Just because Chris called Billy dumb *beep* that doesn't make it OK for him to slap her like that. If a boyfriend slaps his girlfriend, he doesn't love her.
shareI don't know who's saying it was ok. I'm sure a couple of misogynist pricks will come on this thread eventually and argue that, but the film certainly didn't try to make him a sympathetic character at any point. He was a complete douchebag in general. Almost everyone in this movie, except for just a few characters, were total assh-les, just nasty, unlikable human beings.
Sig under construction
Of course. That was the whole point. She was bad, but he was worse. I doubt his kind even knew what love meant. Both of them were clearly not in touch with the subject of love, and were together only for sex and to have someone willing to be their boy/girl-friend since both were very unlikeable humans. That was the whole point.
shareI think Billy was gettin' tired of being called dumb sht.
shareIn the book, Billy is much more sinister and actually hits Chris quite hard. He's more psychotic, which explains why he would go along with such a prank in the first place.
This is a faithful saying...Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
He not only hits her. He rapes her. Billy was a despicable character.
shareExactly...he was a much more sinister and psychotic in the book.
This is a faithful saying...Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
Not psychotic. Hateful. Especially misogynistic. IMHO.
shareI think he was much more disturbed than that. Anyone who willingly kills an animal merely for a prank to embarrass two people he has little to no contact with, then has no qualms about letting his friends take the heat for it, while he hightails it out of town, is not right in the head.
This is a faithful saying...Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
That's because he was psychopath. That's not crazy in the form of psychotic, where there's a fault in your sensory perception of the world, and/or an inability to think coherently. That's conventionally what insane or crazy is.
A psychopath is morally insane.
Here's the important difference. The one won't hurt you unless they make a mistake, and they have a conscience about it. The other will deliberately hurt or kill you, and won't feel any guilt.
Whether you want to call that insanity or evil is just a matter semantics. Fact is if you take the conscience out of the picture, everything Billy did made sense.
I think we can both agree he was not right in the head, and was probably all of the above.
Either way, he got what he deserved.
This is a faithful saying...Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
They try to suggest some of this with the way he slaps Chris and the gleeful manner in which he kills the pig, but having John Travolta play him probably did not help convey "sinister."
shareIt was meant to be funny. The humor in that scene is lost today. That part did not age well. It's like watching the racism in The Little Rascals.
However, they really, really softened that relationship and softened Billy's character from the book. There what happens is date rape, punching and spitting.
As I remember, this movie came out about a year before spousal abuse was recognized as a national problem.
Billy obviously shouldn't have done this. But watch it again, despite repeated warnings not to call him those names Chris still does it. She likes getting him fired up, it turns her on. Look what she does to him just after he slaps her. She doesn't get out of the car, she gives him oral sex! This was foreplay to her.
She was messed up herself.
Watch it again? I've seen the film fifteen times, starting in the theaters. No exaggeration. It's one of my favorites, and was my favorite.
No, it wasn't foreplay to her. Newsflash: a BJ is very unlikely to satisfy females. (Though a BJ itself might a turn-on to some women, it's very rarely a fetish that can be substituted for a climax.)
She gives him oral sex simply because she wants something from him-- his help getting back at Carrie and at the school. She teased him with the off-and-on advances to keep him to get him really frustrated so his climax would come as an extreme relief.
(PS. This implies Chris doesn't give him oral sex every night.)
The joke was these are two very beautiful people who are completely banal and have no passion for one another. The name calling and slapping was like the Three Stooges. A slap in the face was funny then. The audience Carrie was aimed at grew up watching violent cartoons and The Three Stooges. They knew inserting sound effects would have gone too far.
Don't be confused by the fact that Lawrence C. Cohen, who wrote the script, grew up with all the cultural stereotypes about female villains and used them to depict Chris. Being banal and empty headed? Check. Using sex to wrap Billy around her little finger to get what she wants? Check. Taking delight in manipulating? Check . . .
Stephen King wrote those two characters much better, but it was too gritty and truthful for films then, and almost too gritty for YA novels. I'm surprised he got away with it, and I'm glad he did. Lawrence Cohen turned them into something non-threatening.
As I said, it's the part of the film that hasn't aged well.
Oh for sure, she gives him oral because she wants something from him. But even in another scene in the movie she continues to call him names. It is clear to me that she liked getting him going. Maybe she did it to intentionally spice things up, who knows. Either way, it isn't part of the plot.
shareI was referring to something else in the scene besides the name-calling. The fact that she keeps coming on to him and pushing him away. I thought that more like foreplay. The name-calling: I don't think it has any sexual dimension. I think she calls him names because she gets annoyed. Part of the joke: without the sexual attraction, they don't do anything but irritate each other.
shareMan, wasn't John Travolta a classy dude back then!! haha
shareChris needed way more than a slap across the snout, she needed a throat punch & a cowboy boot implanted up her culo! She was an insufferable twat!
share