Withnail & I & Compulsory Heterosexuality
Welcome back everyone! Before we get into the #content this week, I just wanted to make sure none of you missed my awesome new logo! This was made by my incredibly talented friend Lewis Franco, and I cannot thank him enough for it. You should check his art out — and maybe shoot him a commission if you like his work at much as I do! Thanks again, Lewis!
I recently joined a kinda movie club with my friend (and friend of the newsletter) Len. We’ve been watching some older cult classics I’ve never seen before, and most have required me to readjust the way I approach them just a bit in order to get what they’re going for. One film in particular stymied me for the majority of its run time.
Withnail & I is a 1987 British film, ostensibly about two unemployed actors and roommates* in the 1960s who attempt to escape the stress of their pitiful existences by fleeing to a country cottage, one they’re woefully unprepared to survive in. In practice, this is just one plot thread of many, and the film plays out more like a series of vignettes starring these two characters. These vignettes pack in some legitimate laughs, but it’s a specifically British type of humor they contain; subtle and understated, with the jokes easy to miss if you aren’t paying close attention (the accents can also be an issue for Americans; I got a lot more out of the movie once I turned the subtitles on).
*Richard E. Grant plays Withnail, while future-Doctor Paul McGann is “& I,” a character referred to as “Marwood” in the screenplay but who receives no name on-screen — I think I’m just gonna keep calling him McGann
As interesting as these individual vignettes can be, though, they don’t really cohere together into an actual narrative until the film is almost over. I’d spent the entire movie wondering why these two were even friends when Withnail was such a complete and utter dick. In the final scenes, though, McGann’s character lands a part in a play that will take him away from London. Withnail, who’d been vocally opposed to McGann’s attempts to get the part throughout the movie, suddenly does everything in his power to get McGann home in time but ends up nearly getting them killed and arrested in the process; he’s last seen delivering a devastatingly powerful and sad monologue in a park to exactly no one but himself as the film fades to black. Withnail & I had, all along, been about the dissolution of this friendship, about how Withnail had talent and even a capacity for compassion but was so stubborn and difficult that he had doomed himself to be alone and unknown. I admire the narrative structure in play here, even if it made much of the film frustrating to me on first viewing before everything clicked into place.
Another element of the film that stymied me, though, seems less intentional, more due to the passage of time and a changing culture: I spent most of Withnail & I assuming both lead characters were gay.
Doing some poking around online, it seems I’m far from alone in that assumption, and you know what? I stand by it. They’re two high-strung, melodramatic stage actors living together in a tiny flat. Both wear fancy scarves around town. In the film’s second scene, McGann’s character is nearly gay-bashed by a macho bar-goer. Withnail is close with his eccentric gay uncle Monty, a man otherwise seemingly shunned by the family. Neither man has a girlfriend and neither shows any sort of sexual or romantic attraction to a woman at any point in the film. In fact, there are only two women in Withnail & I at all, a waitress and a neighbor of the country cottage, neither of whom have names or more than two or three lines. Admittedly, the late eighties wouldn’t be the most likely time period for a film starring gay characters, but it’s at least within the realm of possibility, and if any film would have attempted it, it would be a low-budget, independent, British one like Withnail & I. Can you really blame me for jumping to conclusions?
I was beginning to suspect I was wrong about halfway through the film when they finally reached their first night at the cottage and slept in separate bedrooms, but it wasn’t confirmed until Uncle Monty showed up at the cabin, infatuated with and actively pursuing a terrified, disgusted* McGann. The lead’s heterosexuality wasn’t confirmed by attraction to women, but by disgust with men, but I don’t think that was meant to be the purpose of the scene. It wasn’t designed to establish or reveal that McGann’s character was straight; viewers were expected to know that all along, because for so many people heterosexuality is the default and doesn’t need to be established or confirmed to be understood.
