Comportment Concerns

I was really taken by the character of Bobby in Saturday Night Fever (Tony’s friend who jumps (or falls??) off the Narrows Bridge). He carries his body much in the same way as his friends–strutting down the street in white platform boots and huge hair, he defies that “relaxed” and “effortless” masculinity that Professor Parham talked about on Tuesday as our current cultural standard. And yet, he’s agonizing for the whole movie over an age-old problem: he got a girl pregnant and doesn’t know what to do about it.

Bobby goes through the same kind of disillusionment with his friends and surroundings as Tony does–halfway through the movie they go to the club, and instead of being entranced by sex and drugs and dancing like his friends, he’s completely fixated on whether he should ask this girl to marry him. Finally he gets Frank Jr.’s attention–the guy who’s supposed to have it all together, having gone into the priesthood. Frank Jr. is an example of a more traditional masculinity, especially because he has a steady career, and Bobby looks to him for an answer (and at least I suspect, permission to get out of this lifestyle)–but he gets none from Frank Jr., who is going through a kind of disillusionment himself.

Right before Bobby jumps, he says “I just didn’t want to fuck up this time.” He’s been in this anguish for the entire film, looking for answers and advice that none of his so-called “friends” are willing or ready to give. The confident artifice that he’s built and that is the standard for his friends and his time are so far from where he is in his crippling self doubt that suicide seems the like only option. He wanted to do right by his girlfriend and instead finds himself driving around while his friends rape a girl (just another “cock teaser”…) in the back seat.

What did other people think about Bobby’s character and his ultimate death? I think it really gets at some of the  issues with comportment we’ve been talking about.