i'm studying this play in english literature class, and we watched this version (among others) after we had finished reading this. while wewere discussing the character of Biff, my english said that in this film there is a suggestion that biff is a repressed homosexual, but i really cannot see it. can anyone tell me if they picked up ont his and why, or do you think my teacher's reading too much into it like me?
shareHey, we're studying it too!
But anyway, I was deffinetly thinking the same thing. There were certain lines that Biff would say that we all thought sounded like he was homosexual. But, I think it may just be the difference in culture and times from then and now. The way things are said and meant aren't the same in the present as in the past. Just my opinion.
It's an interesting idea, but I think if they had intended that to be so, it would have been more apparent.
Maybe your teacher just thought it was due to the slightly effiminate way John Malkovich read his lines.
We should all strive to be a little bit more wedding.
At heart all English teachers are amateur psychiatrists and will try to find sex, homosexuality and symbolism in everything. I'm not saying it's a wrong interpretation, just bear in mind that's what English teachers are like.
Member of the Stop Heath Ledger Before He Gets His Talentless Mits On The Role Of the Joker Society
I have never gleaned anything from Biff that suggested he might be a closeted homosexual. I have always felt that he had a serious lack of self-esteem, which seemed to be in stark contrast with a certain amount of embarassment Biff seems to project regarding his father.
shareI never really saw Biff as an "in the closet" type of guy; he was just a repressed *man* who only began to realize in his 30s that working outside and hands-on was his forte.
His father (and mother, in part) steered Biff so far away from the idea of "go for what you know" that all he knew was that he was going to be an overnight success the day he graduated high school, and the University of Virginia was waiting for him with open arms. It wasn't until he caught his father cheating on his mother that he realized his father was a liar, and if Willy was a liar about his idyllic life with his family, then why continue trying to impress him with his athletic fortitude?
Biff got depressed, realized he'd been lying to himself all that time too, and as a result fell into the lower tier of society, where once he hit a bottom (jail) and another bottom (being given the cold shoulder by his former boss) he realized that his father's dreams were incredibly unrealistic...and that's when he started seeing things as a *grown* man.
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My English teacher was convinced that Biff was a latent heterosexual sowing his oats as a ne'er-do-well and would eventually follow the example of harmonious heterosexuality set by his parents and settle down with a woman much like the one he caught his father with in the hotel room.
shareI think watching performances can greatly influence your perception of the characters. It was mentioned here before, but Malkovich's performance can certainly make you feel that Biff could be gay, but this doesn't necessarily make it true. For example, if you saw the play in London, you might feel that Willy Loman is British. Reading the play is the best way to guage the essence of each character; and from Arthur Miller's script, there is no indication that Biff is homosexual.
share...I hope you got the chance to tell your teach back in 2006 that she was a repressed idiot herself.
(...or he/himself for that matter)
Oh wow. I haven't read the play but I just finished watching the movie and I picked up on what your teacher saw within the first few minutes. I forgot about it as the movie played on. I don't remember why I felt like he was gay and he was suffering from being in the closet but I just did. Go back and either read or see the dialogue between the brothers at the start. It was just how he was expressing himself, the conversation and his body language. It seemed like he was hiding something. At the end we learned he had gone to jail so obviously he was hiding that, but it could have been more to it. Cool to know I wasn't the only one that picked up on that, but I have no reason or facts to support that theory, it was just an assumption my brain made.
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