TOTW 07/07: Was Mr. Twist homophobic?

[shortfiction]

    I wouldn't say homophobic, but he definitely saw Jack as not having lived up to whatever expectations the old man might have had.  For whatever reasons, he never went to see Jack rodeo or give him advice--as we heard from Jack himself.  There was no pleasing the old man, as he also said.   He also made it clear that Jack should not have thought of himself as so special that he could choose his own place of scattering for his ashes; they were going into the family plot and that was that.   Stubborn old man.

And may I say that Peter McRobbie (?) did a great job of playing him.

[injest]

ok...I already posted my opinion somewhere else but I won't let that stop me from writing it again...

I LIKE old man Twist. I feel for him.

ESPECIALLY knowing the short story background.

and no I don't think he was homophobic..

[serious crayons]

Peter McRobbie was fantastic. I especially love his expression when he starts in on his monologue: "Jack used to say, 'Ennis Del Mar ...'" and the light shines through his right eye and he looks kind of crazed.

But you know who else might have been good in that role? I was just thinking of this last night. Chris Cooper.

[Penthesilea]

I LIKE old man Twist. I feel for him.

ESPECIALLY knowing the short story background.

I can understand that you feel for him (although my own sympathy for him is very limited). He was a bitter, old man with no prospects for the place he had worked hard to keep it for all his life. Going nowhere but downhill. Additionally he lost his child. No matter how much of a jerk he was, nor whether he loved Jack on any level, this is still hard. It's the next generation that is extinguished.

But you like him? Especially knowing the story background?
Hunh?
Would you like to explain?

[Scott6373]

When did the word "homophobic" become a widely used term?  Say that word today and 99% of people will know what it means.  Say it in the 50's, 60's and even early 70's, and no one would know what it meant, if the word even existed.  That being said, this questions begs asking:  Can someone be a "phobic" anything, if that state did not exist in their lifetime.  Can we, in hindsight, armed with modern knowledge, cast anyone from earlier time in human existence, in a certain light.  Is that fair of us, to judge them based on knowledge that was not available during their time?

[serious crayons]

But aren't we just using a modern term to ask the question, "Did Mr. Twist dislike homosexual people?" Because certainly THAT state existed in his lifetime. I think that's the underlying issue, however we choose to word it (and I changed "gay" to "homosexual" to avoid any confusion that way).

Or, if you prefer, considering the fact that disliking homosexual people was probably the norm in that time and place, one could ask "Did Mr. Twist seem to accept (or at least tolerate) Jack's and Ennis' sexual orientation?"

To which I would say the answer is, yes.

[Scott6373]

Having had a father much like the stud duck, I realised, as he lay in his casket, that he did the best he could with the knowledge and education he had been given.  That didn't mean I had to agree or condone the way he treated me, but it did mean that I had to not judge his understanding (or lack thereof).

[serious crayons]

That didn't mean I had to agree or condone the way he treated me, but it did mean that I had to not judge his understanding (or lack thereof).

OK ... 

Scott, I guess I don't understand what you're driving at. Are you saying we shouldn't "judge" Mr. Twist? Well, I suppose you could describe it that way.

But OMT is fictional. What we're really doing is analyzing fiction, which I don't see as analogous to your feelings about your father.

It's less about deciding on the morality of his behavior, or judging, than it is about understanding his character and why he said what he said and what it meant for the story.

[Scott6373]

But OMT is fictional. What we're really doing is analyzing fiction, which I don't see as analogous to your feelings about your father.

It's less about deciding on the morality of his behavior, or judging, than it is about understanding his character and why he said what he said and what it meant for the story.

You're missing the point.  My father and Mr Twist were of the same generation, cut from the same cloth.  I didn't consider my father homophic, just as I don't consider OMT homophobic, because labelling someone that presumes that they have knowledge of what they are "afraid" of.  I can call them ignorant, inflexible, but not homophobic.

[serious crayons]

You're missing the point.  My father and Mr Twist were of the same generation, cut from the same cloth.  I didn't consider my father homophic, just as I don't consider OMT homophobic, because labelling someone that presumes that they have knowledge of what they are "afraid" of.  I can call them ignorant, inflexible, but not homophobic.

Well, you're missing mine. The question is merely, did Mr. Twist have anything against homosexuality?

I don't know anything about your father. But Mr. Del Mar, who was also cut from similar cloth, did have something against it. If you don't like applying the term "homophobic" anachronistically, we can just say that Mr. Del Mar hated homosexuality so much that he would expose his sons to the corpse of a homosexual man who'd been tortured to death, evidently to deter them from making the same choices. And it's not inconceivable that he would have actually participated in the murder himself.

Mr. Twist does not appear to have felt that kind of hatred toward homosexual men. In fact, he doesn't give any sign of hating them at all.

That's all we're talking about.