The suffering of the characters in this film can be excruciating to watch. There isn't so much physical suffering as we see in Hunger, perhaps (there is the staple gun incident), but the emotional toll on Pam and Robin (or should we call them Cassidy and Randy?) of their choices and circumstances is massive and beyond question. I think Aronofsky communicates this emotional agony in a remarkable way--he transfers the shame and embarrassment of the characters into our viewing experience.
I wonder if embarrassment really can be a universal feeling when watching a movie like this one. We see Randy (or is it Robin?) holding onto the past in all sorts of silly ways. "Wanna play Nintendo?" is one. His belief that 80's rock ballads set the standard for good music is another. He is disconnected from the reality of the present, from how to interact with customers at the deli counter to how to be a father to his daughter. He seems most at home when performing in the ring or watching Pam (or is it Cassidy?) perform a private dance for him.
At the same time, he does begin to confront a possible reality that might save him from the fantasy that has slowly worn him down. I am thinking here of the moment when he shoves money into Pam's hands and says, "Pretend you like me." She is rightly offended by this attack, but his insight is spot on, not about her but about himself. He knows he's spent his life paying for love, either with cash or with his body (his soul, too?). His disgust is self-directed and leads, tragically, to his forgetting dinner with his daughter.
Now here is your prompt: FIRST, based on our sympathy for Robin (Randy) and Pam (Cassidy), does the outcome of the film lead to catharsis (check the glossary) or a sense of hope for the viewer? SECOND, does this film question the worth of love that is earned through performance, and of love that is performed? How is it that a film (scripted and performed) can help us see the line (or overlap) between performance and authenticity? Be sure to review the rules for commenting and that you meet the length requirement. Also, remember that this film response is optional.
I believe the sympathy that I had for Pam and Robin lead me more to catharsis rather than a sense of hope. Because Robin had burned so many bridges before his last wrestling match, I don’t believe that many people would honor the memory of Robin. Of course his fans would remember and continue to idolize him, but his daughter is no longer in his life at all, and Pam seems to have been released from Robin. I think both Pam and Robin were able to give the most they could and release all their emotions towards the end of the film. Therefore, there is really nothing else to give, even a sense of hope. The only hopeful element that I might envision is that Pam might go back to her son and keep Robin’s memory alive and create a better life for the two of them.
ReplyDeleteI think this film questions both the love that is earned through performance and love that is performed. Pam performed love while stripping, and Robin earned the love of his fans by performing. However, the worth of these types of love is questioned because neither form is fulfilling or real. The fans do not truly love Robin and the love that is performed by Pam is not real to her customers. I think this film helps us see the overlap between love that is performed and authentic love because of the characters. The sincerity in Rourke and Tomei’s performances allowed the viewers to see how Robin and Pam were able to find a connection through performed love, and how Robin was able to find acceptance by earning the love of his fans. Through these relationships, the viewers were able to see an overlap between the performance and the authentic emotion that Robin and Pam expressed through their performances.
I felt that the outcome of the film was more catharsis than hope. I felt sympathy for Randy for a number of reasons. The fact that he lived most of his adult years working to be a success in his chosen sport or in the spotlight of it and he never seemed to think about what would come after. As long as he had fans coming to see him wrestle he was happy. In the process he walked away from his family and even though he had ample opportunities to be a good father, he did not seem to have the emotional tools to be one. Once those he was trying to be close to rejected him the last time, he went back to what he knew. Cassidy gets my sympathy because she knew her stripping days were numbered but did not want to face it. She has a son to provide for and will do anything she can to do that. Cassidy wanted better things that were intangible. Her realization on the stage and walking off and walking away from Randy’s last match was purification for her. She could start anew.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that the film does question the worth of love that is earned from performance and of love that is performed. It also shows us both sides of the character. In reality we generally see one side of an individual. The film lets us see how performing for love can backfire, especially when you can’t see the ones before you who love you. When Randy was not wrestling he was not involved in any other relationship. He didn’t seem to know how to develop and nurture a normal one. When he tried to renew his relationship with his daughter he wound up failing because he was so used to being by himself.
Throughout watching this film, you can’t help but feel sympathetic for both characters involved; Randy and Cassidy. In my opinion, it led me more to catharsis rather than a sense of hope. With Randy, we traveled through his life with him and watched him care about one thing, and in the end one thing only: wrestling. I felt like I did have a sense of hope for him after he was attempting to mend things with his daughter and build a relationship with Cassidy, but that quickly fades when he proves that wrong towards the end of the movie. At the end when Randy decides to jump off that ring for the final time, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of catharsis because he finally had made the decision to die for the one and only thing he has always lived for, wrestling. As far as Cassidy, I feel catharsis for her too. Instead of sticking around and supporting Randy’s selfish and terrible decisions, she walks away at this tragic time. Perhaps there may be a sense of hope for Cassidy, because hopefully she has walked away not only from Randy, but from her prior lifestyle in order to build a better life for her and her son.
