Compliance: It's Easy to Cross That Line Now

I suggested to my soon-to-be ex-wife (long story) that we watch Compliance on Netflix because I had read somewhere that it was infuriating. I thought that was an interesting way to describe a film. Reading the blurb that Netflix supplies, I learned that it was inspired by true events about a fast-food manager who was convinced by a prank call to detain, interrogate and ultimately humiliate one of her teenage employees.

I assumed that it was based on the same psychological principles developed by Dr. Philip Zimbardo in the 1960s after he conducted the famous Stanford Prison Experiment. This psychiatrist discovered that people willingly engaged in oppressive and authoritarian behavior when told to do so. He also discovered that others were unexpectedly willing to endure this treatment.

The Plot of Compliance

The story is simple and the film is not an action thriller. The majority of the film takes place in a storeroom in the back of a fast-food restaurant.

A middle-aged manager in a fast-food restaurant is frustrated with the irresponsibility of her mostly teenage staff. She receives a phone call from a man who identifies himself as a police officer. He lets Sandra, the manager, know that one of her young employees, a particularly annoying little blond, is wanted for a theft that occurred just an hour before in the restaurant. The voice on the phone asks this frumpy, portly woman to help him by detaining the girl in her office until police officers arrive.

Once Sandra and Becky, the teenager, are in the room, the man on the phone begins to ask for more help. The police are delayed. Will Sandra initiate the interrogation?

Sandra is willing to do so. She is, in fact, willing to do much more with some help from other employees and her fiancé. By the end of the film, Becky has been assaulted and raped by people with no previous criminal records. As it turns out, the man on the phone was an impostor. Soon the detainers are being detained for unlawful arrest, assault and more.

Disbelief

My wife had to be convinced to continue watching, even long before any of the really difficult-to-believe events occurred. She could not imagine agreeing even to be detained. She could not imagine that the dowdy little manager would agree to do so. By the time the fiancé was showing up to take a turn watching the girl, she was completely disappointed with the movie and unable to suspend disbelief.

Me: I’m Totally Buying It

She continued watching because we had nothing better to do and because I kept telling her it was believable. There were segments which I thought were exaggerated. Eventually, after the manager’s fiancé spanks Becky, the man portraying himself as a police officer convinces the girl to repay the man for her bad behavior with oral sex. I assumed that this was tossed in by the screenwriters to stir the pot and get some attention by way of scandal, if not for any other quality in the film.

The characters seemed believable. Later, reading the Netflix commentaries of people who had apparently not read about the underlying incidents, I saw how people found it impossible to believe that the manger would do what she did. That part of the movie I had no trouble believing.

Women Like Sandra

There is a certain species of woman in this country just like Sandra. She is not educated but neither is she uneducated. She may have “some college”, as they say on job applications or she may just have graduated from high school.

However, there is one thing that unites this group of women. They have been saved by authority. They typically work for large corporations. These economic bastions have given these women positions of moderate authority over the peons whom they dread resembling.

In exchange for their obeisance to rules and regulations, they receive a moderate income and the opportunity to advance a short distance up the corporate food chain. Along the way they will acquire associate degrees in accounting or business. They are worshippers of power. The police are to be obeyed mindlessly. People like school principals and teachers are unquestioned pillars of society. What is important for Sandra is maintaining the fabric of the society into which she has woven herself.

Sandra’s philosophy is revealed when Becky protests her innocence. She simply says, “Then why am I on the phone with the police?”

Why, Becky, Why?

My wife also found Becky hard to believe. When Sandra is guided through a strip search over the phone, my wife kept reiterating that she would never have agreed to that and would have refused or simply walked out. I was not so shocked. Having taught high school recently, I could believe it.

Thirty years ago, few if any girls would have submitted to such treatment. I am not suggesting that women 30 years ago were blushing virgins who would never take off their clothes. Young girls today, though, are much more used to the objectification of their bodies. They sext boys while in class and blithely accept that their boyfriends are looking at porn.

It was not her willingness to sacrifice her rights that distinguishes Becky from girls of generations past. The Stanford Prison experiment showed that this tendency is always in us. Instead, she stands out for her willingness to disrobe in front of strangers.

The abolition of the taboos surrounding sex will make it easier and easier for people to take advantage of girls like Becky for generations to come. While she was probably disturbed at being asked to perform oral sex, I doubt that she felt the same level of revulsion that most women once felt at such a suggestion. It was this revulsion, not their personal sense of rights or honor, that kept women safer in previous times. After all, there is nothing wrong with oral sex between consenting strangers, so the incident in the back room of that fast-food restaurant only required Becky to cross one little line.

      

The Truth

Even I was shocked to read about the incident after the movie and discover that everything, even the rape, was real. I was simultaneously disappointed and pleased that my speculations about the degeneration of morals in modern society were supported.

Compliance is not a great movie. If you have Netflix and are already paying for the streaming service, it might be worth 90 minutes of your time. It is, at least, revealing and it does not have Keanu Reeves in it.