# Your unpopular interpretations of creative works \[Spoilers\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 3, 2009, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194 "2009-08-03T18:34:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/41 "2009-08-04T20:05:33Z")
I think evaluating a work of art that was created after the notion that it’s what the reader gets out of it that matters is fine, but I think it’s foolhardy to do it with works from before that time. Anybody who thinks that Dickens, for example, didn’t have a clear idea in his head of what he wanted to communicate to his readers and didn’t expect them be able to “get it” based solely on what words he chose to include in his story is simply nuts. Now, I was an English teacher for long enough to know that the next objection is, “But I can’t understand Dickens without a bunch of footnotes and stuff because he makes a bunch of references I don’t understand.” Yeah, that’s because _you aren’t the reader Dickens was writing for_. ---
**Author:** ![UncleNito](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/7cd45c/32.png) [@UncleNito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleNito)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/42 "2009-08-04T20:07:38Z")
> [@pepperlandgirl](#): > > At any rate, I think **It’s A Wonderful Life** is one of the most bleak, depressing, horrid movies I’ve ever seen. And every time I watch it, I’m depressed. No man is poor who has friends? Really? What if the friends are the reason the man is poor? What if the friends are the reason the man has never had a dream that came true? Bedford Falls is not some idyllic small town that America has since lost to the Pottervilles. It’s a twisted little hell of a town, where everybody glosses over the darkness, the depression, the fear, the ugliness, and pretends it’s all going to be all right when it’s really not. All Potterville does is bring that darkness up front–it doesn’t create it. That shit is always there, but sometimes, it can be sublimated. When one man finally snaps, the whole town apparently senses that George Bailey has had all he could take of that shit, and they all pray to God to help him–but do they really want to help him? Or do they just want to trap him in the same hopeless web they find themselves? The next day it’s going to be the same shit all over again, except he’s temporarily forestalled going to jail. Until the next time his insane uncle Billy loses the deposit or some other equally stupid yet horrible thing happens. Then all of his kids will grow up, and maybe, maybe, if they’re very lucky, they’ll escape and see the world their father could only dream about. I am actually planning doing NaNoWriMo this year with It’s A Wonderful Life from Potter’s POV. My take on the film is not as dark as yours, but it never escaped my attention that all of George’s friends who amounted to anything did so by leaving town. It’s not at all obvious to me that George’s vision was any better in the long run for Bedford Falls than Potter’s was. The Onion’s Our Dumb Century had a great take on this. For my sake, I insist that Jenny in Forrest Gump did not die of AIDS – the timing was just off. She died in the early 80s (1983 IIRC), when AIDS really was still a disease of gay men. She was into heroin in the 1970s, but the story strongly suggests that she got clean for good after she stayed with Forrest in the mid-late 1970s. So she would have had to have contracted HIV no later than 1977 or so, and then managed not to pass it on to either Forrest (no biggie) or Forrest Jr. (at a time when nobody had even heard of HIV, let alone knew how to prevent mothers from transmitting it to their babies.) From my reading of And The Band Played On, it was just a couple years too early. But everyone I’ve talked to about this says I’m wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/43 "2009-08-04T20:09:29Z")
What do you think she did die of, **UncleNito**? ---
**Author:** ![UncleNito](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/7cd45c/32.png) [@UncleNito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleNito)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/44 "2009-08-04T20:17:38Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > What do you think she did die of, **UncleNito**? Some mysterious, unidentified illness. Spleen cancer? Who knows. I think the filmmakers tried to hint that it was AIDS, but it’s implausible and as long as they are coy about it, I won’t fill the gap for them. