Let's Wipe Away the Scum

"Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads. Here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is a man who stood up."

Possibly one of the greatest studies of character, Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" still remains closely analysed and critically accepted today. I've taken the time and pleasure to sit down and watch the moving-novel, and you can't help but marvel in the riveting pull of its development. Robert De Niro, a personal favourite of mine, truly gives the performance of his lifetime. Nowhere else could you find a better guy to play the role of scum fighting against scum - as well as battling with the harsh weight of insomnia and loneliness. A well known method actor, (most notably displayed in “The Raging Bull”) De Niro takes on not only the mental challenge of character progression, but physical as well. I seriously don’t know how the guy does it, but geniuses work in mysterious ways - dedication and raw, natural talent must be the key factors here. 

Now, it’s impossible to name one film your favourite, but Taxi Driver really is pushing against this belief. It’s a movie that’s made me take life with a different attitude - to notice the scum, the junkies, the pimps - or, in my case, the chavs. I want the rain to wash them away from the street too, but I know it’s not gonna change. Little victories within a world of crushing disappointment may not seem valuable, but they can be to your own mindset. I’m not the type of guy who’s gonna stand up to a gang of yobs, pikeys, chavs - whatever - if they’re loitering around the streets. Even if they hurled abuse at me, I’d simply ignore them, and call them fuck-heads when in the company of my shadow. But part of me - a growing part - wants to wash them away from the streets. To see them wiped from the face of the earth, these pathetic, low-life junkies. I could never personally take the Travis approach and blow the nearest fuckers away with a rain of fire - but part of me wants someone to. 

There is no point for the world to be stuck in a continuous cycle of internal warfare amongst citizens. There is no point to fear walking the streets at night. I’d like to see a change - to see these drug-abusing fucks rounded up and put in a pen. They’ll ride around on their little bikes, with their hats, their hoods, their trackies, until the iron-fist of justice will eventually clothesline them mid-drift. But, of course, this is a perfect world - a world that will never come to be. You’ll get the fucks, the pricks, the gangs, and this isn’t going to change. I may be biased here. My girlfriend’s ex is a meth-taking, drug-dealing, crack-house-living piece of shit who hates the fuck out of me. She still ‘cares’ for him because he’s such a screw-up, and it kills me. It kills me the fact someone who can fail at the simple task of growing up deserves our time. He doesn’t come from a rough background. He has loving parents - they’re still together - and he’s not dirt-poor either. He’s a skid mark on society, the typical middle-class white kid who thinks it’s cool to ride around in gangs and shoot H, or whatever the fuck he’s doing. 

My girlfriend is a nice, sweet, kind, intelligent girl - but why do they always find themselves attracted to the cunts? I’ll never understand. I’d gladly throw a bottle at this stain’s head, but that’d put me in prison. Literally the law is the only thing stopping me from attempting a revolution within the internal confinements of a rigid society. We need a fucking change.