Rebel Without a Cause (t)

3 stars
Vomit scenes: 0
Good for women: eh
Good for black people: not particularly

So I bet this is the type of movie that will mean radically different things depending on how old you are when you see it (ala Catcher in the Rye). Seeing it at my advanced age, all I could think about was how incompetent parenting thrust these kids into situations they were in no way capable of handling. For example, Jim can't tell the difference between a "chickee race" and owning up to his role in another boy's death in terms of being an honorable man, and his parents are in no position to help him know, though he desperately asks them for answers. Along these lines, the "playing house" sequences are my absolute favorite, as I think the three actors involved did a great job simultaneously emphasizing how childlike their characters were, and how adult they had to be, lacking any helpful models of man/womanhood.

I also really responded to this movie because it really tries to imagine a masculinity that is both efficacious and receptive/vulnerable. Dean's body language is obviously the best literalization of this. However, I wasn't totally happy with how this struggle ended up in terms of Jim's father. So he's clearly feminized throughout, with the apron and all, and at the end agrees to "stand up" and be strong for his son. All good. But the first manifestation of this "strength" is telling his harpy wife to shut up. And she likes it. Troubling. I think the best version of manhood is probably the police officer who offers to help Jim, but he's barely in it. I was also a little disturbed by Plato's "Mammy," but hey, it's a movie of its time.