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/45 "2009-08-04T20:33:18Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > For years I’ve argued that _American Pie_ is not just about the death of Buddy Holly (and by extension, the death of rock and roll) but about the entire political scene in the 1960s. I thought this thread was for _unpopular_ interpretations. Here’s mine, sort of, except in reverse: I don’t have an interpretation of what St. Teresa of Avila was thinking. Did she really have visions or did she make it all up? Or was the whole thing invented by someone else? Was it intentional double entendre, porn as piety; or subconsciously erotic (which some people seem to think); or was it just another masochistic martyrdom fantasy of the same genre as the myth of St. Sebastian, & it just got reinterpreted by others? I can see how the thing survived, I can see why it became popularized in the academy after Freud, but I really don’t know what was going on in her head, if she existed at all. That author _is_ dead to me–or rather, I don’t have enough information, & may never. But many people see it coming from one place & assume that’s what it was, “obviously.” ---
**Author:** ![Ace309](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ace309/32/1050_2.png) [@Ace309](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ace309)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/46 "2009-08-04T21:03:21Z")
Napoleon Dynamite is an extended metaphor about teen sex and becoming comfortable enough with oneself and/or disillusioned enough to give up on the chastity claims that come with the cultures (the LDS church, Catholicism) showcased in the film. The personal journeys of the characters represent their sexual comings-of-age; Pedro gets elected President, while Summer ends up stuck with her Happy Hands because she never really grew up. Specifically, tetherball represents Napoleon’s sex life. He sits there playing a game, alone, that’s designed for two people, until, at the end, Deb, new hairdo and newfound self-confidence, comes over and joins him. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/47 "2009-08-04T21:11:03Z")
This was mentioned in another thread but I did not think the magic in Pan’s Labyrinth was real. I thought it was Ofelia’s response to the horrid conditions she was forced to live under. The director, however, felt very differently and said so in the commentary. He went as far as to point out things that happened in the movie that could not have happened without magic. As much as I’d like to go with the director’s assurances, I still can’t see it that way. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/48 "2009-08-04T21:11:53Z")
> [@pepperlandgirl](#): > > At any rate, I think **It’s A Wonderful Life** is one of the most bleak, depressing, horrid movies I’ve ever seen. And every time I watch it, I’m depressed. The movie is a punchline to librarians (his wife’s dark fate is that she became the town librarian). My biggest beef is that Jimmy is contemplating suicide for the life insurance so Clarence the Senile Angel decides to show him the world if he’d never been born… uh, okay… how about showing him the future if he commits suicide instead? It even makes more sense plotwise (the life insurance doesn’t pay out, he’s automatically assumed to be guilty because of the suicide thus all assets are seized and the family’s evicted, and even his friends turn against him deciding he was an embezzler. Mary learns the truth about Uncle Jimmy and Potter and kills them both and goes to prison, though a civil suit does help the kids, though Zuzu, turned off by capitalism, becomes a Communist agent. “Ends with a big explosion, sky full of smoke”. I’ve never understood why this is a classic. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/49 "2009-08-04T21:16:14Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > This was mentioned in another thread but I did not think the magic in Pan’s Labyrinth was real. I thought it was Ofelia’s response to the horrid conditions she was forced to live under. The director, however, felt very differently and said so in the commentary. He went as far as to point out things that happened in the movie that could not have happened without magic. > > As much as I’d like to go with the director’s assurances, I still can’t see it that way. Wow. I agree with you. I’ve never heard of a director so egregiously missing the point of his own film. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/50 "2009-08-04T21:17:05Z")
> [@UncleNito](#): > > For my sake, I insist that Jenny in Forrest Gump did not die of AIDS – the timing was just off. She died in the early 80s (1983 IIRC), when AIDS really was still a disease of gay men. She was into heroin in the 1970s, but the story strongly suggests that she got clean for good after she stayed with Forrest in the mid-late 1970s. So she would have had to have contracted HIV no later than 1977 or so, and then managed not to pass it on to either Forrest (no biggie) or Forrest Jr. (at a time when nobody had even heard of HIV, let alone knew how to prevent mothers from transmitting it to their babies.) From my reading of And The Band Played On, it was just a couple years too early. But everyone I’ve talked to about this says I’m wrong. # Not that it matters for the movie, but in the book she doesn’t die at all. **My Fair Lady** and or **Pygmalion** - it was always my take that Pickering and Higgins were, if not gay lovers, then at very least gay. Higgins’ mother’s delight at learning her son is actually there with a woman (even after learning it’s “a common flower girl”) also points to this. He’s “accustomed to her face” but he’s not really in love with her. (For those not familiar, Shaw got irked by answering fans’ questions about whether Higgins and Eliza ever hooked up by writing an [afterword](http://www.bartleby.com/138/6.html) [not a sequel, more like a treatment] that pissed off everybody and pretty much says this without actually saying this.) The play _Streetcar Named Desire_ ends a tad differently than the movie, which implies Stella leaves Stanley after his rape of Blanche (which she doesn’t know about but suspects something isn’t kosher) and Blanche’s commitment. I see her as staying with him for years as an abused wife and mother of abused/abusive kids. