Rounders

I've had a lot of arguments about the possibly homosocial content of the Lord of the Rings movies, particularly Return of the King. I personally feel, along with a few other people I've spoken with, that Peter Jackson went a bit too far in expressing the Hobbit's devotion to one another, and winds up making Sam and Frodo's relationship look deeper than just employer and gardener. If you catch my meaning.

The response is generally the same: there's no overt sexuality in any way in the Rings movies, these Hobbit characters are expressing filial love to one another as opposed to romantic love, and it's the dire nature of the circumstances surrounding them on Mt. Doom that causes them to cling to one another, as opposed to mutual physical attraction. It's fair enough, I suppose. There's no way to claim one option or the other as 100% correct or incorrect.

But there's one answer my friend Yancy has provided that I find troubling. He seems to feel that, without any direct expression of romantic desire or physical activity that could be construed as explicitly homosexual, it's inappropriate to label a certain film or film character "gay" or even "homoerotic." I strongly disagree. I think there are gay subtext that can be found in literally thousands of films where there's no explicit sex featured or any romantic exchanges between male characters.

For example, let's take a look at the 1998 Matt Damon poker movie Rounders. I revisited Rounders earlier today with my roommates, as we've been watching a lot of ESPN's new poker soap "Tilt," and it's from the same creative team. Rounders was, for a lot of people, the first introduction to the underground world of No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em, which has now morphed into a bonafide national phenomenon. It's about a respectable law student who has put his career as a card hustler behind him (Matt Damon), and his friend Worm (Ed Norton), a recently-paroled lowlife who relentlessly tries to lure his friend back into the life of a "rounder."

But I'm not interested in speaking about Rounders in terms of its success or lack thereof as a drama. It works alright, hampered at times by a weak, generic script but brightened by the presence of fine actors like Norton, John Malkovich and Martin Landau.

I'm interested in talking about Rounders as a film with strong homosocial undertones, despite not including any overtly gay material whatsoever.



Rounders shows one man's journey from a typical, hard-working law student into a drifter, depending on old men for favors and hustling tourists for cash. If Damon's character, Mike, plied the sex trade instead of poker games, this could be the exact plotline for a much darker movie. But all throughout the film, the poker takes a backseat to the real undercurrent, competitive relationships between young wannabes (Damon and Norton) and the steely old men who control the world of the competition.

Mike's on the outs with his attractive girlfriend (Gretchen Mol) because he lost his entire bankroll to crooked Russian Mafia don Teddy KGB (Malkovich). She's just about ready to forgive him when he turns his back on her once again to help out his recently-paroled ex-con buddy named Worm (Norton), who owes about $25,000 to a twisted loan shark named Grama (Michael Rispoli). So, what we have from the beginning is a lead character who's torn - on one hand, he loves his girlfriend and wants to make this new life work, but on the other, he's devoted to the man whom he's grown up with, and who comes to him in an hour of need.

While most movies would at least try to make the central romantic relationship work out, Rounders winds up dropping the love plot completely, sending the girlfriend off to a successful future in the law so that Mike can pursue his true love - competitive poker-playing with his male friends.

There is one woman who appears at the poker tables, Petra, played by the stunning Famke Janssen. In one scene, she appears at Mike's apartment and practically begs for him to take her to bed. He rejects her and sends her away for reasons unknown. The script ostensibly asks for us to accept that he's still heartbroken over the loss of his girlfriend, but the larger thematic point is clear; there's no time for women. As Worm says earlier in the film, "In the poker game of life, women are the rake." They exist only to take your money, I suppose is the idea, but the bigger notion is that of women as spoilers, as that element which ruins the perfect, male-only world of the poker room.

Late in the film, Mike finds Worm at a gynmasium they both used long ago as a hiding place. The scene, shot in soft light with a sunbeam pouring in from a skylight, is nostalgic but also about as close as the film gets to true tenderness. They reminisce about times spent together in the gym, years ago, away from the rest of the world. In a film without any strong female characters, that abandons its only present heterosexual relationship less than halfway through its running time, it's by far the most believable, complete representation of love.

