#ponyboy calling dally queer was kind of funny | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

writersriot · 7 years

Text

The Outsiders Queer Subtext ft. Jally - Part 17

Monday, May 1, 2017

Sorry for the long absence! My usual update is stuck in my drafts lol so I’m writing a fairly quick insert to talk about the Greasers and the Socs as portrayed in the book.

Ponyboy is walking with Johnny, Two-Bit, and Cherry and Marcia after the movies. Pony is realizing that the Socs seem to be just like the Greasers.

It seemed funny to my that Socs -- if these girls were any example -- were just like us. They liked the Beatles and thought Elvis Presley was out, and we thought the Beatles were rank and that Elvis was tuff, but that seemed the only difference to me. Of course greasy girls would have acted a lot tougher, but there was a basic sameness. I thought maybe it was money that separated us. (Pg 37-38)

Now I think this is really interesting coming from Ponyboy. He’s fourteen (14!! Not 13! lol) and he still goes to school with Johnny, so he sees the Socs in that environment, away from the neighborhood rumbles. He seems to think that it’s mostly attitude and money that separates Greasers and Socs.

And I think about Darry sometimes, how he played sports and had Soc friends. I think Darry could have easily been a Soc, despite living in a Greaser neighborhood. The Curtis parents were a point of stability for the whole gang, so we know the Curtis boys have been in the gang for quite a while. I wonder what the parents thought of the fighting and everything, if they tried to keep their boys out of trouble or just let it happen because in a way, it was safer to have friends as backup in that neighborhood.

So what if the Curtis’ had more money and lived in a better part of town? Would all the kids have been more likely to be Socs? If their parents hadn’t died, Darry would have been playing sports, maybe going to college. Soda would still be in school, not feeling like the only thing he can do is work to help Darry support them. And Ponyboy wouldn’t be so stressed at such a young age. Money couldn’t have kept their parents alive, but maybe it could have made living without them a little easier. I don’t know.

So is it just money that separates Greasers from Socs? Cherry doesn’t think so.

“No,” Cherry said slowly when I said this. “It’s not just money. Part of it is, but not all. You greasers have a different set of values. You’re more emotional. We’re sophisticated -- cool to the point of not feeling anything. Nothing is real with us. You know, sometimes I’ll catch myself talking to a girl-friend, and realize I don’t mean half of what I’m saying. I don’t really think a beer blast on the river bottom is super-cool, but I’ll rave about one to a girl-friend just to be saying something.” She smiled at me. “I never told anyone that. I think you’re the first person I’ve ever really gotten through to.”

She was coming through to me all right, probably because I was a greaser, and younger; she didn’t have to keep her guard up with me. (Pg 38)

I just have to laugh for one second that Ponyboy is not even close to being a threat to Cherry. A fourteen-year-old Dally would have been a very different story. So I just want to say how much I love soft Pony and Johnny, okay? I mean, they’re tough but they’re also Soft and I love them both.

As an important aside, Cherry describes talking to her girl-friends just to talk, pretending she likes something just because that’s what they all do. Now, she means it as an example of how the Socs don’t feel anything and barely care about anything. But I see it as having another level of meaning.

How much of our teenage years do people spend pretending to like something or be a certain way just to impress or be liked by others? I feel like that’s a basic tenant of high school life no matter how much we might try to be ourselves. And if someone like Cherry pretends in her everyday life, how can we say who else is pretending or not?

‘Cause you know who ends up pretending or just trying to be like others more often than not? Queer people. Especially baby queers who may only have an inkling that they’re different and that might scare them. I know I did this, pressured into relationships, as did many queer kids I knew at the time. So many people think they’re straight because it’s the only option they know, especially in this generation growing up in the 60s. Thank you, heteronormativity. I just wanted to point that out, to consider in the whole of the book. Especially when Ponyboy as the narrator is fallible and may not fully understand all the dynamics of the gang.

(I could imagine a shy, quiet Johnny just starting to realize his feelings in how he idolizes Dally, while Dally is like “fuck no” all as he is dying over Johnny’s existence.)

So anyway, according to Cherry, the Socs are cool and emotionless while the Greasers run hot and feel everything. The Socs have money, have privilege, have anything they could want so that means they have a difficult time finding meaning in anything. That’s the basis of why Socs get into trouble, fucking shit up and fighting. The Greasers really have nothing but each other, so that’s what they fight for because no one else will do it. They don’t have money, they barely have family outside their gangs, so all they can do is rail against the world.

That was the truth. Socs were always behind a wall of aloofness, careful not to let their real selves show through. I had seen a social-club rumble once. The Socs even fought coldly and practically and impersonally.

“That’s why we’re separated,” I said. “It’s not money, it’s feeling -- you don’t feel anything and we feel too violently.” (Pg 38)

I want to call a little bit of BS here just because money and the following privilege is a huge part of how the Socs and Greasers live every day. It’s in how they are raised by their socialite parents to have everything except maybe what they really need to care about, like love. It’s in how they might have nothing but a group of friends to watch their back, and how they will throw down everything for love of their chosen families.

It’s a stereotype that money and privilege beget this cool, aloof behavior of not caring about stuff, but here it seems to have some truth to it. And we know people who struggle every day for every little thing they have can be some of the most empathetic and giving people. I see a lot of this in these characters. I want to say Socs fight to maybe feel something while Greasers fight to numb themselves. It’s a fascinating dichotomy that still exists in various ways today.