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/51 "2009-08-04T21:17:35Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > Wow. I agree with you. I’ve never heard of a director so egregiously missing the point of his own film. _Donnie Darko_. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/52 "2009-08-04T21:41:59Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > _Fight Club_ is a parable about the rise of Fascism in early-20th Century Europe. Could you elaborate on this? Obviously there are correlations with project mayhem - but a significant fraction of the story is about how modern society tames men into becoming passive cogs in societal machine and while most accept this on some level, their true nature is just bubbling under the surface ready to get out. How does the latter apply to early 20th century Europe specifically? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/53 "2009-08-04T22:08:18Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > The Wizard appointed the Straw Man as his successor before he left, and the Munchkins seemed to accept that by acclamation. Puh-leeze. She’ll just enclose him in a Floating Pink Bubble of Hell or something and that will be _that_. I mean, you see how they freaked out when the WWOTW merely did some skywriting… there’s no way they’re going to stand up against a few Fireball +10 spells cast into a crowd or three. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/54 "2009-08-04T22:13:37Z")
That would be an AWESOME movie. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/55 "2009-08-04T22:19:28Z")
> [@FrobozzWiz](#): > > There are a number of posts over there where the “obvious” thing that the poster has realised is almost universally disagreed with. It started with Cliffy’s post about Kris _not_ being Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street (if you ignore Tim R. Mortiss’ possible whoosh about Brown Eyed Girl and anal sex) and now\*\* Lamia stands apparently alone holding the opinion that the cowardly lion is gay.\*\* (Emphasis mine.) That’s not my interpretation of the thread. :dubious: Seriously though, several people in the other thread agreed with me, only one really disagreed, and a quick Google confirms that there are plenty of other people out there who think the Cowardly Lion came across as gay. I’ve “stood alone” on things on these boards before, but this isn’t one of 'em. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/56 "2009-08-04T22:19:54Z")
Missed the Edit Window: The **Sampiro** version of _It’s a Wonderful Life_ would be an AWESOME movie. ---
**Author:** ![BluePitbull](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@BluePitbull](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BluePitbull)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/57 "2009-08-04T22:45:36Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > This was mentioned in another thread but I did not think the magic in Pan’s Labyrinth was real. I thought it was Ofelia’s response to the horrid conditions she was forced to live under. The director, however, felt very differently and said so in the commentary. He went as far as to point out things that happened in the movie that could not have happened without magic. > > As much as I’d like to go with the director’s assurances, I still can’t see it that way. So what made you think the magic was unreal? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/58 "2009-08-04T22:58:53Z")
Fuck all this crap about Superman being a Jesus figure. He’s clearly a _ **MOSES** _ figure. Lousy co-opting Christians claiming pop culture as their own… Anyway, Deckard was human, no question. ---
**Author:** ![Clare\_de\_Loone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/clare_de_loone/32/3407_2.png) [@Clare\_de\_Loone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clare_de_Loone)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/59 "2009-08-04T23:52:14Z")
The Macarena is merely a speeded-up William Tell Overture theme. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194/60 "2009-08-05T00:24:43Z")
> [@BluePitbull](#): > > So what made you think the magic was unreal? It was real to her but it was not real to anyone else in the movie. Nothing magical ever happened to anyone else but her. It was her own private escape. A place where she had some control over her fate. This seemed obvious to me but not to a lot of folks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-unpopular-interpretations-of-creative-works-spoilers/505194.md?page=4)