Hello,

"Homophilic" derives from Latin terms for "man" and "love" or
"affection".  It is not equivalent to "homosexual".  One can have
homophilic feelings without being homosexual.  I am not claiming to know
anything about Joey's sexual orientation.  I am only saying he displays
homophilic sentiments toward Shane (He "loves" Shane, as he actually says
in the film).

Please, can we put this to rest?

One more thing:I completely agree that the word "straight" may not have
been intended in the film to mean "heterosexual".  However, contrary to
what is said below, the term "straight" was commonly known (among those
with some level of sophistication) to mean "heterosexual" even in 1953.  I
mentioned it in passing in my article.  It is merely a curiosity.

Bob Sitton

      ****       | Providing Internet Access     |  INTERNET: [log in to unmask] 
   **********    | and Online Media Advertising  | TELEPHONE: 503.222.9508
  ***      ***   | to the Portland Metropolitan  | FACSIMILE: 503.796.9134   
  *  EUROPA  *   | Area	                         |      DATA: 503.222.4244 

On Wed, 8 Nov 2000, Jeremy Bowman wrote:

> Kevin wrote:
> 
> > In a message dated 11/5/00 10:28:21 PM,
> > [log in to unmask] writes:
> 
> > << So Kevin, if Jeremy makes his claim
> > explicit that it's solely his opinion, does
> > he commit an intentionalist fallacy, or
> > his intentionalist fallacy his rhetorical
> > position? >>
> 
> > At this point, I'd be leery to assign any
> > value to Jeremy's statement because I
> > still think both he and Sutton are
> > arriving at the same conclusions.
> 
> -- Well, Sitton and I seem to disagree over quite a lot. For example, I
> think Joey's interest in Shane is (best understood as) non-sexual. Sitton
> thinks that Joey's interest is (best understood as) sexual, or at least that
> it has "homophilic undertones", whatever that means. I think if we
> understand _Shane_ that way, we lose the beautiful clarity and simplicity of
> the plot. Sitton seems to think otherwise. I have mentioned a number of
> other differences between us as well, in other e-mails to this list. In
> fact, one of the few things Sitton and I agree on is: we arrive at different
> conclusions.
> 
> > And quite frankly, Jeremy, I still believe
> > you knew exactly what Sitton was
> > talking about in his homophilic
> > interpretation.
> 
> -- Gasp! So I'm being dishonest, am I? As Wilson would say: Prove it!
> 
> > Observe. You wrote:
> > <<I certainly didn't mean to use the word
> > 'bent' as a codeword for "homosexual". I
> > wasn't at all trying to suggest that the boy
> > had a homosexual crush on Shane, or that
> > Shane was trying to "put him off" by
> > urging him to stay "straight". Quite the
> > opposite -- I was trying to highlight the
> > silliness of thinking in those terms.>>
> > And then immediately afterward,
> > you wrote:
> > <<Actually, I genuinely didn't know what
> > Sitton meant when he used the word
> > "homophilic".>>
> > Unless I'm missing something, that latter
> > statement contradicts your paragraph
> > above.
> 
> -- As must be cringe-makingly obvious to everyone on this list, I'm not a
> scholar of film studies. I'm just an interested amateur. I had never come
> across the word 'homophilic' before, although my dictionary did say that
> 'homophile' is a euphemism for "homosexual". It beats me, in our current age
> of anti-homophobia, why euphemisms would still be considered necessary for
> homosexuality, so I half-assumed that 'homophilic' must mean something other
> than 'homosexual'.
> 
> I have to say that I am still unclear about what the word 'homophilic'
> means. When I first came across it in Sitton's review, I was even less
> clear, although I suspected that it had something to do with a Fiedler-style
> interpretation of the Western. Your first e-mail confirmed my suspicions. It
> was then that I wrote the passage you quote above. I was well aware, of
> course, that 'bent' and 'straight' are slang words for sexual orientation. I
> chose the word 'bent' rather than 'crooked' or 'twisted' because Shane used
> the word 'straight' in his farewell advice to Joey, and I wanted to use the
> obvious antonym. I also wanted to stress the way words change their meaning
> over time. In 1953, the word 'straight' meant honest, just, honourable,
> upright, unashamed -- the opposite of dishonest, unfair, dishonourable, low,
> shame-ridden, etc.
> 
> I don't think the ordinary cinema-goer of 1953 dreamt of taking 'straight'
> to mean 'heterosexual', and I still think it's crazily misguided to take
> Shane as saying (in his farewell advice to Joey) "grow up strong and
> heterosexual, lad!"  He utters these words, dear reader, at the same time as
> running his fingers lovingly through the boy's hair! To understand what
> Shane meant by 'straight', we have to bridge the 1953-2000 gap. I meant to
> point to the existence of that gap as forcefully as I could by using (the
> nowadays jarring) 'bent'.
> 
> You asked:
> 
> > How could you have been "trying
> > to highlight the silliness of thinking in
> > those terms" if you didn't understand the
> > homophilic context in which they were
> > made?
> 
> -- I was trying to highlight the silliness of thinking in terms of Joey's
> homosexual feelings for Shane. But I genuinely didn't understand "the
> homophilic context" in which Sitton's remarks were made, because I didn't
> know what the word 'homophilic' meant, and I still don't. With the benefit
> of hindsight, I'm inclined to think it's a rather phoney word.
> 
> > And if indeed you think "thinking in
> > those terms" is "silly," we can then
> > move on to discuss the homophobic
> > history of belittling homophilic
> > interpretations.
> 
> -- Is one a homophobe if one merely *disagrees* with a "homophilic"
> interpretation? How can anyone disagree with anything without "belittling"
> it? Is anyone who disagrees with your interpretations a homophobe?
> 
> Jeremy
> 
> 
> 



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%