MovieChat Forums > Love Is Strange (2014) Discussion > Was Joey gay?

Was Joey gay?

posted 10 years ago by pyotr-3
8 replies | jump to latest

He seemed very attached to Vlad. Then he cried & cried after taking the painting to George at the end of the movie.
Was he crying because he still didn't have the courage to come out? Then he kisses his girlfriend and skateboards into the sunset... but the camera lingers on him at length as if there's more to the scene than meets the eye...

He very defensively said "I'm not gay!!" as soon as Lithgow asked him if he'd ever been in love. Lithgow didn't even suggest that he was gay, but it was obviously on Joey's mind. I don't think a straight kid would have responded in such a defensive, insistent manner.

What do you think? I don't know why they'd spend so much time on Joey in the movie unless there's a hidden reason why he's a bit paranoid about his gay uncle's presence.

[–] emvan 10 years ago

I'm pretty sure Vlad was gay. It's mentioned that he stopped coming around as much to Joey's after Ben's death. I think he saw Ben as a positive role model.

The stuff you're picking up on re Joey is, I think, the result of his having just one close friend, who is gay, and who perhaps has feelings for him. At Joey's age, establishing that you're not gay (or, for that matter, that you are, if it will be accepted) is actually important socially -- which is the only time and place where vehement denials of being gay are not a sign of repression.

Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.

[–] LittlePasLady 10 years ago

Joey's gay uncle gave him advice on getting the girl. Joey resented his uncle's presence and sharing of his room. When he died Joey realized that the resentment towards his uncle was unwarranted and his advice very valid. I believe he felt guilty about the way he treated him. It must have been awkward for a straight teen to get relationship advice from a gay man, but he was right and Joey knew that in the end.

[–] flasuss 10 years ago

Joey's gay uncle gave him advice on getting the girl. Joey resented his uncle's presence and sharing of his room. When he died Joey realized that the resentment towards his uncle was unwarranted and his advice very valid. I believe he felt guilty about the way he treated him. It must have been awkward for a straight teen to get relationship advice from a gay man, but he was right and Joey knew that in the end.

Yes to all this.

Should also be noticed is normal for teenage boys to be reaffirming their straightness; it only becomes reaççy ridiculous (and a sign they probably are gay) when they get older.

When you kill a man to defend an idea, you're not defending an idea. You're killing a man.

[–] monstermayhem32 9 years ago

I think Joey was just a shy kid trying to find how own place in the world,

[–] mail-2217 9 years ago

Vlad was gay. But Joey looked up to him as 'cool'... I think that's why he stole the books... and why he put up with Vlad who was trying to seduce him. He was conflicted.

He cried at the end because he was mean to Lithgow's character. He wanted to get rid of the painting, at least partly, to assuage his guilt.

I think it's no accident (in terms of casting) that his new girlfriend even kinda looks like Vlad.

I also guess that this film was HEAVILY edited. In the end, Joey is almost saintly. But early on? He was pretty snotty. I sense that there were lots of different versions of the father and Marisa Tomei's characters as well... left on the editing floor.

[–] Thomasina 9 years ago

Then he cried & cried after taking the painting to George at the end of the movie.

It seemed fairly obvious to me that he was crying so much after giving the painting to George because he felt so much regret about the cruel things he said to Ben not long before Ben died. After all, it was the very same painting that Joey insulted and that caused him to say that Ben was a bad artist, that posing for a painting is a bad thing, and that being gay is stupid. Even for a moody teenager, those were extraordinarily unsympathetic and nasty things to say to your elderly uncle who is undergoing hard times in his life.

As far as we saw on screen, Joey never had the chance to apologize to Ben before he died, and since he's clearly not a psychopath, he would naturally feel regret about that.

[–] bbfrmrp 9 years ago

I don't think either Joey or Valad were gay. Valad was flirting with the maid. I think they stole the books. and they were trying to rescue them. from the school and prove how smart they were and who know there might have been nude pictures in the books.

[–] kay_rock 9 years ago

They definitely raised the question, and I think that's what it was supposed to be. It was a stage in Joey's life when he was questioning who he was and what he wanted and Uncle Ben's very existence kind of created a conflict for him.

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