MovieChat Forums > Boulevard (2015) Discussion > Was Joy a lesbian?

Was Joy a lesbian?

posted 9 years ago by mel-holden
8 replies | jump to latest

near end of movie, she's confronted him and the truth is coming out about his sexual identity

Nolan: "It's just time for us to be in the real world"

Joy: "What if I don't want to be in the real world?"

Nolan: "Well I do"

Joy: "Well I don't. That's why I married you."

- - -
This makes me wonder if she is a lesbian and since lesbianism was also not acceptable when she was growing up, she also made the choice he did, to be in a 'pretend' marriage

Anybody else hear her say that and wonder?

How else might you construe it?

[–] baileythedog 9 years ago

This makes me wonder if she is a lesbian and since lesbianism was also not acceptable when she was growing up, she also made the choice he did, to be in a 'pretend' marriage

Anybody else hear her say that and wonder?

How else might you construe it?

I wanted to know a bit more about Joy. We see that she's practically retreated from the work world, for some reason settling on teaching ESL at a minimal schedule, despite the reference that she was previously an academic (with Winston?) but thought it too political.

She spent a lot of movie time in bed--alone, obviously--and fairly cloistered from the world. Her dream to take a cruise is at least a stab at interacting with the world, albeit from the safe distance of an impersonal cruise ship.

Given these clues I didn't take Joy's declaration that she didn't want to be in the real world because she was a lesbian but because she was a very aloof person that had grown comfortable to her lack of interaction with others. But certainly it could be argued that perhaps she was lesbian and the basis of her relationship with Nolan was every bit of a sham as his was with her. Although I get the sense that despite their comfortable distance as a couple, she actually did want to be with him and missed any physical connection they ever had in their lives.

[–] DreamsAgain 8 years ago

Once again Baileythedog, you did a nice job at explaining it.
:-)
Anyhow, (to the OP) I did not get the feeling that Joy was a Lesbian, but that she had gotten comfy in her life with Nolan, and she did not want to change---even though during their life together, they'd obviously grown apart.
Joy totally loved Nolan, so she stayed.
She did not want to loose Nolan, as her closet life-long friend, so she just went along with that charade. For Joy, it was as though she'd rather have Nolan as a distant person in their home, than not having him at all.

Joy & Nolan had a long history, and Joy did not want to loose that at all. Nolan ,on the other hand (even though he still loved Joy) was willing to let go of the entire relationship and explore a life he was never able to have, because of his upbringing and because of the ERA in which he was raised.
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[–] TheGodsHaveSpoken 9 years ago

I don't think she was a lesbian as much as she was just in a marriage that she was comfortable with despite the fact that she knew it was a lie. She may not have always known he was gay, but instead just came up with her own reasons as to why her husband was so distant.

No marriage is perfect. This one certainly wasn't. After awhile, though, I imagine even the predictable imperfections just became something she was used to and willing to put up with rather than face the fears of significant change to her status quo so late in life.

[–] Reno-Rangan 9 years ago

OP

I thought she was a shy type, you know geek who is afraid to face the world. So she married him knowing he's gay, with mutual understanding. But after knowing your perspective, I'm convinced they both were gays and afraid of facing reality in their young age, so pretended as a happy couple.

PS, Robin Williams was good, but it would have been nice to see Ian McKellen as Nolan as it is close to his real life.

You better know what you want to do before somebody knows it for you -The Astronaut Farmer

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] hilaryjrp 8 years ago

It may have been the most fascinating line in the whole movie. I wondered at it quite a bit.

I tend to not think Joy was gay, because if she was I don't feel she would have reacted in quite the way she did. The threat and jealousy and hurt seemed to come from a romantic place, a place that probably would not exist if she was also gay.

What did she mean by that? We can only guess. I just look at her words, that her marriage is not the real world, then I look at her marriage. It is gentle and calm and doesn't put a lot of strain on either of them. There is no sex (was there ever?). There is warm companionship but also separate lives. "Gentle" keeps coming to mind.
So I would imagine that to her the "real world" is some opposite of that: harsher, full of high emotion and volatility, demands on her person, maybe some sexual aspect with which she is not comfortable. I think she chose him because she knew she would be safe.

Brilliant comment, and I agree that Joy's closing line is stunning--the most impactful of the film.

I agree completely that the real world to Joy meant facing outright all the pain she consciously or unconsciously suffered internally throughout her marriage.

Damn, was this a great movie.

[–] Seth_Rogue_One 8 years ago

Interesting take on it

I didn't see it that way myself I thought she knew that he was gay but that she was fine with it because they still loved eachother in a sense

We crash into each other, just so we can feel something.

[–] WarpedRecord 8 years ago

Interesting take on Joy, a character whose name is bitterly ironic. I saw her as a very lonely middle-aged woman whose sexual orientation was irrelevant. She just wanted a connection with her partner, regardless of gender. And she did not find it here. But now that I think more about it, perhaps she was lesbian and knew from the beginning that Nolan was gay.