What everyone misses about Steven J Lockjaw in One Battle After Another

In all the discussions I've seen on Lockjaw's fate, I think there is one thing that separates him from a lot of Western tragic villains that people don't quite notice.

Because it comes from a distinctly non Western culture. It's not just that he failed the purity test and so he had to be gotten rid of.

The tragic villain in Western dramatic tradition falls from hamartia, his or her flaws cause his or her direct fall. MacBeth is too ambitious and thus ends up inviting the wrath of all those he crosses as the country turns against him. Iago's irrational hatred of Othello drives his obsessive revenge and he is imprisoned for his crimes.

We see Lockjaw's flaws in action throughout, he keeps wiping away his complex humanity (the fact he once liked black women, has a black daughter) to purify himself enough to join the Christmas Adventurers' Club, but he dies not because he denied his complicated humanity.

He died because his efforts at doing so made someone lose face.

I'm Chinese, and I recognise the Christmas Adventurers Club's MO from a thousand Asian movies.

They're basically for all their white supremacy, REALLY Oriental in their thinking, by that I mean, a shame-based culture rather than the guilt-based ones that we often see in most Western crime films.

In classic Western crime cinema, betrayal is most often a material breach with tangible damage (money lost, men killed, territory compromised).

The execution scene is a contractual reckoning: the traitor is confronted with the ledger, given a final dignity (a cigarette, a last word, a nod of respect), and then dispatched. It’s a secular Last Rites—a ritual that affirms the group’s code even as it kills. See the deaths of Tessio and Fredo in The Godfather films.

Everything is above board, everyone knows who did what, everyone at most just tries to maneuver for some final leverage or if they can't escape, the most dignified end possible. ("Tell Mike it was business. I always liked him.""Tom, can you get me off the hook for old times' sake?")

Contrast that with Lockjaw's execution. His real crime is NOT that he had a black kid. It is the fact that in doing so, HE MADE THE CLUB LOOK LIKE IDIOTS and thus, UNDERCUT THEIR LEGITIMACY. It proves that they are not thorough, they can be fooled, and thus, their status as a guardian of the interests of white people can be undermined So what is important for the club is the preservation of narrative purity. They have to look like they WEREN'T PLAYED FOR FOOLS.

And that matters more than what their members actually do.

So what do they do?

They stage a confession, record it, and reward Lockjaw with a fake promotion.

The recorded confession preserves their narrative control, while the gas chamber disguised as an office reward is a poetic execution — Lockjaw is never told what he did, never given a final dignity. He gets to die believing he won and his myth among the white supremacist militias is untarnished.

He gets to still be Bedford Forrest medal winner Steven J Lockjaw.

If it was merely that he betrayed the group or failed their purity test, he could have been executed on the spot like we see in so many crime films. But why do they put up such an elaborate charade?

The point is not if he deserved it or not, but for everyone to get a ramp off the mountain of embarrassment. Hierarchical harmony is preserved over individual justice (even rough justice). The gas chamber is there not just because of the Nazi association, but because it is a process where no one needs to get their hands dirty.

That is what matters above all.

The process must be seen to matter.

The system cannot be seen to fail.

Narrative control and institutional stability is more important than the nature of the actual transgression. This is why the CAC doesn't operate like a traditional Western criminal group or even the usual White Supremacist organisation.

What they are like is a Chinese Imperial Court.

And with this, like in a thousand wuxia films from China, the film captures the perhaps universal truth of what happens when the state despite its outward power, has no recourse left for legitimacy except violence, and which it's not even very good at.

The process must be seen to matter.

The system cannot be seen to fail.

Even as it is failing.