*It’s easy, and fairly justified, to dismiss this entire plot with McGann and Uncle Monty as homophobic — Monty, the film’s only explicitly gay character, is portrayed as predatory, and McGann spends every moment he shares with Monty utterly disgusted by him and terrified to just tell him “no,” making assumptions that he would be predatory long before it actually happens apparently just because Monty’s gay. I do think there’s just a bit more to it, though. This plot thread between the two men leads to an incredibly tense and uncomfortable confrontation that’s essentially an attempted rape on Monty’s part, and while there’s a few “laughs” in it played for dark humor, it’s mostly taken deadly seriously. This scene appears to be based on some experiences writer/director Bruce Robinson had with various producers and authority figures throughout his career, so it’s one I want to take seriously — it’s not homophobic or wrong for either him or McGann’s character to object to repeated unwanted advances, sexual coercion, or attempted rape at the hands of anyone. Moreover, Monty is treated with a bit of dignity at the end, with the writing showing a keen understanding of the kind of loneliness someone like Monty would’ve experienced in the 60s and how that could lead him to this point (but then we’re veering awful close to rape apologetics, so out of one fire and into another). It’s still a sequence that keeps me from being able to really recommend this film in good conscience, but it’s one that’s more complicated than it may initially appear as well.
The idea that heterosexuality is not only assumed to be the default by much of society, but that this assumption goes on to perpetuate itself in a kind of retrogressive ouroboros, is known as “compulsory heterosexuality.” In many situations this assumption isn’t deliberately malicious, but that doesn’t stop it from being harmful. When heterosexuality is assumed to be the default even when people or characters aren’t up-front about their sexuality or are even showing signs of not being straight, it prevents many queer people from seeing the signs that they themselves aren’t straight — in fact, many queer adults say that they didn’t even know not being straight was an option growing up — creating a dynamic that can continue to negatively impact their lives, self-esteem, and relationships if left unaddressed. Compulsory heterosexuality also contributes to an atmosphere of continual coming out, an endless stream of awkward, exhausting encounters where queer people have to decide between outing themselves or lying by omission; and just for the record, the ideal scenario isn’t an automatic assumption of queerness instead, or any sort of required admission of sexuality, but instead a society where no assumptions are made about sexuality at all. Even full-on cisgender heterosexual people suffer under compulsory heterosexuality, since it goes hand-in-hand with the kind of strict gender roles that can be stifling to anyone of any persuasion.
Interestingly, this idea of compulsory heterosexuality can, rarely, be beneficial to some queer people who aren’t ready to or can’t safely come out of the closet, because there’s an entire subset of cishet folk who see anyone who isn’t stereotypically flaming as straight simply by default, no matter how many subtle clues they may be unintentionally putting out. In almost every other situation, though, it causes harm, and often in ways that are just as strange and surprising. Since media and storytelling is the forte of this newsletter, let’s focus on that; compulsory heterosexuality is definitely a frustrating element in the world of “fandom” (doesn’t matter the series, all fans are the same), where straight fans often get upset at queer ones for noticing hints that certain characters might not be straight, feeling as if queer fans are trying to take “their” characters. Ultimately, in works of fiction, it creates the expectation that all queer characters must be explicitly shown or stated to be so or else they don’t “count” or are viewed as straight-by-default by the majority of viewers, which is troubling for a number of reasons, but most specifically for the fact that until recently many characters, especially in animation, couldn’t be explicitly shown to be queer (Korra and Asami in Legend of Korra spring immediately to mind), creating a true Catch-22 for anyone wanting to put queer characters in their stories and have them be treated with the same kind of dignity as the straight ones.
I certainly don’t think that Withnail & I is some sort of propaganda piece. I don’t think the movie gave the way it portrayed the sexuality of its leads much thought either way, for better or for worse. In so many ways it’s a product of its time; in the 80s of course almost anyone would automatically assume a character is straight unless explicitly told otherwise. Even then there were no doubt viewers who saw hints of gayness in Withnail and McGann’s behavior, but they were likely in the minority. Thirty years later, though, things have changed. Homosexuality is better understood and more visible than ever, with I think all but the most stubborn or isolated of individuals understanding that stereotypes are just stereotypes and that anyone could be gay.
Automatic assumptions of heterosexuality are no longer enough, and thus the fact that so much of Withnail & I relies on that assumption hurts the movie, even if just in a small way. Both leads are rather strongly — if unintentionally — gay coded (and yes, a scarf or some melodramatic acting alone does not a homosexual make, but all those elements together in the same characters makes a strong case), but their heterosexuality is later an important plot point, yet Robinson lacks any awareness of this, neither easing back on the coding nor making their heterosexuality clear earlier. Thus he creates a contradictory tone that can muddle what the film’s actually trying to say, and it doesn't need that extra veil of fog when there’s already so much more going on.