ReplyDeleteI believe the film does question the worth of love earned through performance, and of the love that is performed. Randy obviously cares very much for his fans in his world of wrestling, but that seems to be the only love he receives. That is not real love, because those fans will subside and at the end of the day he is left with nothing. Cassidy also performs dances for her customers and exemplifies love that way, but at the end of the day that love is nonexistent as well. The film shows a line between performance and authenticity. At the end of the day, Cassidy and Randy are just performers. Wrestling and stripping will not always be an option for them, which we see Randy accept and finally give his life for it. We see, or hope, that Cassidy has seen her final days of stripping and has chosen to change her life.
My sympathy for Pam and Robin lead me to both catharsis (pity and fear) and hope. For Robin throughout the entirety of his last match all I feel is fear. I am scared for him that these are the final moments of his life. As a viewer though I feel Robin knows that it is possible that he may die and he is okay with that. This resignation to death that he feels he owes his fans causes me to pity him. After the final scene when we realize he has died during the match I only pitied him more. Specifically I pity the fact that he gave up a real life he didn’t love essentially for a fake one that he did love. I feel Pam’s situation is different. For Pam my emotions are completely different. Stripping is obviously an undignified and somewhat dangerous profession so the majority of the movie I am lead to fear for her safety and pity her situation. I feel Pam’s actions in the last scene contrast this. When Pam walks away from the match and refuses to watch Randy die I feel that is her making a choice for herself to walk away from the bad and better her life for her and her son. In this moment I fell nothing but hope for Pam that she will turn her life around.
ReplyDeleteI fell as though this film definitely questions the worth of love that is earned through performance. People say every day that they love their favorite actor, actress, entertainer, or athlete, but when it comes down to it must well-grounded people can recognize that’s not real love. It doesn’t compare to love we feel for our family and friends. Pam and Robin both performed for the recognition, support, and love of their fans. But in the end Pam lost the support of her fans as she aged and was no longer what they wanted. Randy’s fans never gave up on him and he loved the enough to die for them. But sometimes I think true love is when you love something enough that you are willing to live for it when you want to die. There are many overlapping performances throughout the movie. The movie in its entirety is a performance but stripping and wrestling are also performances. It gives the viewer this idea of a performance inside a performance so it can be hard to distinguish what is real and what is fake. I think through the sincerity of Randy’s last speech you see that even though wrestling is performing and he doesn’t personally know his fans we see that he loves them in the only way that he knows how. The film itself gives a clarity of the love earned through and the love felt for performance even though essentially it’s another performance itself.
I absolutely think the outcome of the film lead to catharsis in Randy’s case and a sense of hope in Pam’s case. Throughout the film, Randy seems unable to differentiate his current life with the life from his glory days. He still participates in wrestling, goes to strip clubs, plays the vintage video game (then again, so do I), and heavily praises music from the 1980’s. I believe when he started the job at the deli and reveals his true feelings towards Pam, you get a sense of hope; however, when he does the cocaine and misses the dinner with Stephanie, you realize not much has changed. When he is seen saying a prayer and then makes his speech before the fight, you definitely get a sense of spiritual renewal. Pam, on the other hand, gave me a sense of hope. Despite realizing she is past her prime, I felt like she felt stuck in her situation and that there were no other choices for her. However, after she walks out of the strip club and says “I am Pam,” you have a sense of hope that she remembers that: she is Pam, not Cassidy.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think the film makes you question the performance of love and the love earned through performance. Pam performs every night for her career, but only has one fan and doesn’t receive much love for her performance. However, I see her as the only person Randy has come close to loving. While he may poorly perform loving her, he keeps going back to her for a reason. On the other hand, Randy has thousands of fans that love him based on his performance. Unfortunately, that’s the only performance of love that he commits to. He spirals out of control when his relationship with Pam goes south and he can’t seem to make a relationship with his daughter successful. The love earned through the performance seemed to be more important to him rather that the performance of love which is one of the reasons I found his character to be so sad.
I feel like at the end of the movie when it was all said and done that the outcome of the film led me to catharsis. Robin was a broken man. He lived in his past, idolized his wrestling name, and struggled maintaining his own identity throughout the movie. He doubted his actions, and from the looks of it, doubted his life. To me as a viewer, I felt that Robin had no hope. I couldn’t help but to feel sympathy towards him and his broken life. At one point I did feel hope for him, hope that he would fix his life and mend his broken relationship with his daughter, but as his life continued to spiral out of control because of his selfish actions, I had no hope for him, just sympathy for a broken man who has no path in life. I felt the deepest sympathy for Cassidy because she is a single mom who strips for a living to make a living. She knows, and we know, that her days of stripping are slowly coming to an end. She obviously has trust issues when she blows Randy off. I felt hope in the beginning for her as well. I hoped that she would be able to see that her and Randy both need someone because they are both broken and can fix each other. When Cassidy blew Randy off my hope for her turned to an even greater feeling of sympathy towards her. At the end of the movie she comes and sees Randy and tells him not to go out. Randy ignores her because all he sees, all he lives for, his whole being is wrestling. Randy sacrifices his life in the end for something he loves, something he is passionate about so that his name may be forgotten, but his legacy will live forever.
