MovieChat Forums > Brewster McCloud Discussion > sexual revolution backlash? *spoilers*

sexual revolution backlash? spoilers

posted 12 years ago by vertigothic70
1 reply | jump to latest

Don't get me wrong, I love this movie.

There is one aspect I don't feel comfortable with though, and that's the portrayal of the female characters Suzanne (Shelley Duvall) and Hope (Jennifer Salt). Furthermore, I have some trouble with the underlying 'moral' of the fable regarding sex here.

Brewster's 'guardian angel' Louise (Sally Kellerman) reminds him, in the bathtub scene, that having sex would be disastrous for him, strongly implying that it would rob of him of the strength to fly. That she is right is borne out by the fact that he crashes in the end - possibly one contributing factor seemed to be physical exhaustion due to his love-making with Suzanne before. More crucial than that however is Louise's warning that sex keeps people earthbound because it acts as a surrogate - once they've had sex, people 'settle' for it (as the next best thing?) and no longer dream of being able to fly. It appears that once Brewster has lost his virginity, he has lost his ability to truly dream, and hence to fly, without even being aware of it.

Not only does it seem that he would have had to remain chaste, but should have abstained from emotional attachment to anyone but Louise (who was a somewhat 'unearthly' presence). As soon as she learnt that Brewster had 'lapsed', she left; either because she wasn't inclined to help him anymore, or because he was 'beyond help' then. [In an aside, I wonder why her wings were clipped?]

Brewster's ultimately fatal mistake was made only more glaringly obvious because it was also an error in judgment:
Although Suzanne appeared as a sympathetic character before, once he opened up to her, she first turned out to be greedy for wealth and fame, with a singular lack of sensitivity; then she turned him in. And suddenly became a pigtailed doll who fell over herself to seduce the dull wannabe politician/secretary Bernard.
Previously impervious to the weird masturbatory behaviour (which makes me cringe rather than laugh) of his food supplier Hope, he finally found someone he wanted to take with him - call that a flight of fancy. Or you might say, he really fell for her... In any case, his dream could only be achieved alone, that is, at the exclusion of other human beings who are all of them too flawed. And it seemed as if he was punished for a betrayal: he wasn't worthy - too human after all.

It's not as if I'm not aware that everyone in this movie was ridiculed and paraded in all their greed, ambition, spinelessness and folly. If anything, this isn't a misogynistic, but a misanthropic tale. And it could of course be argued that virginity simply stands for innocence and the childlike ability to dream. But the necessity of solitude, emotional isolation, and especially the emphasis on sexual abstinence, in a film from 1970, is remarkable.

Any thoughts?

[–] urgeking 10 years ago

Can't believe no one has responded to this post in the nearly two years it's been up.

Well, personally, I laughed more than cringed at Hope's "behaviour" under the blanket (and she might not actually be doing anything to herself 'manually' beyond just squirming around). Not sure why that should make you, or anyone, cringe; I mean, hey, whatever turns you (her) on, y'know? If watching Brewster doing pull-ups can get her off, what's wrong with that? But anyway.

Even as a teenager back in the mid-'70s (when this movie was shown in the afternoon on one of New York City's independent broadcast TV stations-- including the scenes with Hope in ecstasy!), I assumed Louise was being presented as a maternal figure... at least figuratively.

She's washing him in a bathtub. "I'll always be here to help you, Brewster. I'll be with you until you can fly away. Rock-a-bye, baby, on the treetop..."

And later she seems like the classic Oedipal archetype (stereotype?) of the pathologically overprotective mother, afraid to let her boy grow up and away from her grasp: "I ask you not to see her again... You only have one friend, Brewster: Me. I'm the only one who cares about you... I'm the only one who has never lied to you... She'll be the death of you."

The turn in Suzanne's character, toward self-aggrandizing pragmatism and betrayal, did seem rather sudden and artificial, as if it were merely a way to move the plot along. (Someone right now is saying, "There's a plot?!") It could also be a sign of misogyny in whoever wrote that scene, like what one guy might say to another sitting in a bar: "Women! Never trust 'em, pal; they're just out to get whatever they can from you." Such attitudes were common in the male mindset back then (and now?), even among writers who considered themselves nonconformist.

Then again, one of the recurring themes of the film is people's real selves showing through the self-image they're trying to present to the world and to themselves. I suspect that what Suzanne says about Bernard during her first date with Brewster might be a clue to more fully understanding her motivations and values. Maybe.

Is the ideal of "solitude" really so out of place in a 1970 film? At that time lots of people, especially younger ones, were experimenting with a wide range of ideas/gurus/concepts in a search for spiritual meaning. In any case, the film might be suggesting that Louise's prescription for Brewster's life (and, by implication, our lives) was not 'the way'. He couldn't fly for more than a few minutes with his wings, because as a human he doesn't have a bird's light weight and very high metabolism-- so perhaps we're being told that any attempt at absolutely pure "flight", in whatever sense, will be doomed by our human imperfections.