Blue Velvet

Blue Velvet is actually one of Lynch's more "Hollywood" films that is accepted completely unalteristic like Eraserhead or Elephant Man. Accordingly, the article The Po-Mo Puritan goes as far as saying, "Lynch actually works within the most traditional canon of American literature. He follows an intrinsically American moralistic obsession with the ideas of innate depravity, a Zorostrain notion of goodness and evil, and the schizophrenic concept of innocence as both an ideal state and a treacherous, ultimately corrupting vice of the wickedly naive". In this movie I feel that Lynch is commenting on the loss of innocense even in the American dream town where there are white picket fences and on the surface nothing is happening and all seems well. Then you have this completely different underground world that you only experience if you dig a little deeper. Jeffrey and his female lead Sandy are both upstanding kids in school who have life ahead of them but have never really experienced anything. Then Jeffrey finds a severed ear which leads into a whole slew of events that lead to the ultimate destruction of both Jeffrey and Sandy's innocence. Which Lynch was depicting in his film. According to the article, "Good and evil had to be clearly defined, so the inclusion or exclusion of a person within this moral dyad categorically determined the nature of that individual's character". I think what this means for Lynch's film is that the lines were not separated in terms of good and evil. That it is crazy in a town that on the surface you see nothing going wrong and it is a perfect as that fireman riding by in the firetruck waving with a smile instead of the alternative rushing to a burning building. Then you have this hidden society of crooked cops, drug dealers, corruption and murder. So what is Lynch trying to say? Is he saying that there is no where that is safe? That no matter how far you go and how perfect life may seem bad things are all around even if lying right under our noses? In all there is a point in life that you just lose your innocence and can never get it back.