How to Read Gay Subtext: Dead Poets Society

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#gay #dead poets society #lgbt

[sarahturner]

you didn't even get the moment when mr. keating forces todd to make up poetry in class and it cuts to neil with the absolute most love-stricken face i've ever seen like COME ON

[kaitlynwetzel]

i highly recommend watching the deleted scenes as well ! there’s a specific scene when todd is helping neil learn his lines for the show. in the scene, neil is fully in character, reading out his lines passionately. todd on the other hand is quietly reading them out in his typical shy and quiet tone. neil starts telling todd about how much he loves “this” talking about “acting”. eventually neil and todd reach the dock outside while walking and reading lines, and todd goes back to his shy and quiet tone. neil tells him to read it loudly, read it with passion. and todd does just that. it’s the first time in the film that todd opens himself up like that. that loudly and that passionately. yelling those lines to the whole world. they’re laughing and loving it. at the end of the film, after todd finds out neil has taken his own life, todd runs outside into the snow. eventually, todd breaks free from his friends and runs back to the dock. he breaks down yelling for neil. i think it’s very representative of how much neil helped todd become himself much more than before. the dock scene is also just super cute !

[achuuz]

I watched DPS in English class as a young gay teen and not only cried infront of my entire class (which was embarrassing) but also weirded out my very straight classmates when I told them that Neil and Todd were like definitely in love. I would fight anyone on this.

[CosimoPiovasco]

I'm rewatching the movie and I think we should not overlook the fact that Neil's father way to "correct" his son was trying to send him to the military school.

[angelafregoneze]

the fact that my dad, a heterossexual cis man, looked at me and asked "neil and todd were something more, weren't they? because that reaction was way to deep compared to the other ones, I wouldn't react like that if a friend of mine died, but if your mother did die, than it would be something like that" just proves that yes, this movie is gay, and I love it.

[dreamsandmemories]

“That boy was a homosexual and that’s why his father didn’t except him” -my parents after I forced them to watch Dead poet society

[magma]

If that "No." doesn't qualify as flirting, I don't know what does.

Also, if Neil and Todd were different genders, this movie would be widely considered a romance classic.

[Pineapple_Coffee]

Worth noting that Gale Hansen (Charlie Dalton) has FULLY endorsed the headcanon that Charlie is bi and non-binary. He’s also said that, in his opinion, Charlie knew that something was going on between Neil and Todd, but he never got any concrete answers in canon.
Basically, Gale has the entire DPS fandom under his wing and we love him for it.

[MarcusVinicius-zkxs]

"so just like Timothee Chalamet, his entire life is queer coded" I genuinely screamed at it

[pertempus]

Also it’s so important to note that when Neil died, Charlie who had known him for years took it upon himself to be there for Todd and take care of him, knowing that he would be affected the most because of something deeper

[Alton-loves-mothman]

I always thought that Neil's dad was NOT a "omg my son is an actor" reaction. It was and "oh my god my son is GAY." reaction. I related with him so much as a kid and I didn't know why until I got older.

[Carolina-wzqo]

I was so confused when I read "gay subtext" in the title because i genuinely forgot that this movie *isn't* gay

[frankenstein]

it's interesting to me that they chose a midsummer's night dream, a play about people running away because one of their fathers doesn't approve of their marriage, as the play in dead poets society

[viktorlattanzi]

Also: neil was everyone's friend, he was charlie's best friend for way more time than todd, so why didn't he have the same reaction as todd? This just proves they're boyfriends.



(/hj)

[taylah]

as put in this really amazing essay i read on dead poets society:
“Dead Poets Society has as its central concern the rite of passage from boyhood to (heterosexual) manhood. Neil fails to make this transition. He is unable to achieve identification with either his repressive father or the liberal (an unswervingly heterosexual) Keating. His sacrifice allows Todd to find his ‘voice;’ his barbaric yawp is ‘Neil.’ The forbidden love is given eternal life and remembrance through death.”

[forthefrogs]

Todd running out onto the dock after Neil's death is so informative of how lost he feels, just standing there alone without his best friend. In deleted scenes, Todd is helping Neil practice lines for the play, and they giddily talk with each other while walking their way down to the dock and standing together overlooking the lake. It makes that scene a new level of heart-breaking.

[urmom-xiod]

this movie ended after the play and todd and niel are living happily and being gay 😌

[AdeleLavigne]

You didn’t talk about the heart eyes Neil gave Todd when during he recited his poem in front of the class!🤣

[ytdcyls]

2:55 I haven’t seen anyone mentioning this, but Lord Alfred Douglas who was a poet and a LOVER of Oscar Wilde actually wrote a poem about Oscars death which is called The Dead Poet (you know like THE DREAD POETS SOCIETY). I can personally see some paralers bettween this poem and Niel and Todd. I'll leave the poem bellow.

The Dead Poet


I dreamed of him last night, I saw his face

All radiant and unshadowed of distress, 

And as of old, in music measureless, 

I heard his golden voice and marked him trace

Under the common thing the hidden grace, 
And conjure wonder out of emptiness

Till mean things put on beauty like a dress
And all the world was an enchanted place.

And then methought outside a fast locked gate
I mourned the loss of unrecorded words, 
Forgotten tales and mysteries half said, 
Wonders that might have been articulate, 

And voiceless thoughts like murdered singing birds.

And so I woke and knew he was dead.

[LowChoBro]

I always understood his death not as an indictment on Mr. Keating, but on his father and the system of oppression within the society. The fact that Mr. Keating is punished is an injustice recognized by the students in that final act of "O Captain My Captain" scene. Ultimately the triumph in that moment is that despite what the school has framed as the "consequences" the students recognize the truth of what Mr. Keating had done for them and take pride in it.