Carey Bina
Profesor Ekstrand
Writing 111
6 March 2014
Religious Prosecution: Jesus Was a Sinner
One can learn about the outcome of a presidential debate in a few paragraphs from “America’s Finest News Source”, The Onion, or in 5 pages from the New York
Times. Both will provide an informative perspective of the event, but how each source portrays the events is different. It is important, however, to recognize if evidence if fully developed. It is sometimes unclear whether or not the ‘impartial’ source is actually impartial or has a preferred perspective in mind, however. This idea is consistent throughout media sources including films and documentaries. It is apparent that documentaries are meant to give us objective knowledge about a topic. They allow us to have a seemingly omniscient perspective, without directly experiencing the events of the film.
In the documentary Paradise Lost, the story of the trial of three teenage boys convicted of murder is told through selected footage of the crime scene, trials, interviews, and dialogue from multiple parties. The evidence and information presented in the film seems to be consistent and impartial throughout, however keeping the representation of a murder trial unbiased is quite difficult. In Paradise
Lost, just as in every other movie, the director’s choices in the production of this film, such as music, camera angles, dialogues, and selected footage, portrayed the trial as a religious prosecution.

There are apparent decisions in film’s production that contributed to the whole religious interactions of the story. It is clear that religion is a vital ingredient in the daily lives of West Memphis residents. In a town with an extremely small population, religion, specifically Christianity, was breakfast, lunch and dinner to these people. Not only did many scenes open with footage of churches, but also many scenes included interviews with a strong focus of religion in the conversations. The three accused teenagers, Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, and
Jason Baldwin were also accused of worshipping Satan and performing rituals on the children who were killed. Early in the film there was footage of Mark Byers, stepfather of one of the victims, reciting scriptures and damning the three teenagers for worshiping Satan. Byers said:
“ Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. I hope ya’ll really believe in your master the Satan, the slew’s foot, the devil himself ‘cause he’s not gonna help you…and they prayed to Satan and they prayed to the devil and they had their satanic worship services out here, and they had all types of wild homosexual orgies I’ve been told.”
Byers attempts to solidify his stance as a Christian follower by expressing his loyalty and curses the boys for their “satanic worshipping” and “wild homosexual orgies” so he’s been told. This scene is a exemplary of the religious battle against the boys. Byers used his religion as a weapon against them and damned them for

doing things he is not even sure about which is apparent when he lists their faults and follows the list up with “so I’ve been told.”
Placing an intense focus on Christianity and its opposition to satanic worshipping at such an early point in the film creates a basis for the religious prosecution. The correlation of Christianity and the victims’ innocence is contrasted with the accused murderers and their ‘Satanic worshipping’ through the choices of music in the film.
There were numerous Metallica songs played throughout the film in order to express deviance and unorthodox behavior. Metallica is a heavy metal rock band, and heavy metal rock is often associated with anger, hatred, death, rage, and sets an overall dark tone. All of these aforementioned traits can be associated with the devil. The accused, Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin were both known for wearing
Metallic shirts and listening to heavy metal. The presence of this music in the film emphasizes the overall tone of anger and indirectly reiterates the motif of devil worshiping. Early in the film, an intense Metallica song was playing during individual interviews with Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols. In contrast, the stepfather of Chris Byers was shown in an innocent church setting singing a peaceful song expressing his loyalty to the Lord. This contrast is another testament to the religious disposition of the film. Finally, one of the more interesting choices made in producing this film is the involvement of religious holidays.
About 37 minutes into the film, the Byers family is shown at a cemetery on
Christmas day. In front of their son’s grave stands a tabletop Christmas tree with a star on top. The holiday is supposed to signify innocence, the birth of Jesus, and

togetherness. This scene is another portrayal of the victims’ families innocence, just as every other church scene was. What I found to be interesting was that not once were the parents of the accused shown in a religious setting. This absence of scene creates a separation of the sides. There is the victim’s side of loyalty to Christianity and the side of the accused, which was portrayed as an aberration of innocence along with Satanic involvement.
One of the most fascinating choices the directors made was the focus of the camera in this scene. While the Byers are sitting on the ground, the camera is angled so that the shadow of the star is centered on the stepfather’s forehead. Since the shadow is not three dimensional, it is not an innocent star atop a tree but rather a symbol often associated with satanic rituals; a pentagram. The pentagram serves as a symbol of satanic involvement. This scene was executed in this manner to express the idea that even the ‘loyal’ and ‘innocent’ have hatred inside of them. This scene was conveniently placed only 5 minutes after Mr. Byers was filmed shooting a
Damien-esque pumpkin in a maniacal manner with the raging intent of killing. This sequence of events plays to the advantage of the accused boys and shows that they very well could be innocent. It shows how even a loyal worshipper of a widely accepted religion that preaches peace can prove to have a killer’s state of mind.
Damien, Jason and Jessie were not portrayed to have mindsets of killers. They were portrayed as devil worshippers who engaged in ruthless human sacrifices. Their knowledge of the Wiccan religion, which draws on witchcraft, created a false association with Satan in the minds of the ‘Christian’ townspeople. Not only were these boys not depicted as cold-hearted killers, but the

father of a victim was shown to be more ruthless, angry, and unforgiving, all of which are qualities that do not align with his presumed religious beliefs, than were the accused. The filmmakers successfully illustrated the religious perspecitves of the people in the film and which explicitly characterized the trial of the three “Satan worshipping murders” known as Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, and Jason
Baldwin.