David Duneman

Expository Writing

Joe Serio

4/14/13

 The Birdcage

            The Birdcage is a very odd, colorful movie. This film obviously hits on the topics of homosexuality and transvestitism, and of course the conservative view of these topics as well.  The Birdcage itself, I believe, is a metaphor for how homosexuality is frowned upon and is tried to be hidden: and it is like a bird in a cage that way. My attention was fading in and out of the story line until the dinner scene, which was my favorite part of the movie. Two homosexual men, one dressed as a woman, trying to hide their sexuality from two very distinct conservatives: what can’t be funny in this scene? When the flamboyant of flamboyant, Al, comes in dressed as Val’s mother, things get pretty hysterical.

            Robin Williams’ character, Armand, seemed be kind of the bisexual person, having phases where he likes both genders, or maybe even fighting between sexuality’s not really being able to decide which one to stay with. Armand is like the glue that held all the important characters together. A good quirk that Armand had was that when he was nervous, especially at the dinner scene, he would spill out religious metaphor jokes that were hilarious. Not Robin Williams best character, but not bad.

            Nathan Lanes’ character, Albert Goldman, was definitely the comic relief in this film. He is always so emotionally unstable that it puts the audience in a position of power to be able to laugh at him. Albert reminded me of Jack Lemmon’s character from Some Like It Hot, not as funny but somewhere in that general character slot. Albert is the type of person that is obviously flamboyantly gay and doesn’t care what anyone thinks about him. So the two main characters have distinctly two different views on being homosexual: one is obvious in his manner of acting, and the other kind of tries to hide it from the rest of the world, well from the conservatives at least.

            Gene Hackman’s character, Sen. Kevin Keeley, didn’t add much humor to the film besides not knowing his daughters’ fiances’ parents are gay, and him walking out of the Birdcage dressed as a woman. One of the funniest things with Keeley was that he loved Albert when he thought he was the mother of Val. This is kind of a shot at people who just disregard gay folks for being gay, but when actually they could connect with that persons’ personality rather than hate their sexuality: rather than disregarding the person they should just disregard their sexuality.