new anon? perhaps? saw a post about Parkovitch and had ideas and I wanna share them
Barkovitch calls Pete and Ray queer and gay to combat his own attraction towards some of the other boys. He's got a lot of internalised homophobia, but I feel that he's almost angrier about the fact that it's Parker he's attracted to.
Why couldn't it have been one of the "better" boys? A boy that he could actually bring home under the guise of beiNg friends? A boy that his grandma wouldn't sneer at?
I feel that Barkovitch would get over his fear of being gay while watching Olson and Baker actually. Seeing two men be such close friends, care for each other so deeply, without it being sexual, would probably make Barkovitch rethink a lot of things. Mainly, that men can be vulnerable with each other.
And I think he would jump into that kind of friendship far too quickly with Parker, who he's attracted to and yet tries so hard to hate. It leaves them both reeling, Parker getting pissed at the audacity, and Barkovitch feeling ashamed that he even tried to be open without "someone like Parker"
idk where this was going, but yeah. The complex relationship between two men who despise each other is like drugs to me. It's even better if they never actually date each other, and instead circle around each other like two sharks, testing and waiting for a strike, wearing each other out until they both succumb to death
-🦴
Hey! I've gotta be honest, I don't agree with almost any of your analysis/take here. Obviously it's your opinion, and you're entitled to it, I just completely disagree & I'll explain why.
The one point I'll agree with you on is I do think it's very fair to interpret Gary as a very repressed queer man- though "internalized homophobia" is an oversimplification of his issues imo, like he is very actively Externalizing That Shit- & I do think repressed attraction can be interpreted as a factor in some of his worst behaviors, particularly when it comes to why he's so vile with Pete in particular (Barko's face journey after Pete's "you trynna suck this dick Barkovitch?" joke is Crazy)
But beyond that I’m not really with you :/
First off, why are we throwing Meemaw Barkovitch under the bus? The “a boy his grandma wouldn’t sneer at” line in here is just wild to me. We know literally nothing about this woman aside from the fact that she exists and Barkovitch likes her enough to joke about her. So why are we framing her as someone who’d look down on Collie? Why are we implying she’s responsible for/connected to Barkovitch’s own cruelty/bigotries?? That kind of automatic blame-shifting onto a woman we know nothing about just feels…weird. And honestly p misogynistic. Barkovitch’s internalized homophobia (and again, it’s not just internalized, he’s actively weaponizing & projecting that shit outward) is his issue. While we can theorize about how his background may have played into Barko's Many Hang Ups it feels very strange to immediately bring a woman we never even see into it??? Like…Gary also just does live in a fascist, oppressive homophobic society, and he's also got a dad who he's implied to have a bad relationship with (like why mention Meemaw specifically being an issue and not Barko's father??), so why is this on Meemaw?? Why is she in it??? Like we literally don't know her. I get it prob wasn't your intention here but this framing kinda plays into a gross misogynist trope where men’s bigotry gets blamed on the women in their lives. Women don’t need to be drafted in as the scapegoat for why men behave terribly. Sorry to overthink something you prob intended as just a throwaway line but everything is that deep forever to me actually 💖
Secondly Barkovitch does canonically bear witness to Hank & Art's friendship throughout the movie. He sees Art nearly get killed trying hold his best friend and offer Hank some comfort in his final moments, and his response to that is to laugh at them & Hank's death. Barkovitch is not someone who's moved by the power of seeing emotionally intimate male friendships- his response to them is to lash out over his own lack of connection & community. I honestly have truly no idea where the take that seeing them would make him realize men can be vulnerable with one another is coming from. Canonically Barkovitch mocks the displays of vulnerability & friendship that he sees the boys around him display.
And lastly….Throughout this whole analysis you talk about Barkovitch being attracted to Collie, being upset about being attracted to Collie, wanting this intense friendship with Collie, being ashamed of wanting Collie, etc, etc, but there’s like…no consideration for Collie himself. At all. You don’t talk about Collie’s wants, Collie’s needs, Collie’s motivations, Collie’s boundaries. The only emotion you assign to Collie in this whole thing is anger at Barko reaching out. That’s it. That’s the whole characterization for him here. Just anger. Like sorry not sorry, but reducing an indigenous character to just his anger- which is what you're doing here, intentional or not- sucks ass. Bad Stuff. Collie is shy, deeply principled, and extremely sensitive/emotional, he has so much depth so it's pretty frustrating to keep seeing parkovitch analysis that only ever brings up him getting pissed off :/ Esp with the “two sharks circling each other” imagery…..I need to be really honest, that wording makes me uncomfortable given Collie is a native man. Intentionally or not, framing a native character as part of this aggressive, animalistic dynamic plays directly into racist stereotypes about native men being more violent, more angry, more predatory. That’s the baggage that kind of language carries, so maybe let's not compare Collie to predatory animals in any metaphors yeah?? Please?? Even if you didn’t mean it that way, that kind of language plays directly into racist stereotypes about native men being inherently aggressive or volatile. Intent doesn’t erase impact. Throwing the white boy in there too doesn't make the language here less racially charged. Plus frankly even putting aside the (presumably unintentionally) racially charged language, this simply isn't the kind of behavior Collie would engage in, this whole analysis is honestly just showing like…..0 consideration for who Collie is as a character and how he actually acts within the text of the film.
So all of that combined is why I’m honestly like…..pretty baffled that you sent this to me?? Especially since based on the timing of this ask you seem to have sent this in response to a post where I was literally talking about how racist it is to just center Barkovitch’s feelings and reduce Collie to a backdrop for Barko’s development???
Like I'm gonna be honest idk how you wanted/expected me to respond here cuz this entire thing you sent me is framed through Barkovitch’s emotions, Barkovitch’s struggles, Barkovitch’s imagined internal life while Collie is basically treated like a prop in Barko’s personal meltdown instead of a fully realized character with his own interiority :/
