My Own Private Idaho – Bitch Flicks

How ‘My Own Private Idaho’ Changed My Life as a Bisexual Man

The film never demonizes either Mike or Scott for their sexuality or their profession, which is great, but it also never feels the need to explain their sexuality. Maybe these characters haven’t quite figured it out yet. Maybe Mike is gay and maybe Scott is straight, or maybe they’re both bisexual, but from the film itself, it makes more sense to me to not label them. They simply fall somewhere on the wide spectrum of sexuality. You have no idea how important it is for me to see this on-screen.

This guest post written by Logan Kenny appears as part of our theme week on Bisexual Representation.

My Own Private Idaho‘s Mike (River Phoenix) is always destined to end up in the same place. No matter where he goes, he will always end up on this deserted road in Idaho where the film begins. He can go anywhere in the world and he’ll end up back where he started, dealing with his thoughts, his fading memories, and his narcolepsy. This is his existence, almost the entirety of it: go somewhere, meet people, have sex, come back here. My Own Private Idaho is an almost aimless film, there is no traditional narrative and many scenes occur with no real sense or purpose. While there is sometimes the idea of a plot or narrative goal, the film isn’t really about that; instead, it’s a film about characters and how they live their lives, their circumstances, and the things that haunt them.

Mike is a hustler living on the streets, the cities change but that stays the same. He’s a drifter and a sex worker. His narcolepsy affects every part of his existence: frequently when he engages in sexual acts, his body shakes and he falls to the ground. Mike is haunted by his past, often having flashbacks: visions of a house crashing down onto the road and smashing completely; the same woman is always there, looking at him; so close yet not there. Mike stands on a road in Idaho and collapses. The film then cuts to Seattle where Mike receives oral sex from a male client. The film doesn’t show how Mike ended up here, it doesn’t matter; he’s here now and won’t be for long. He engages with a few clients before ending up with a wealthy woman (Grace Zabriskie). His friend Scott (Keanu Reeves) and acquaintance Gary (Rodney Harvey) are there as well. Scott is Mike’s best friend, the man who carries him when he loses consciousness, holds him when he cries, and who never seems to fail to make Mike a bit happier. This journey is as much Scott’s as it is Mike’s. These two are connected under the same circumstances, yet different reasons have brought them together.

Mike has no other way to make money. He has a dysfunctional relationship with his father and is haunted by his mother leaving him. The family collapsing, the house falling down and breaking apart. Scott is here to kill time. He has sex with men for money not because he needs it but because the prospect of living like Mike thrills him. Scott lives on the streets and drifts from place to place in order to experience life. He’s a rich kid, the son of a mayor. This existence is merely temporary for Scott. He does seem to genuinely care about Mike though, their relationship is extremely strong and he’s willing to do a lot for his friend. Mike is quite awkward and reluctant to truly be himself. He doesn’t really interact well with many people apart from Scott. In certain scenes, Mike only starts speaking loudly because Scott did first. Scott is the opposite, as he’s immensely charismatic and outspoken. He can interact with seemingly anyone and his charm benefits him especially in sexual situations.

Whenever Mike has a narcoleptic attack, My Own Private Idaho either shows Scott or someone else deal with the situation, or the film cuts to a title screen, stating the name of their current location. This is a film about a journey yet we never really get to witness it. The audience experiences snippets, tiny fractions of the characters’ lives, which is perfect because this film works much better without a conventional narrative and character arcs. Some characters do achieve proper resolution by the film’s end, this chapter of their lives has concluded and the next one shall begin. Other characters will continue meandering through life, destined for nothing but to repeat the same cycle over and over. This sounds really bleak, and it certainly is, but it’s not nihilistic. It’s a remarkably human film where every character, whether likable or not, feels alive and three-dimensional. Mike and Scott are sympathetic people, you grow to care about both of them. You form a real connection with the two of them as the film progresses, which makes the overall bleakness of the film much more genuinely affecting.

