@alratan replied to your post “Can I just say how glad I am that you've got in your rules that you...”
But there was nothing like this in the film... He said he never toched them, right?
ooc;; hey! so what the movie says is “and though i never touch the boys, it’s always a struggle” and it puts this right after saying that he’s basically the inheritor to hector’s legacy. so you are correct that he does not actually touch anyone, but framing it as ‘i have to try really, really hard not to abuse my position and give in to those Dark Gay Thoughts’ still supports the idea that gay men are naturally prone to preying on younger boys. it shouldn’t even have to be mentioned as ‘a struggle,’ you know? because what it’s saying is that david has the desires, regardless of whether or not he acts on them, and that’s frankly not a real improvement. our representation of gay men shouldn’t have to feature ‘oh, and i have to make a concerted effort not to sexually harass boys,’ especially not when the original version of the show did not give any indication of predatory impulses in this character’s conclusion.
david in the play even tries to make irwin feel guilty by saying ‘you don’t want to seem like hector’ in reference to his relationship (or non-relationship) with dakin. it’s clear that as an adult david thinks what hector did was wrong, and is implying irwin should be ashamed of and motivated by this comparison to prove he did not touch the boys. david is also seeing a therapist at this point in his life, and almost certainly the therapist has led him to understand the full weight of hector’s actions in a way in which david had not seen them in school. turning around and saying that he would share hector’s impulses and desires in the film’s ending is kind of..... mmm it reads like it’s there because ‘hector was gay, and he’s gay, adn that’s what gay teachers feel,’ not because it’s a reasonable progression of his character.
some people are a lot more sympathetic towards this ending, and that’s okay like i’m not on a witch hunt or anything, but to me it feels like it would be a big disservice to the character and to the representation of gay men to keep in this bizarre, out of character, and harmful tidbit tacked on at the end of a secondary version of the story.
