“Kristen Bell’s character confronts a crisis we all at some point in our lives—perhaps multiple times—face: Am I a good person?”
We are taught that there’s good and there’s bad, and that people fall into one of those two defining categories. When analyzing someone’s nature of character, we look at their actions and define them using our own knowledge and what we consider to be good or bad. More often than not, we’ll consider people who do things that we don’t like as bad, while the ones who take actions we like are considered to be good. Morality is weighed on this scale and we find comfort in feeling secure that our actions—regardless of external perspectives—lean toward the positive side.
NBC’s The Good Place premiered back in 2016, starring Kristen Bell as Eleanor Shellstrop, a morally troubled woman who finds herself in the “Good Place” after dying in a parking lot accident. Alongside Bell stars William Jackson Harper as Chidi Anagonye, an ethics professor with whom Bell’s character teams up after being declared “soulmates” and admitting that she was sent to the “Good Place” by mistake.
Through Harper’s character the show presents its teachings of morality, making constant references to the work of philosophers such as Plato. Eleanor, although hoping to be able to redeem her past and avoid being sent to the “Bad Place,” struggles to grip the ethical messages taught by Chidi and seems to further prove her moral ambiguity.
As a viewer, I found Bell’s character to be confronting a crisis we’ve all experienced at some point in our lives—perhaps multiple times—. Am I a good person? Not everyone has the capacity to sincerely confront this dilemma, as we rarely want to admit that we have done wrong. We often look to find reason in unreasonable actions and, based on our own understanding, excuse ourselves for the things we’ve done. It is in facing our actions and admitting to them that we come to find that yes, we have done wrong, but we can do better.
Throughout The Good Place, the underlying message is that: People can choose to be good. Once we admit to our wrongdoings we can decide to be better. This is not to say that all can be forgiven and that simply acting “good” makes us a good person. As the show presents, there are certain actions that earn a person a spot in the “Bad Place” (genocide, rape, murder, etc.) and our “good” actions must come from a place of sincerity in order for them to mean something.
In the words of Eleanor Shellstrop, “pobody’s nerfect.” We are bound to take actions we will later regret, it is what we do after them, and what we do to solve them, that defines our character. Sincerely admitting that we have done wrong is not easy, but proves necessary in the human pursuit of being a good person.