The acting is incredible, especially by River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves. One of the most powerful moments in My Own Private Idaho — which is amplified considering that Phoenix died not long after — is the scene where Mike and Scott ride through Portland on a motorbike. When they stop at a red light, they start talking about how long they’ve driven down the street and how long they’ve known each other. Then Scott says, “We’re still alive,” and my heart shatters every time I hear that line. Phoenix is revelatory throughout; this is a star-making performance. He captures vulnerability better than most actors ever could and conveys so much emotional range. Keanu is also brilliant, showcasing so much power as an actor at such a young age. There are frequent shots of just his face which are some of the most poignant moments of the film. He is far more subtle than Phoenix but his approach is just as wonderful.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film is that about a third of it is based on William Shakespeare’s Henry V, along with Shakespeare inspired dialogue. These scenes all take place in Portland, where Scott’s father is the mayor. Every scene with Bob Pigeon (William Richert), the middle-aged leader of the men on the street, is presented with long speeches, using certain phrases and language that wouldn’t commonly be used in the time period of the film. This adds to the overall strangeness of the film’s universe, that this world on the street is unlike anywhere else. This reality is different, this place changes people; even the mayor talks in this style of speech. The entire city is a surreal descent into another existence: an existence of depravity, robbery, sex, infrequent drug use, and long soliloquies. These scenes all feel disjointed, almost as if they don’t belong, but in a good way. The film’s tone is often bizarre, to say the least. There is a scene where Mike and Scott are represented as talking models in magazine covers which remarkably manages to be weirder than it sounds. A lot of the imagery in flashbacks and several supporting characters also contribute to the film’s surrealistic tone.

Nearly halfway through the film, a template of a plot is introduced. There is a narrative guide, motivations for the characters, and an actual destination. Mike wants to find his mother and Scott accompanies him in this journey. Yet, this doesn’t really feel like the focus of the film. Mike’s mother is crucial to the story because of her absence. His memories of her are hazy at best and it seems that he wants to find her in order to fix himself: not the narcolepsy, but rather his sense of aimlessness. My Own Private Idaho has no interest in making this a sentimental experience nor does it want to make it like any other cinematic journey. The addition of an admittedly bare-bones plot doesn’t really change the film thematically and is clearly designed to further develop and portray the main characters. The events that take place during Mike and Scott’s travels are without a doubt some of the best sequences in film, especially the campfire scene which I won’t spoil. It’s melancholic throughout and from this point onward, becomes increasingly pensive and poignant. The last 20 minutes are flawless and the ending is perfect. When the end credits roll, I always think that it is one of the best films ever made. I love it so much.

I’m discussing this film thematically because its themes are so central to its portrayal of sexuality, or more specifically, its lack of definition of the sexuality of its protagonists. Mike is clearly attracted to men and it’s never expressly stated that he is attracted to women. But Scott is clearly attracted to women but also has sexual interactions with men for money. My belief is that neither Mike or Scott are gay or straight but both fall somewhere in the middle. I don’t think I can specifically call either of them bisexual or pansexual, since sexuality is very hard for some to define, especially if we aren’t given explicit self-identification or clear insight into their sexual orientations. The film never demonizes either Mike or Scott for their sexuality or their profession, which is great, but it also never feels the need to explain their sexuality. Maybe these characters haven’t quite figured it out yet. Maybe Mike is gay and maybe Scott is straight, or maybe they’re both bisexual, but from the film itself, it makes more sense to me to not label them. They simply fall somewhere on the wide spectrum of sexuality. You have no idea how important it is for me to see this on-screen.

I’m a bisexual man. I realized I was bi earlier this year. I haven’t known who I really am for very long and since I’m young, I still have a lot to learn about myself. The first time I watched My Own Private Idaho was the first time I felt like I wasn’t straight. It kick-started my awakening sexuality, the first step of many in realizing who I truly am. It was the first time I felt sexual desires towards men and for a couple weeks, I thought that I could be gay since I thought like this. Then I realized that I was attracted to both women and men and I didn’t have to choose; I could be attracted to both and that would be okay. I came out to my parents, a lot of my friends, and my girlfriend. This film changed everything about my life, nothing was the same for me after watching.

Rewatching the film means even more to me as a bi man because of how it portrays sexuality, something that passed me by the first time. I started to notice so much more and I cried a lot. That’s okay though because this film means more to me than I can ever fully describe. We need more films with the sexual representation of My Own Private Idaho so that other queer kids like me can figure out who they really are. It is truly a spectacular piece of work.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

A Place to Call Home: The Search for Love and Identity in My Own Private Idaho

Logan Kenny is a bisexual man with autism. He has an obsessive love of movies and music. He frequently rambles about lots of trivial things. You can follow him on Twitter @LoganKenny1.

