I'm glad to see that most people in this thread have recognized that Frank is not supposed to be the hero of this movie. I've heard and read a lot of comments from people who assumed that they were supposed to think of Frank as this wonderful, ultra-sympathetic character. And all of those people criticized the movie, because they thought that Frank had flaws, and that he wasn't heroic.
Of course Frank has flaws! Of course he wasn't a hero! The director chose to depict him as flawed. I can't think of any reason why someone would assume that Frank was supposed to be the flawless hero of this movie, except for one: the fact that Todd Haynes, the director, is gay.
It's sad that people would assume that when a gay man directs a movie that has a gay character in it, he must have intended for the gay character to be the hero. But apparently, that's the way some people's minds work.
Anyway...while I certainly acknowledge Frank's flaws (he seems to forget about his family's needs entirely when a cute young guy enters his life, he's mostly an absentee father before that, and he's insensitive to Cathy's heartbreak), there are also people in this thread who are being way too hard on him. It's ridiculous to say, "He should have told his wife that he was gay right from the beginning," or, "He should have stayed married to her."
Back when Frank and Cathy got married (the late '40s, I guess?) if a young man sought advice because he found himself attracted to men and not to women, what do you think he would have been told? Whether he went to a religious figure, a doctor, a trusted family friend, or someone else, you can be pretty sure he'd hear some combination of the following: "Get psychiatric help to stop you from having these thoughts, pray, and get married a nice young girl." Back then, the general mindset about homosexuality (even among the psychiatric community) is that it was a sickness that could be cured. Most people did NOT see sexual orientation as something unchangeable, or part of your identity. A young man who was troubled by "gay thoughts" wouldn't be told that he could never be attracted to a woman.
So of course Frank would marry a nice girl like Cathy, and he wouldn't realize that he could never be attracted to her, or romantically love her. He'd have almost all of society telling him that marrying her was the right thing. And no one would encourage him to tell her anything about his desires, either. If he did, he'd be seen as a monster.
As for the idea that he should have stayed in the marriage - it's nowhere near that simple. While Frank certainly shouldn't have left Cathy and the kids in such a cold way, and he should have appreciated Cathy's efforts to understand him, he wasn't doing her any favors by keeping her trapped in a loveless marriage. And I'm not sure that Frank and Cathy would be doing their kids any favors by staying in a miserable relationship "for their sake." Parents nowadays break up for reasons that are much less justifiable than Frank and Cathy's reasons, without people calling them selfish.
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AlmaWynemiller
13 years ago
And I'm not sure that Frank and Cathy would be doing their kids any favors by staying in a miserable relationship "for their sake."
You are right there... I think people who consider the good thing to do was necessarily for them to stay together "for the children's sake" just don't take into consideration how devastating it can be for said children to realize that their parents' life has been nothing but a sham. How can you make anything meaningful of your life when your very existence is the result of a lie?
I pretty much agree with all your analysis here. Frank is not a hero, he is not completely a victim but he is very human. And they lived at a time when society didn't make it easy to live your life according to your desires, what's the point in denying that?
Midway through the journey of our life, I found myself within a dark forest...
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Emiabambinacara
13 years ago
I knew a man who was a piano teacher in my small rural/mill town for almost 75 years. He never married or fathered children because he was gay. He was friends with my great-grandfather since right after WWI. He and my great-grandfather met when they attended Tuskegee together. It was said by my great-grandmother that great-grandfather saved him from being beaten by a group of guys one night while out drinking. They were buddies from then on until my great-grandfather passed in 1978. Anyway, I've heard the stories a thousand times from my mom and grandmother of how my grandfather was fair and tolerant long before society condemned one for being otherwise.
As for his friend, it was also claimed that he never married because he probably simply didn't want to live a life that was a lie. He was quite the stereotypical effeminate waif who steeped his life in religious service to his community- playing piano at the churches, teaching the communities' kids about art and music. I can't imagine what it was like for him being an obviously gay black man in Deep during most of the Jim Crow era, ,and a young gay man decades before the Sexual Revolution or Civil Right Era. He was 62 years old by 1965, by the time I came around he was in his late seventies and well past even thinking of building any kind of life that would be accepted. I still remember him, sitting in the front parlor of my great-grandmother's old house dressed in a well tailor suit that had had to have had for 50 years, those gold cuff links, crisp white shirt, and high polished brown wingtips that Perry Ellis would envy; his bald head gleaming, his wire-rimmed glasses elegantly perched from his nose, and his legs crossed in a manner that rivaled that of the "dandiest" of gentlemen. To my amazement though, he never seemed melancholy or resigned. He was simply concerned my my great-grandmother's health and his promise to look after her and us after my great-grandmother dies. All of us great-grand kids took piano lessons from him, and he continued to visit my mother until he could no longer do so; 2003 was the last time I saw his in good health, which was shortly before he died
Of course, I have long suspected that he had quite a layered personality. I also remember that, as a curious kid, I went into his personal bathroom and saw pictures of prominent men that he may have had affairs with. I told my mom about it when I was old enough to put it into context, and she gave me the impression that this was the case, though she did out and say it. Finding this out did kind of mar my memories of the guy but not enough to compare him to the asshcle character Quaid played in the film. It certainly taught me many lessons in human behavior.
Anyway, the point of my long-winded story is that, I also think of Dennis Quaid as a villain in this movie, because I know of real life proof that a truly unselfish man would never have put people through what his character did. Someone sympathetic would have never been so obtuse to the societal double standard he was perpetrating by condemning his wife's behavior or so selfish and self centered that he couldn't empathize with what his secrecy and ultimate desertion did to his wife and kids.
My great-grandparents friend was probably the same age as he was in this movie with a hell of a lot more of society's pressure upon him than this guy, and he chose to be responsible about the and actually courageous enough to not live on the DL without alienating the moral sensibilities of the society he lived in. He had enough empathy, sense, and grace to not subject some poor woman and children to a lie that he could have easily perpetrated. He himself bore the tragedy of double intolerance. I find that to be noble in a way, and I think that if the filmmakers want Quaid's character to be sympathetic, they would have been portrayed with some of my great-grandfather's friends traits.
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moviegeek1
9 years ago
That was a fantastic and well-written post. I really enjoyed reading it.
Sister, when I've raised hell, you'll know it!
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