Of course, the question of how it could have been handled differently is a complex one in its own right. Tossing a disposable love interest or some scantily-clad woman to be leered at into a film for no other reason than to prove or reinforce a male character’s heterosexuality is just as problematic, a trope that’s seen more than enough use to become frustrating and completely laughable (it’s especially overused in action and superhero films; Elle Macpherson’s character in Batman and Robin has no purpose other than to reassure audiences that Batman is straight no matter what Joel Schumacher may be insinuating otherwise, and the conspiracy theory that Sharon Carter’s existence in the latter Captain America movies is only to discourage fans from “shipping” Cap and Bucky isn’t without merit). Personally, I’d probably just bite the bullet and actually make both leads gay, a tweak that would change very little about the movie while also making it far more coherent (the scene where McGann’s character is almost gay-bashed would make a lot more sense, and the McGann/Monty stuff could go almost unchanged — just say McGann isn’t into him that way), but given the semi-autobiographal nature of the movie, it’s a change I don’t think would’ve flown with Robinson.
It’s all a moot point anyway — unless one of you has a time machine somewhere — but I actually think that even if I could try to tweak the film to handle this differently, I wouldn’t. I enjoy having this aspect of Withnail & I as a thought exercise, a living reminder of how differently both creators and viewers looked at sexuality only a few scant decades ago, of how much has changed, yet also how little.
Plus, I just think “I spent most of this movie thinking the leads were gay when they weren’t” is a hilarious story, and I wouldn’t trade that for the world.
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Thankfully, our little movie club has viewed a number of films I can recommend whole-heartedly. Two years after Withnail & I, Bruce Robinson and Richard E. Grant reunited for How To Get Ahead in Advertising, a wonderfully bizarre story about a stressed ad executive who ends up growing an extra head (“how to get a head in advertising”). Despite that premise it only gets weirder; it’s a bleak, gross, darkly humorous satire that surprised me on multiple occasions.
Our oldest film has been The Thin Man, a 1934 comedy-mystery that was absolutely delightful. The mystery itself is perfectly okay, but the real draw is the relationship between detective Nick Charles and his wife Nora, one that went on to inspire pretty much every male/female detective/crimefighting team to ever appear in fiction, from the stars of Moonlighting to DC Comics’ Ralph and Sue Dibny. There’s a real chemistry between Nick and Nora that’s surprising for the era (as I said to the rest of the club: “The movie may show them sleeping in separate beds, but I don’t for a second believe they sleep in separate beds”), and a joy to watch even now.
My favorite movie we’ve watched, though, is probably 1984’s Repo Man. It starts as a black comedy/satire about a disillusioned punk (Emilio Estevez) who becomes a repo man, but quickly veers into bizarre sci-fi as the job leads the repo men into a plot involving government agents, conspiracy theories, and extraterrestrial powers. Aside from a few mildly “problematic” moments (on par with just about any other movie made in the 80s), it’s just weird in the best way possible from beginning to end.
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“Do You Know What I Love the Most?” is a newsletter from Spencer Irwin about his relationship with the stories he loves. Spencer is an enthusiast and writer from Newark, Delaware, who likes punk rock, comic books, working out, breakfast, and most of all, stories. His previous work appeared on Retcon Punch, One Week One Band, and Crisis on Infinite Chords, and he can be found on Twitter at @ThatSpenceGuy. If you like this newsletter, please subscribe and share with your friends!
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I just watched the movie for the first time and was troubled by the whole gay equals predator narrative. For a movie so highly praised online, it was a surprising development that made me wonder how other people who view it for the first time in this day and age process it. That’s how I found your article.
I know people watch movies with varying degrees of observance, but I am surprised you didn’t notice the bathroom wall plastered with pictures of half naked women, perfectly positioned to serve as wank foil while in the tub. That was probably enough of a clue to reassure audiences that their heteronormative assumptions were not being challenged by the two protagonists.