MovieChat Forums > The Warriors (1979) Discussion > Why do people like Ajax?

Why do people like Ajax?

posted 8 years ago by johnphillipxiii
33 replies | jump to latest

So I've just been binging on The Warriors having only discovered its existence the other day and loving it. I've seen the movie, the extra DVD content, some of the reunion stuff, and read a bunch of reviews and message board posts and one thing I can't figure out is...

Why do people like Ajax?

I've seen more than a few people expressing positive feelings about him. And I'm a bit stunned. What am I not seeing? What is it about him that you liked or think other people liked?

He seemed thoroughly vile to me. Most offensive about him was his seriously rape-y elements, wanting to rape Mercy, wanting to rape the girl in the park, making other crude comments about women. He seemed to be pretty needlessly gay hating (considering the lack of gay people/situations). And he pointlessly challenged Swann in the beginning. The others may not have been angels, but their humanity seemed more intact and you could imagine any/all of them being rehabilitated with time or effort. But Ajax will surely spend the rest of his life fighting men and raping women. What's there to like?

(Not trying to start a fight here, just genuinely curious what I'm not seeing.)

[–] quirkyusername (59) 6 years ago

If you are a millennial don't watch any movie before 2000's. Otherwise you'll be making threads like this all day long.

[–] whynotwriteme (7443) 6 years ago

The millennials have been indoctrinated with that PC stuff every day of their lives, at least since they started school and sometimes even earlier due to TV. They have this weird compulsion to constantly virtue-signal to the world about how enlightened they are and how they are offended or do not approve of anything that does not conform to their SJW worldview.

They really don't seem to understand the difference between fantasy and reality. It's incomprehensible to them that someone could vicariously enjoy watching an unsavory character doing things that the viewer finds distasteful in reality. To them, if you like a vicious or evil character in a piece of fiction, it means you yourself are vicious or evil in real life.

Millennials are basically weird neo-puritans, albeit with a very different value system than historical puritans.

[–] TheEngineer (199) 6 years ago

It's very simple. It's because Ajax is the most well acted and developed character in the film. James Remar gave a hell of a performance and he exemplifies the scrappy, macho, young, somewhat insecure and inadequate nature of the characters the movie follows.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Best looking one.

[–] Jeepster (1054) 4 years ago

Thing is i love Ajax, he’s the best fighter in the group & the most fearless one too. He’s someone you want at your side when things go down, he ain’t no b!tch. IMO it’s easy to like someone like Ajax, for a gang member he’s more of a lone wolf type who probably knew he had to be part of a gang & not go it alone if he wanted to survive. He’s direct to the point of being in your face as in his banter with Mercy but still not overly disrespectful.

He’s aggressive, especially regarding with some of the ladies but that doesn’t make him no rapist as some of you make him out to be. Again he’s aggressive, that’s the best way to put it, he comes on way too strong but he didn’t even do anything to the undercover cop lady. She was bait & she took the first one who bit, no matter what the action was. The movie doesn’t specify what may have happened to him afterwards but the thing is i don’t see him getting any kind of real time for that, c’mon now. A slap on the wrists, a couple of days in the cell maybe & out on the street again. After all what could they possibly hold him with? People here seem to think he went to prison for God’s sake, you all must be crazy.

But I see him as some one who has some kind of code, HIS code, you know what I mean?

[–] TheArgentinian (6666) a year ago

Because toxic masculinity. He represents what some men (the Andrew Tate fans-type) think manhood is.