Clint Eastwood on set of A Fistful Of Dollars, 1964, © Tazio Secchiaroli

ramon's hot OK i don't make the rules

We Need to Talk About Joe (But Not Only Him!)

I know that Joe isn’t everyone’s favorite simply because he’s got no pairing attached to him, and I can respect that. Still, I love and respect him a lot (A LOT), and with this post and the next one I want to answer two questions that many people usually ask themselves when they watch A Fistful of Dollars. 

1) Why is traditional narrative subverted, and Joe doesn’t fall in love with Marisol?

2) Who is he talking about when he risks his life for Marisol’s family, mentioning somebody he knew once who found themselves in a similar position but nobody came to help?

So. First one is easy. Joe is gay. 

Think me one of those overexcited teens who head canon all their faves as gays if you want to, but it doesn’t change the fact that he is heavily coded as a homosexual man. Let’s see.

The first time he sees Marisol and smiles at her, and she flees back into the house: 

Joe is concerned by the situation with Marisol and her family, which he just witnessed, and he doesn’t get why Marisol flees when he offers her friendliness after seeing her in distress. She most likely assumes that he’s hitting on her in that moment, which Ramon wouldn’t like at all, but Joe is just being nice, like he so often, if not to say always, is. He likes people, and he likes things, treating both with respect and certain amount of sympathy by default. His first response to finding himself being laughed at and dangling from some lamp post after the humiliating, highly unpleasant encounter with Baxters is to politely greet Silvanito, who is watching him and replies saludos in amusement.

Which brings us to the fact that Joe is very, very gentle. Soft-spoken. Playful. There are heterosexual and bisexual men who would fit the characteristics as well, but if you think about cinema as an ultra complex structure where everything stands for something else because only then you can effectively create meaning, you’ll realize that it’s rather atypical - and main characters are all about prototyping - especially for the American cinema of the 1960s, to have a male protagonist, especially in a Western, which is traditionally the genre that supplies the American society with the icons of rough masculinity, to be not assertive but at the very least nuanced by all of the above.

Then, we’ve got the way Joe interacts with women and the way he interacts with men. We’ve got Marisol, whom he protects, shows her respect, and compassion. At no point is he shown to be interested in her, even though she is a striking beauty. He never makes an insinuation or anything even remotely similar about it either. When he carries her to the Baxters to make sure that she is okay, he does it neutrally, there is no moment of hesitation or impropriety or the like. He doesn’t make any insinuation when he ambushes Mrs. Baxter either, he just informs her that he isn’t going to hurt her. And when he husband comes into the room, after disarming him, Joe coldly explains that he did as a precaution because men tend to get territorial when there are other men around their spouses. He elicited the same reaction from Ramon later, when he spoke to Marisol, simply showing consideration towards her. If there was any interest in either of the women on his part his cinematically constructed point of view or the script would have reflected that - as an aside, as a close-up, as something. But no, Joe simply perceives women as human beings, towards whom he is friendly but neutral. 

On the other hand, his way of interacting with men is, well, different.

He either watches them unblinkingly, smiling, or coquettishly blinks a lot, and tilts his head, he needlessly touches his face or slows down his movements. He obviously unconsciously cares about the way he is perceived by them - and not as a threat or an opponent or somebody who could dominate them, on contrary, he is, to a very small degree, showing submissiveness. He also confuses them by doing so because he appears courteous and emotionally accessible, which is not something traditionally associated with masculine gender performance and heterosexuality. 

And speaking of performance and appearance, even though Joe has the same basic recognizable attributes as Manco or - partially - Blondie, he leaves an impression that’s nothing like them. Just compare this:

And this:

To THIS:

(And there are people who say Clint can’t act, imagine being that insensible, lol.)

And here are some more mannerism to drive the point home: 

So, yeah. I’m not the one making the rules. Joe is heavily coded as gay. Manco, on the other hand, is coded bisexually. And Blondie, well, is a difficult but also very interesting case because he is an autist and a virgin. 

This is it. This is the film.

A Fistful of Dollars (1964) dir. Sergio Leone Alternative poster by Yvan Quinet

Bond title designer Ben Radatz explores the Spaghetti Western tradition of designer Iginio Lardani. A Fistful of Titles: The Westerns of Iginio Lardani on Art of the Title

Just remembered I never posted this meme

I don’t think it’s nice, you laughing. You see, my mule don’t like people laughing. He gets the crazy idea you’re laughing at him. Now if you apologize, like I know you’re going to, I might convince him that you really didn’t mean it. Clint Eastwood as Joe in PER UN PUGNO DI DOLLARI (A Fistful of Dollars, 1964) | dir. Sergio Leone