Watanabe obviously had a very serious crush on Zamperini. A very sexual and masochistic pleasure in causing him pain. Notice how upset Watanabe is when he is no longer able to play with Zamp.
shareIt's cause that actor looks like Angelina Jolie's old girlfriend. Jolie is supposed to be Zamerini and Watanabe the old girlfriend.
share[deleted]
You use the term "phallocentric." But since when is "phallocentric" synonymous with "homosexual"? Many, if not most, men in general are phallocentric, including those whom some academics currently label "hetero-normative" (what a clunky word).
What you call the "underlying homoerotic predisposition of many Japanese men" likely applies to men of every other culture as well -- that is if an "underlying homoerotic predisposition" means hiding it, criminalizing it, stigmatizing it, and imprisoning or even killing those who outwardly practice it. Only in the last couple of decades has this situation changed, at least in Japan and in most Western countries that Japan now emulates.
Also, since when is subjugation of females a gay thing? Most Muslim cultures (as well as the tenets of the Old and New Testaments) subjugate women, and they also condemn homosexual men -- to death and sometimes at public-square hangings!
The movie is about the barbaric treatment of war prisoners by barbaric people. How unfair that the nastiest, most barbaric, and least redeemable character of all gets labeled "gay." And I find this to be the most unerotic film I've watched in quite a while.
[deleted]
But "pederasty," "child play," "goat fornication," and whatever other victimizing vices these religious kooks engage in, are not really about homosexuality -- especially homoeroticism -- any more than prison rape is about homosexuality or honor rape killings of women are about heterosexuality. These are psychotic rituals of power that are intrinsic to female subjugation, with boys and men also serving as female substitutes.
The reason we can use terms like "homophobic" today to describe "intolerance" and "bigotry" is because Western cultures, as well as Japanese culture, are tolerating and/or accepting homosexuality as behavior between consenting adults, regardless of "Leviticus" or any other religious edicts that anti-gay zealots bend and twist to make their arguments.
In several Muslim countries, men who rape young boys (or girls) get married, have children, and become potentates, while grown men who have sex with other grown men are likely to get strung up or thrown from a tall building before being pelted with rocks.
Therefore, I suspect that the Muslim men who practice "bachi bazi" would be horrified and enraged to be called "gay" or "homoerotic" or to witness lovemaking or romance between two grown men. These imams (like some Catholic priests) are not gay, and that is precisely their problem. They instead inhabit a sexual twilight zone that allows exploitation, rape, and murder.
[deleted]
I think the film was too shallow to pursue such a complicated angle. You might get better results by watching Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.
sharewhen he said friends it did cross my mind
startlepoint
But "pederasty," "child play," "goat fornication," and whatever other victimizing vices these religious kooks engage in, are not really about homosexuality -- especially homoeroticism -- any more than prison rape is about homosexuality or honor rape killings of women are about heterosexuality. These are psychotic rituals of power that are intrinsic to female subjugation, with boys and men also serving as female substitutes.
The reason we can use terms like "homophobic" today to describe "intolerance" and "bigotry" is because Western cultures, as well as Japanese culture, are tolerating and/or accepting homosexuality as behavior between consenting adults, regardless of "Leviticus" or any other religious edicts that anti-gay zealots bend and twist to make their arguments.