And I can’t leave this comparison without talking about Dally. So knowing this is what Pony thinks about Greasers, how they feel too much too violently. . .what I want to know once again is why does this kid think Dallas Winston is a cold, emotionless bad guy? I mean, yes the seventeen-year-old acts like he’s seen and experienced everything, and hell, maybe he has. He fucks shit up and rolls little kids because it’s all he knows. Out of all the gang, he probably causes the most trouble. So by Pony’s reasoning here, that would likely mean Dally feels more than anyone else. He’s been through so much shit from such an early age, and he acts out because he can’t handle it. I just. I’ve said this all before and I’ll say it again, but I can’t with Dally. I love him. He is not Soft like Johnny, but he is Tough in a way that makes me want to protect him. Dally is Tough because inside he is vulnerable and Soft.

Yet Pony seems to think Dally cares about nothing and no one, when time and again Dally proves the opposite to be true just by how he treats everyone in the gang, especially Johnny. Dally cares, but Pony somehow doesn’t see it?? This is why I can’t necessarily take Pony’s narration seriously because he only sees his part of the story, and the text on the page only hints at the stuff Pony doesn’t experience. So a lot of important reading of The Outsiders depends on the subtext, and catching the hints and extrapolating on what is unsaid as much as what is stated outright. SE Hinton might not be aware of what kind of subtext she was setting up when she wrote this as a teenager. . .but I sure as hell see it and it’s queer af.

That’s all for now. I meant this to be short but it still took me a few hours lol oh well.

Until the next part~

#outsiders queer subtext series #jally #ponyboy curtis #cherry valance #dallas winston #greasers #the outsiders #se hinton

19 notes · View notes

writersriot · 7 years

Text

The Outsiders Queer Subtext ft. Jally - Part 14

Sunday, March 5, 2017

We’re still at the drive-in when Two-Bit comes into the scene, and I love him. He scares the shit out of Johnny, which isn’t cool, but then he proceeds to flirt and banter with Marcia, which lol, I ship them for that alone. Two-Bit and Marcia together are funny, with a great back-and-forth aspect. We don’t get much of Marcia, but in this moment she is great.

So Two-Bit kinda takes digs at the fact that Ponyboy and Johnny are sitting with Cherry and Marcia. But the moment Two-Bit brings Johnny into the conversation about who picked up whom, Johnny wants it to stop.

“Aw, cut it out!” Johnny broke in. “Dally was bothering them and when he left they wanted us to sit with them to protect them. Against wisecracking greasers like you, probably.”

Two-Bit grinned, because Johnny didn’t usually get sassy like that. We thought we were doing good if we could get him to talk at all. Incidentally, we don’t mind being called greaser by another greaser. It’s kind of playful then.

“Hey, where is ol’ Dally, anyways?”

“He went hunting some action -- booze or dames or a fight. I hope he don’t get jailed again. He just got out.” (Pg 28-29)

I love sassy Johnny. Again, I have the feeling that Johnny is more sassy than the other boys realize. My subtext interpretation is that he might be a little more open with Dally, due to previous instances where Dally expected Johnny to talk to him. Maybe he didn’t expect Johnny to “talk back” to him, especially in front of others or girls he’s trying to pick up, but even still. Ponyboy makes it a point to mention once again how quiet Johnny usually is, that even Two-Bit is amused at Johnny being sassy.

But why does Johnny cut into Two-Bit and Marcia’s fun though? Why is it this flirtatious banter that makes Johnny want to speak up? I have no idea. Maybe he’s just shy and embarrassed, maybe he doesn’t want to be associated with the girls in something potentially improper. It’s even better to think about because Johnny plays down sitting with the girls. Remember when Pony said Johnny grinned at the idea of them having a story to tell the guys? Yeah, well, here’s Johnny’s chance to puff up his chest and tell Two-Bit how he and Pony picked up the girls when Dally couldn’t.

Yet that’s not what happens. Johnny specifically acts like it’s no big deal and that he and Pony weren’t there to hook up with the girls at all. Pony doesn’t say anything either, and maybe they wouldn’t with the girls right there, it could be that simple. But it’s interesting to consider. The way Pony thinks the situation might go or the motivations for something versus how it actually plays out. I don’t know.

Also, it doesn’t say who responds to Two-Bit about where Dally is, but as he was talking to Johnny, I assumed it to still be him. If that is the case, it’s interesting that Johnny thinks Dally went looking for more action. He knows Dally well enough to know he’ll only be doing one of a few things. And he cares about Dally getting in trouble and going to jail again, despite how Dally acts like he’s proud of his extensive record. Everyone wants Dally to stay out of trouble, I’m sure, but still. Johnny, who rarely talks, expresses his concern for Dally seeking out more trouble. He wouldn’t want one of his few friends to disappear again when he just got out of jail.

This lends itself a lot to one of my previous notions Johnny probably wants better for Dally. He hero-worships Dally, yet he’s fundamentally opposite from Johnny, but that doesn’t stop him. Johnny knows Dally is tough and rough all around, but he still likely sees something more and better in him, and expects Dally to be better. Johnny wouldn’t change Dally because then Dally wouldn’t be himself, but I think that motivation is still in the background. You can hero-worship someone and have high expectations for them while still seeing their true nature. But again, Johnny and Dally are complementary opposites and foils, so I see this aspect to their relationship more than most, which I will discuss again in future parts.

So why do you think Johnny plays off him and Pony sitting with the girls to Two-Bit instead of bragging like Ponyboy thought about previously? And does anyone else ship Two-Bit and Marcia from this scene lol?

Until the next part~

#outsiders queer subtext series #jally #johnny cade #dallas winston #ponyboy curtis #two-bit matthews #the outsiders #se hinton

5 notes · View notes