MovieChat Forums > The Dying Gaul Discussion > 3 questions.about things I found strange...

3 questions.about things I found strange..... (spoilers)

posted 14 years ago by dancingjinn
4 replies | jump to latest

I liked this movie but a few things struck me as really strange.

Does anyone know if it is at all realistic that people using gay chat rooms would give so much true information in their profile, easily accessible to anyone? I would have thought those rooms were very anonymous. I mean, why even have a fake user name if anyone can just go to your profile and find out your real name, occupation, religion. If I was going to be on a board talking about my sex life and everything else, I don't think I'd include any of that information in my profile. Well actually, I don't even include it in my IMDb profile and the most private thing I talk about here is what movies I like.

Also, did anyone think it was weird that Robert never seemed to suspect Elaine of being ArckAngel? He had just told her what gay chat site he likes the best and then someone turns up there whose identity he is trying to figure out. I know he would not have expected her to have so much information about him but it would still seem pretty suspicious.

And did anyone think it was very strange that when Elaine went to a gay chat room and asked if anyone had a friend or lover who had died, the first person to say "yes" was the guy she was trying to establish contact with? I would think a huge percentage of gay men in 1995 would have lost a friend or lover. Seemed like quite a coincidence and not even necessary since she already had his username.

I"m interested in anyone's opinions or thoughts about any of these. Thanks.

[–] MuchToBeGratefulFor 14 years ago

Yes, I think it is quite realistic that people would give so much information about themselves. This movie is set back in 1995 when chat rooms were pretty new, and all the possible privacy pitfalls were not really on people's minds. Even today, it's amazing what people post about themselves on Facebook etc.

About Robert never suspecting Elaine. . .at one point he says, or types I think, that she is the one of the nicest people he has ever met. He just never suspected that she would do something like this. I think another factor is that he is so vulnerable that he can actually give credence to the possibility that it IS Malcolm communicating with him.

As for getting Robert to say "yes" to her question, while it's true that many others in the room might have lost someone, Robert's loss was very recent, so it's not that much of a stretch that he was the one who answered. You say what she did was unnecessary since she already had his username, but the point was, she didn't want him to know that. She wanted him to choose to enter a conversation with ArckAngel, and not realize that ArckAngel had targeted him.

You must be the change you seek in the world. -- Gandhi

[–] lamont-hard 13 years ago

I have some questions as well, Did Elaine tell Robert that she was Arc Angel or did she make it seem as though Jeff was the person responsible for making him believe he was talking to his dead lovers ghost........Did Robert Kill her because he wanted Jeffrey or out of anger over either of them pretending to be Roberts dead lover.

[–] ofumalow 12 years ago

I think Robert's final actions are a reaction to his feeling violated by the couple--the wife for posing as his dead lover online, the husband for probably intending all along to turn the script he'd written for his lover into a mainstream, heterosexual story.

Rightly or wrongly, Robert has already made it clear he has a very strong sense of gay people being victimized by the straight world, and what happens to him in Hollywood plays into his very worst paranoia about the straight world trivializing or marginalizing the lives of gay people.

But the fact that his revenge is so grotesquely outsized removes any sense of justice served--not only has he come to view the couple as monsters (even if they maybe, just MAYBE, are well-intentioned ones), but he's become a monster himself. I think "The Dying Gaul" works best if you look at it as a sort of modernization of Greek tragedy--the basic emotions are universal but the deus-ex-machina plot mechanizations aren't meant to be realistic, they're deliberately extreme, primitive and theatrical to underline the parabolic nature of the whole story.

[–] lamont-hard 12 years ago

I disagree the film shows Robert descending into a disturbed person as the wife became sadistic in leading him on and pushing him over the edge. He clearly wanted to Kill her though not intentionally killing the kids and housekeeper. This for some reason is rationalized more then the simple truth of this film. just think how one would feel on this. If there is a message it is the wife was much worse for what she did to Robert and she was killed for her actions. She clearly knew what she was doing. Also the film shows her starting to be the wife who wanted it all as she would take her husband to the cleaners for his actions with Robert making her character become even more of a bad person when all along she dissed out the most torment.