Platonic Love?: The Homoerotic Nature of Plato in Rebel Without a Cause

"In the cinema of adolescence, one of the crucial determinants is not simply what we see but what we choose not to see. Evans describes a screen-ager that did indeed exist and in some ways still survives. But the suggestion remains implicit in his description that this is the ultimate, overriding, and dominant image. It is an observation that, among other things, totally ignores the presence of the female adolescent in motion pictures, and one which indicates the necessity for a thorough and exhaustive analysis of the depiction of adolescence in cinema." (Cinema of Adolescence, 10)

Rebel Without a Cause features Sal Mineo in the supporting role of the timid, lost, and ultimately doomed Plato. It has been a well-established point that Mineo's characterization can easily be read as homosexual. However, I would challenge that the understanding of the depth of the homoerotic element has been underscored, and in fact there are multiple layers of specifically homosexual male relationship philosophies from multiple periods written into the character.



The film's trailer opens with a title card announcing the film's intention to address one of the most controversial of the day, juvenile delinquency, in a script based on facts taken from surveys of the youth generation of 1950's America. As "Cinema of Adolescence" describes above, the understanding of this portrayal is projected as a wholly patriarchal proving ground. Female characters are relegated to sideline positions, and real men are forced to prove virility in a death match. This contest is explicitly sexual, and as such, a Freudian reading informs its portrayal in Rebel. Freud explains in History of an Infantile Neurosis that typical male leather fetish, as openly displayed by all of Jim Stark's greaser antagonists, is usually a resulting by-product of the castration complex. When a young boy sees his mother's genitalia for the first time, he encounters the gender difference of male and female bodies, and realizes the phallus can be removed. This in turn generates an inherent fear in the child that he himself could be castrated. The youth looks down in fear and sees his shoes. This early memory has such an impact that it becomes intrinsically linked into the boy to man's sexual drive. Leather itself becomes a symbol of having more virility. The toughest looking gang members have the most refined leather interiors in their cars and the most gaudy leather jacket, with a female attached to each. The inherent link between leather and sexual prowess continues.

This all is important because Plato is blatantly not included in these activities, relegated to the sidelines or into the role of victim, a role similar to the female members of the group. He is not one of the guys. Furthermore, his fawning looks and soliloquy of imaginary fishing trips and tutelage identify Jim as a sort of mentor figure. At this point, consider the implications of naming the character Plato. The philosopher's understanding of male love was that of a semi-sexual mentor relationship. where the much more beautiful youth would learn from the wiser elder in exchange for company and pleasure. His homoerotic vision of sharing knowledge, including carnal knowledge, in a nearly super-natural bond was held in higher esteem than the much more "common" heterosexual ones. Hence Plato's outrage at Jim's abandonment by consummating his relationship with Judy (Natalie Wood). His vision of the idyllic situation ordained by a heavenly power is destroyed when he realizes Jim is not gay.

Plato's homosexuality can be further analysed in light of the absence of his father. Pop psychology of course said at the time homosexuality was due to a lack of paternal presence in the life of the young boy. As such, while it is a typical heterosexist view, it is a viable subtext to mention. According to this view, the lack of a male presence and over-caring by a surrogate mother figure such as the maid, whose hired role is protector rather than nurturing paternal presence, prevents the boy from developing masculinity and understanding of sex roles. This ineffectual father syndrome can be attributed to what would be termed, in the modern context, post-traumatic stress. Russo quotes screenwriter Stewart Stern and how he "drew on his own military experience to create parallels between gang behavior and the all-male dynamic that was present in wartime...The choice of a buddy was as or more critical than that of a bride. You'd be living in a kind of physical intimacy which was unlike any other. The classic David Duncan photos of buddies consoling each other, those who had lost their buddies, was very expressive of this. And what greater love song in those days than "My Buddy"? Men were having the experience of never having been so close to other men, and there was something of that love operating within the structure of the teenage gang whose members had left home, where there wasn't much love, to fight each other in the streets." (Russo 109) The effeminate elder Stark prancing around the halls is coded hidden sissyhood which unmasks itself in the dark reaches of the night, and Jim revulsion at his father cleaning a spill on the rug can be read not at the anger of having become a domesticated manservant to his mother but because he is perhaps terrified of the mirroring of homoerotic motifs Plato and Mr. Stark share. Is there coincidence that Plato meets Mr. Stark when he ventures to Jim's house at night? There is a mirroring emotion present in the sequence. Furthermore, is it that far fetched that the elder Stark is himself gay, perhaps a mourning war veteran, and Jim's emotional crisis involves his realization of lacking a "traditional" male heterosexual role model, as accorded by the film's pop psychology? His father suggests dishonorably eschewing responsibility and hiding his guilt in the chicken race, an "un-manly" thing to do. Jim cannot find masculine guidance from the sissified Dad. The nuclear family which should nurture him rather rejects him, and as a result he experiences an identity crisis, which can only be salvaged by a return to the heterosexual norm with Mr. Stark picking Jim off the ground while Judy takes her post as a doting and supportive bride-to-be figure, silent and relegated to the background with Mrs. Stark. It is within this order that the radical element, gay Plato, cannot exist, and as such he is eliminated before the formation of the final order. He cannot be relieved of his delinquency, and so is unable to exist in society.

This film, on a surface level, is admittedly pretty outdated, and it is only because of James Dean's macho image combined with untimely death that he became the first great pop image of the second half of the century, epitomized by the poster for this film (which ironically misrepresented the film itself, as Dean never wears a leather jacket and is significantly less tough than the image portrays him). Would this film still be what it is if Dean had survived? Regardless of speculation, the reality of the homoerotic mentality in this film does offer room for alternative reading which go much deeper than those for other teen films.