Okay, so enough of Mike and Worm's mutual love and respect. Let's talk about the other men who fill out the cast. There's John Turturro as Joey Knish, NY poker legend and mentor to young Mike. John's always there offering helpful advice, sometimes stake money, and late in the film, an offer to take Mike in if he ever needs a place to sleep. Then there's Teddy KGB, Mike's gruff nemesis, the father figure who took Mike's money before, and who waits for him to return for another challenge. And then there's Abe Petrovsky, Mike's law professor, who chides him for missing work, patiently sits and discusses his various problems, and steps in at the zero hour to loan Mike $10,000.

Individually, none of these characters carries on anything remotely approaching a gay relationship with Mike. Except for Malkovich, whose constant licking of Oreo cookies could be considered unseemly, none of them even makes advances at the young, attractive Mike. But they all have behavior in common.

In fact, the only actual reference to homosexuality anywhere in the movie comes when Worm and Mike venture to Atlantic City. Worm announces that he must go find a (female) prostitute, to which Mike makes a crude insinuation that Worm has been turned gay by "the boys upstate." You could read some sort of abstract longing built into this sentiment (that Mike's maybe hoping Worm will express homosexual affection for him, or that he's at least fantasized about the possibility of Worm having gay sex), but it could also be dismissed simply as generic tough-guy movie dialogue.

No, rather than sexual objects, these older men represent father figures for Mike, each in their own way, and yet they are none of them related. Additionally, all of their assistance and guidance is one way - Mike has nothing to teach them, he has nothing to give them, his friendship means very little to them in the end. So why do all these old men keep this needy young guy around?

And then let's talk about one more guy, Grama, the loan shark. He dresses like a pimp, and lives in a flophouse surrounded by coke whores and other prostitutes. He's always chasing Mike down and asking for his money. Plus, his name when pronounced sounds like everyone is calling him Grandma. Why is he in the film? He exists only to provide a bridge that gets Mike back into the grips of Teddy KGB, and seems a bit too invested in sticking in (no pun intended) to Mike and Worm. There's no explanation provided for Grama's animosity towards our heroes. It's just another suggestive, thinly sketched male relationship.

Finally, there's Mike's devotion to Johnny Chan, the famed professional poker player. He fetishistically watches Chan's 1988 World Series of Poker win over and over again on VHS. He regales people with the story of the time he met up with Chan in the Taj Mahal poker room, and played against the master.

Finally, when watching a re-enactment of this story (featuring a performance by the actual Johnny Chan as himself), the whole homosocial critique comes together. The game of poker itself represents male competition. If one thinks in the primitive sense of sex as conquest, and of male sexuality as determined by the marking of territory, then these poker games literally represent hot sweaty man-on-man action.

Mike has beaten Chan in a hand of poker. In the real world, this means almost nothing. Despite what they may say, any professional poker player in the world could be beaten by me or anyone else in one hand. If they get dealt zero cards and I get dealt pocket Kings and a King comes up on the flop, they can play however they want and I'll still probably win. Professional poker players are long-term players, they are good enough to win enough money over the course of weeks and months. They don't win every hand. Watch the World Series of Poker next time it's on. Those are all good players, and they lose hands all the time, sometimes on bad beats.

But in the over-heated homosocial world of Rounders, defeating Chan in a hand of cards represents the ultimate sexual conquest. Mike didn't have a strong father figure growing up, and his Freudian impulse to conquer that which belonged to his father extends to all of these older men with whom he plays poker. Except it's not about bedding the woman that belonged to his father - it's too focused on the male relationships to even pay attention to that. There are no women at the poker table. It's just about taking that other guy down.

In the end, Mike turns his back on the responsible world to do what he was born to do - play poker with the professionals. He's lost every relationship close to him in the world at that point. He's fallen out with Joey Knish, his long-term mentor and "the closest thing you get to a friend" in the poker room. He's dropped out of law school, abandoning his girlfriend and the professor who was so devoted to his success. And he's told off Worm, who has skipped town for parts unknown.

But it's still a happy ending because he has his bankroll, the money he's won from the efforts of all of these people. So he will move on, to play cards with that and other money in other cities, racking up other victories, claiming other prizes. He will become the ultimate lone man, wandering around, raping and pillaging, claiming others possessions as his own. He will be a hustler.

But you see where I'm going with this.