Listening to Rob Lowe's podcast episode with Francis Ford Coppola, as you do, and they're talking about why Sodapop was basically completely cut out of the original theatrical release of The Outsiders, and I CANNOT BELIEVE what I am hearing, these are VERBATIM quotes from Coppola himself:
"In a lot of the scenes that Sodapop was in, he's in bed with his brother and there was a sort of homoerotic aspect to it [...] I was frightened at one point that that was going to come across and hurt the picture, so I took it out."
(About the kids in his granddaughter's class when he visited) "They said, 'Well, where's the scene where Sodapop talks about being in love with his brother?'"
Mr. Coppola, that cannot be an accurate recall of what those little kids asked you! However it does give an absolutely accurate picture of what you yourself were thinking, and what you remember now about this film and character! (I do wonder if he misspoke and meant Ponyboy talks about being in love with his brother, and whether he meant one-sided or mutually in love--but really, either way.)
The whole thing is really just incredible, you gotta listen for yourself (clip starts at a seemingly completely off-topic anecdote that turns out to be quite implicative):
To sum up:
We have a full admission from FFC that Soda was cut from the theatrical release because he and his brother were too gay for each other
Not only gay for each other but also just plain gay. Like, why would you bring up Midnight Cowboy? Why is that your point of reference?? and then ABRAHAM LINCOLN wtf. He looked at Soda and thought "gay"
FFC ships Ponypop? Kinda? Not enough to put it up on the silver screen for the world to see, maybe, but enough that he considers the superior, truer version of the film to be the one that features material between the brothers that he believes is homoerotically charged and indicative of being in love. At the least, even if he's a little uncomfy about it, he sees it and can't deny it
The way he rambles also just sounds like he's trying to talk around what he really means or minimize what he's saying, but he still says it. Sorta wish he'd given Rob more chance to chime in, I am so curious what on earth was going through his mind as he sat there listening to this. Also very curious how much this conversation is edited and if anything more on this topic was left on the cutting room floor. But what we have is already so, so much.