A Place to Call Home: The Search for Love and Identity in ‘My Own Private Idaho’

In many ways, Gus Van Sant’s ‘My Own Private Idaho’ is a film about duality, weaving together conflicting stories about love, family and the inescapable lure of home, even when it is a place you can never go back to again. And that duality also lends itself heavily to the sexual identities of the film’s main characters, Mike and Scott, two street hustlers with opposite views of their own bisexuality…

This guest post written by Jamie Righetti appears as part of our theme week on Bisexual Representation.

In many ways, Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho (1991) is a film about duality, weaving together conflicting stories about love, family and the inescapable lure of home, even when it is a place you can never go back to again. And that duality also lends itself heavily to the sexual identities of the film’s main characters, Mike (River Phoenix) and Scott (Keanu Reeves), two street hustlers with opposite views of their own bisexuality, as well as the fulfillment they receive from their life on the street and where it will ultimately take them.

The film’s primary story follows Mike, a scrappy street hustler prone to frequent fits of narcolepsy during which he recalls memories of his mother and his childhood home. Mike bounces around between Seattle and Portland, living rough on the streets and hanging out with other street kids in the same restaurant to keep out of the cold. Mike hustles out of necessity, making just enough to eat and sometimes weaseling extra money out of clients to get by. On the flip side, there is Scott, the handsome son of Portland’s mayor and the heir apparent. As the rich kid slumming it for fun and (according to him) playing gay for pay, Scott serve as a direct foil to Mike as both a character and a subplot in the film.

It is worth nothing that despite the fluidity present in both characters’ sexuality, the film still tends to use very binary language and coding with its depiction of sex work. Mike and Scott are referred to as “street hustlers” rather than prostitutes, which serves to reinforce Scott’s claim that he “only has sex with men for money.” Having sex for pay helps root their identity within the boundaries of masculinity and serves as a direct contrast to selling one’s body for sex, something presumably only women can do. This is further highlighted in our first glimpse of Mike with a client, during which he is being serviced by a client, rather than the opposite. Furthermore, there is often an erasure of Mike’s bisexuality based on his attraction to Scott. Although Mike is seen with more male clients than female ones, he does go home with an older female client and, prior to his narcoleptic episode, seems both willing and interested in sleeping with her. The duality present in both Mike and Scott’s sexuality is not only central to a film about identity but also in understanding the complexities of both characters, who are not as simple as the gay and straight labels often stuck on them.

The duality of My Own Private Idaho also plays out in strange ways at times. Midway through the film, as the story begins to center on Scott, the dialogue and characters take on a Shakespearean tinge. Van Sant has spoken about the influence of Henry IV and Henry V on the film, which is further explored with the introduction of Bob (William Richert), a Falstaff parallel and father-figure to Mike, Scott, and the ragtag crew of street kids they spend time with. While these scenes might feel slightly out of place, especially alongside the gravity of Mike’s story and the search for his mother, they give important insight into Scott. In a conversation with Bob, Scott reveals that he’s just shy of his twenty-first birthday, which is when he will inherit his father’s money. When this happens, Scott will leave the streets and go back to his old life. Within this context, the antiquated Shakespearean dialogue, which feels forced and hollow, serves as a metaphor for Scott, who is well-liked but truly out of place in a world of misfits who don’t have a comfortable identity to fall back on when they get bored.

But while Scott has willingly turned his back on his family, Mike is desperate to reconnect with his. He brings Scott along to Idaho to see his estranged brother to seek out information about where his mother is staying. Mike finds an odd comfort in his narcoleptic flashbacks and his quest in some way is a search for his first love, the one that nostalgia has deemed pure and simple. By reinforcing the purity of true love, it will allow him to validate not just his feelings for Scott but also his bisexuality as a whole, which is often at odds with his lifestyle, where love is commoditized and quantified, and where his sexual preferences must be fluid for profit but never real.

There is perhaps no greater example of this than in the film’s famous campfire confession, a scene which Phoenix himself rewrote. During their road trip from Portland to Idaho, Mike and Scott are forced to camp out in the desert overnight. As they huddle around a meager fire, Mike struggles to open up to Scott and confess his deep feelings. There is a stabbing ache of recognition that comes when Mike timidly asks Scott what he means to him, as both men are suddenly very aware of the weight behind those whispered words. Scott in turn, declares that Mike is his best friend but nothing more.

