Midnight Cowboy Review

519 Words3 Pages
Mightnight Cowboy (1969) is a realistic, drama film with some serious content and context, from director John Schlesinger. Midnight Cowboy (1969) is about a cowboy from Texas, Joe Buck, who dreams of making it big in New York City. The film Midnight Cowboy is filled with a lot of symbolism. As even the title has some secret meaning behind it, for midnight cowboy is codeword for a “male hustler,” with prostitution as the main theme throughout the movie. Prostitution runs deep within Joe Buck, as seen within his flashbacks. With the flashbacks, mostly of his mother, grandmother, or long-time lover Annie, the viewer is able to see that Buck spent most of his life either living with his mother or grandmother and their various lovers, and no real father—one can assume that his mother and grandmother might be prostitutes themselves. The flashbacks indicate his mother and grander mother, as well as Annie, are the source on why Joe wants to be a male prostitute, because they influenced him to be the suave, slick ladies man. But Buck isn’t that at all, he is the typical country boy: nice, sweet, and fun; and he wants what every country boy dreams of: making it in the big city. Religion is another important symbol in the movie. Religion is brought up several times throughout the film. For example, after having sex with Cass in the hotel room, Buck is watching T.V. And while watching T.V. as priest comes on and says, “Do you think God is dead?” Also, Buck has many flashbacks of religious events, such as being baptized, seeing Christ on the cross, and the Jesus Saves graffiti, while he listens to a faith healer on the radio, on the abandoned building when first walking into New York. So it’s clear that Buck is a religious person at heart, but not all of his religious experiences have been good ones. However, Buck is looking for some type of religious belief to engrain
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