"Who's yo mamma?"

The Birdcage seems like a pretty straightforward movie to analyze.   At a first glance, I decided that it was a silly, low budget, comedy with a gay couple to attract a wider ranged audience.  However, as soon as I started thinking about the principles and message that The Birdcage is trying to relate to the audience, I changed my mind.  The movie has one very strong argument: an unconventional family, such as a gay couple raising a son, is just as much a stable, loving, and moral family as a traditional family of biological parents raising their children.  While that seems like a pretty common message to us in 2013, it was addressed far less and even frowned upon when the film was released in 1996.  This argument is by no means subtle but somehow the director of the film communicates it with his audience in a very nonthreatening manner.  I will explain the ways in which he does so in the next couple of paragraphs.

            First of all, the director, Mike Nichols, introduced the audience to the gay couple with a clear, well thought out strategy.  He allows the audience to see the drag queens, which are actually very convincing in the first scenes, and most likely, we will laugh.  Then, he introduces the audience to Albert.  Although we know he is a man, his every move is feminine.  The director seemed to nail every dramatic little worry and passing thought of the stereotypical woman.  So what?  Well, because the director is trying to make a controversial point to a pretty hard-set audience, he creates Albert so that the women and, especially, wives can relate to him.  By making him so much like a woman, he becomes a less threatening character to those who do not approve of homosexuality.  In a nutshell, the director makes it so that the audience views Albert and his, or her, husband Armand not as a gay couple but as a marriage between a woman and a man.  This is an extremely important action taken by the director in order for his audience to even consider his message.  However, the picture does take its toll on the stereotypes of gays, which is a high price to pay and people are still trying to get rid of that stereotype.

            Secondly, Mike Nichols gets his audience feeling sorry for Albert as he is not appreciated as a mother and is merely tossed aside when a girl comes along for Val.  Even though Val is not Albert’s son and came from another woman, Albert loves Val unconditionally.  His love for Val drives him to deny who he is and pretend to be the straight and manly Uncle Albert, which is no small task for the very feminine character.  As someone already mentioned (I think it was Gabrielle), Albert is the only one who does not struggle with his identity.  However, he is the only one that is really asked to change his identity.  I find it interesting that, although Albert is comfortable with who he is, those who are in an identity crisis attack him; that is just exactly how our society is.  Yet, Albert is the one who helps the others overcome their identity problems.