ok wait i heard a lot of talk about cb matt being suicidal but i didn't really see that in the movie, did i miss something or is it subtext?
helloo felix :) So, we can't actually say much about cb matt really because he isn't in the film. We have even less information about him than famous jay. He's an enigma and that's why I love him, we get tiny details about his life and they're all insane to think about.
I don't think there's any overt text behind reading him as suicidal. I don't know if I'd actually say it definitively. I think just for my own headcanon, I'd say cover band matt has been suicidal. There's two (kind of 3) main arguments that I'd use to point to suicidal ideation.
NTBTSTM is, in part, a (very) loose recreation of The Battle Of The Bands.
The film intentionally pulls from the webseries episode where Matt faked his suicide after he and Jay broke up. Jay's manager is Reid, the guy Matt spies him with in the episode. And Jay's backing band is the Born Ruffians, who Matt spends time with in TBOTB. Even though it's absurd and played off as a joke, there's insight into how Matt would handle Jay leaving him at that point in his life. That was his reaction to something pretty innocuous and we're talking about a timeline where Jay actually leaves and becomes successful without him. Like his worst nightmare.
Matt was suicidebaiting Jay here and I have no reason to believe that kind of behaviour didn't go down in the famous jay timeline, I think it would have been much more serious. We're likely seeing a scenario where Matt did suicidebait Jay and he didn't take it. And like, lol, that's pretty nauseating to consider honestly.
Why do they have weapons tho
So just like famous Jay inexplicably has a fucking loaded gun on his wall (which, to me, has its own implications for him), cb matt also has had his toys replaced with a real sword and gun (or at the least, realer seeming toys? but I'm going to assume they are real given jay's is).
The replacement of toys with the real is this other absurd element that I think is fundamentally about showcasing the fact they have now left their fantasy forever childhood. Like, without you I have grown up, without you I have joined reality and it's bleak. The imagery and metaphor is at the forefront, to me, but the literal actual reasoning behind them having these around is likeee. lol, it says something. About their headspace, about their concerns, their interests. There's jadedness that's replaced whimsy. It's terrible!!
so like, I think it is a fair reading but theres much to speculate and that's all it is. I also think the fact NTBTSTM matt so readily died for Jay says a lot on its own too. obviously I don't think that matt was suicidal or wanted to die, but I think he's okay with it, if the alternative is a life without his jay, which is what was presented to him as a choice.
in jay's absence, cb matt orientated his entire life to him. the coping skills he developed to deal with the loss, even almost 20 years on, are to keep him in his life somehow some way. it's fucking crazy dude. he lives for jay or he lives for nothing.
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