ReplyDeleteI do believe the film does question the worth of love earned through performance, and of love that is performed. Randy has fans that love him, and he loves his fans. Randy loves the career and lifestyle of wrestling. Cassidy shows love in her profession but has no love after. The same is for Randy. I feel this movie shows us how love truly is. We have the privilege of being able to see both sides of the characters stories. This allows me to see what fake love and real love is. Randy and Cassidy both express love in what they do, and both have people that love them. This love is not real love. If it were not for their profession, there would be no love from their customers or fans, and no love given in what they do. This movies shows us how superficial a love thought to be real can be.
I believe the outcome of the film most definitely led to catharsis and a little bit of hope. In the film Randy struggles with living in the past and in the present. He still likes to live in his glories day of wrestling, thinks 80's music is the best of all time, and still plays Nintendo. You feel sympathy and hope for him when he starts to work at the deli in hopes he will come in to terms with reality and sympathy that him and his daughter will love each other again and that him and Pam will have something more than this stripper/customer relationship. Pam rejects him, which leads Randy living back in the past again and misses a dinner date with his daughter and starts to wrestle again even though it may kill him. At the end of the film, Randy does the wrestling match and thanks his fans for always being there for him. I feel sympathy towards him because he realizes his fans were the only ones who were there for him. Pam gives me a sense of hope that she will create a better life for her and her son. You see this when she walks off stage while she is at work to stop Randy from wrestling. When she gets to the match she tells Randy that this event could kill him. Randy knows that it could kill him so he proceeds anyway. Pam leaves in hopes that Randy will have better life when he is gone and that she can move on realizing that Randy was a good guy.
ReplyDeleteI believe this film does question the worth of love that is earned through performance and of love that is performed. I see this in the film of how Pam doesn't have a lot of fans due to the fact of her fans thinking she looks old. Randy is her only true fan, but he still doesn't give her enough love for her performance. Randy kind of uses Pam has this person that he tells everything to because he is lonely. I feel as if Pam accepts that though because she is lonely as well. Randy and Pam feed off of each other's loneliness. Randy, on the other hand, gets love from his fans, but sadly that his the only love he can commit to. Even though Randy is old now he still gets love from his fans because they look up to him as being a hero. When Randy finds out that him and Pam can't be together other than stripper/customer relationship and that he comes into terms that he can never create a healthy relationship with his daughter. His fans love was more important to him then the love of his family. This makes me feel sad for Randy due to the fact he doesn't really know what love is.
The outcome of this movie led me to feel both catharsis and have a sense of hopefulness. I feel sympathetic for Randy because he was stuck in a life style that was all he had ever known. Randy’s life had spiraled to an all time low and he really had no drive or light at the end of the tunnel. I felt the most sympathy for him when he decided to go back to wresting. I saw it as a way of him running away from what he had broken, and silencing his pain and reality. I felt a sense of hope for Cassidy at the end when she gave up dancing and sought after Randy. I hope that she would find a new path in life instead of the one that was originally chosen. I would like her stay away from the exotic dancing life because she doesn’t have much longer of a successful dancing career and needs a job that will help turn her life around.
ReplyDeleteThis film does question the worth of love that is earned through performance, and of love that is performed. Randy and Cassidy, to me, were living double lives; one on stage and one off stage. For me, love that is earned through performance is love that is felt in the second life style. The love earned through performance for Randy was the only love I see him ever filling loved by. The love performed by Randy was for his fans because he felt loved by them. I feel that the Randy only performed love for his fans because he didn’t know how to love his daughter or love a woman. Cassidy had performed love before and ended up broken and raising a child on her own. I felt that she had given up on finding real love because she had been broken times before and thought that the only love out there left worth anything was the love she felt through performance. I think that Randy was worth loving for Cassidy when she tried to stop him from wrestling but he had already given up.
When I watched the end of the film I felt that there was a sense of catharsis toward Randy than Pam, and a sense of hope for Pam. Randy only had one thing to live for throughout the whole entire movies and that was wrestling. He tried to mend things with daughter and try to get back on his feet after retiring, I believed there was a little sense of hope because he could had done it, but wrestling was the only thing he felt that was there for him. When Randy takes his final jump off of the wrestling ring, I knew that was catharsis for him because he was dying for the only thing he lived for which was wrestling. For Pam, there is hope for her because when she is leaving the strip club she says “I am Pam” letting everyone know her real name and escaping her shackle of the club. Another reason why she has hope because she escaped Randy’s death because she knew what he was doing and her leaving set up an example for her not fall into complicated and emotional patterns.
ReplyDeleteThis film did make me question the performance of love and how it was portrayed in the film. Randy didn’t know how to love throughout the film because he only loved himself and only took care of himself, alone. When he attempts to fix his relationship with Stephanie, it fails because he doesn’t have the ability to love anyone else. Randy tries to love Pam, but Pam pushes him away because he is a “customer”. Pam is the only one that Randy goes back to because Randy is aware that there is a sense of love between him and her. Randy doesn’t see that he is loved by his fans and that love was there for him the whole time.