Weekly Standard Right Wing Geek Picture of the Day

joanna bujes joanna.bujes at sun.com
Wed Feb 5 15:19:37 PST 2003


At 05:30 PM 02/05/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>Well, art as rorschach test, I guess. I thought the character clearly
>illustrated the psychodynamic concept of reaction formation (believe
>it or not, there's reasonable empirical support for the idea that
>homophobic men are in fact sexually aroused by male-male sexual
>activity). "I really hate it" = "I secretly and unconsciously desire
>it".
>
>I'm interested in your interpretation, though: how does kissing
>Kevin's character help the Marine get his boy back?

1. He believes he has witnessed his son giving Spacey a blow job. 2. He adores his son, but homosexuality is not acceptable. 3. He beats up his son and kicks him out, after extracting the (false) confession that his son is gay. 4. He is now convinced that his son is gay. 5. His son leaves and 6. In a completely shocked/traumatized state he goes to Spacey's house and kisses him in an attempt to be part of that world to which his son belongs.

By the way, I don't think there's a clear case to be made either for queerness or not; I like my version because it feels more human and less stereotyped. Also, the director was English and a great deal of the movie argues, in a lot of ways, against stereotypes.

Best,

Joanna



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