Recalling an earlier scene in which Mike and Scott are cover boys on gay magazines, Scott tells Mike that he only has sex for money, despite him not being in need of the cash. Before Mike can object, Scott adds as a hasty afterthought: “And two guys can’t love each other.” For Scott, his sexuality is rooted in flawed logic that as long as he’s providing a service and not ascribing any true emotion to sex, he can have his fun and still identify as straight. But his actions seem to contradict this, as he has chosen to hustle not out of necessity but because he enjoys it. For Scott, his chosen lifestyle allows him the freedom to fully explore and express his bisexuality in a way in which his upbringing could never allow. But the roots of his childhood are too deep for him to fully shake and instead, he must mask his sexuality as a commodity, in order to allow him to eventually return to his former life.

Perhaps seeing through this, Mike counters by trying to poke logic into this theory. “Well, I don’t know,” he says. “I could love someone even if I, you know, wasn’t paid for it. I love you, and you don’t pay me.” There is a purity in Mike that is quite absent in Scott, as he is more than certain that his feelings for Scott are real. But despite this, he is still seeking validation – not only love that is returned but that it can be acceptable as love. Scott, however, is unable to return this affection because it will break his own construction of his sexuality, which can only be cast in black and white.

It’s a brilliant and raw scene in which Phoenix oozes vulnerability and insecurity, even physically turning in on himself to shield himself from Scott’s rejection. In the end, Scott feels bad for his friend and calls him over to go to sleep. The two embrace, with Mike folding into Scott’s arms, dutifully accepting the scraps of affection he’s allowed, while swallowing down his unrequited attraction. The two continue their journey as if nothing has happened, but as an audience we’re now attuned to an extra layer of melancholy that surrounds Mike and his interactions with Scott.

In Italy, Scott and Mike’s stories diverge once again, as Scott falls in love with Carmella (Chiara Caselli), an Italian woman living at the farmhouse where Mike’s mother was last seen. It is Carmella who tells the two that Mike’s mother returned home, making his trip (and the things he did to finance it) pointless. Mike sticks around, waiting for Scott so they can return home but Scott is distracted by Carmella. A brokenhearted Mike is subjected to several nights of overheard pleasure between thin bedroom walls before Scott finally hands him a ticket home and abandons him in Italy. But as with many of Scott’s actions, it feels slightly disingenuous. While he certainly is attracted to Carmella, it also feels convenient that he can use her as a means of escape, thereby blocking any reciprocal feelings for Mike that he might be repressing.

Likewise, the telegram Scott receives regarding his father’s death serves as a final nail in the coffin for his old life. Upon his return to Portland, Scott has stepped into his old shoes, riding around in limousines, wearing expensive suits and shunning anyone from his former life, including his one-time mentor and father figure, Bob. In a beautiful juxtaposition, Scott is attending his father’s funeral service, a demure and somber affair, at the same time that Mike and his former friends are celebrating the life of Bob, who died of a broken heart after Scott’s rejection. Scott eyes his former friends with an almost unreadable look on his face; neither envious nor angry, but perhaps (picking up where Mike left off) simply seeking comfort in nostalgia, while simultaneously knowing it is a place where he can never return.

The film then ends on an appropriately ambiguous note. Mike is once again in Idaho on “his” road, the one that reminds him of a “fucked up face.” He collapses after another narcoleptic fit and is robbed of his things by a passing pick-up truck. Finally, a car pulls up and an unseen person picks up Mike and drives away with him. It is unclear if he has been rescued or if he is in danger but it is clear that either way, he (and Scott) won’t find a happy ending. While Mike has the freedom to revel in the lifestyle and bisexuality that Scott can no longer can afford, he also is lacking the comfort of reciprocal love that Scott now has in Carmella. Likewise, neither can ever go back home, quite literally for Mike and metaphorically for Scott, again. It is a bittersweet conclusion that renders Mike’s fate irrelevant and makes us in turn seek to return “home” to the earlier scenes where both men were free to love without fear.

Jamie Righetti is an author and freelance film critic from New York City. Her work has been featured on Film School Rejects and Daily Grindhouse, as well as in Belladonna magazine. Jamie is the host of the horror podcast, ScreamBros, and she has just released her debut novel, Beechwood Park, which is currently available on Amazon. You can follow her on Twitter @JamieRighetti.