002,
available at http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?_r=1&res=9D05E4DA113BF931A3575BC0A96
49C8B63 &oref=slogin , accessed 8/21/08.
2
see Homnick and Hook, “On God and the Holocaust”, reprinted in Kleiman and Lewis, eds. Philosophy:
An Introduction Through Literature (St. Paul, MN: Paragon House 1992), pp. 462-467.
3
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, Confessio Philosophi: Papers Concerning the Problem of Evil 1671-78
trans. by Robert C. Sleigh, (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2005) , p. 39.
4
Stephen Mulhall, On Film (New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 1-12.
5
Thomas E. Wartenberg “Beyond Mere Illustration: How Films Can Be Philosophy” in The Journal of
Aesthetics and Art Criticism Vol. 64, #1 (Winter 2006), p. 28
1