The Bottomline

When i watched it, for the first time, today, and the class started discussing it, the first interpretation that came to me was "If it's not broken, don't fix it".
It's a shame no one discussed this in class, although we were actually deciding why it was "shocking", rather than reading any meanings behind it in great depth.
But still, glad to know i'm not the only one who read the film in this way!

well the dont fix whats broken bottomline didnt come to my mind but it makes sense

i think it could mean a *beep* lot really

1. Dont alter your body just too look good... you might already look good (hes clean shaven already and still wants to be shaven...)

2. it could mean that he cant take society anymore. its normal for us to shave, you cant work in a bank if you got a pink moustache with some bells attached to it, you have to participate with certain habits of our modern society... even though it might kill you

3. it could also be some sort of "anti advertising", you see him take off his shirt 3 times, everything is "stylish" (i mean 60s stylish ^^) and so on, it looks like an ad at the very beginning, but then it starts to get a real nightmare, so one could say that media or advertisement to be more general is actually something very harmful.

4. also it could mean that if you can not come up with certain standarts nowadays (have chromed out bathroom stuff) you are not accepted in our society and might get hurt in someway (emotionaly or evn physically). there are many blacks, bums, hispanics that get beat up by ppl just because they are poor. they are look down upon.

5. or just dont fix whats already perfectly fine

Also at the very end, the blood spills into his chest. That can be seen as America.

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I certainly read it in various other ways as well, but I also knew that it was in response to the Vietnam war, and in that context that particular reading makes a lot of sense.