Homoerotic subtext

Hmm, very interesting analysis.

That's pretty much what I understood from the film too.

I do not agree, you have to see it in the light of american culture and african culture. American culture is prudent towards this. African culture is easier, men holding hands, being physically close is normal, nothing homoerotic about this. The fact that he stayed in his room was more a macho thing, like we're not going to be sissies. The scene in which he said: you love me, was an expression of power, an expression of bonding though in a very strange way.

Yes, excellent points -- I thought that Amin was sort of a charismatic father figure for Nicholas in a way -- Nicholas had a cold, detached father and Amin seemed warm, spontaneous,and indulgent (in a good way initially). Also I think the scene in which Amin barges in on the changing/naked Nicholas shows that Amin had no respect for the boundaries of others. It is also a way of asserting dominance over Nicholas -- he realizes that Nicholas is uncomfortable but he is pushing him.

"Hearts and kidneys are tinker toys! I am talking about the central nervous system!"

I really would not have put that slant on it at all. When amin tells the doctor that he loves him, it was more like "I am the leader and my people love me" ie more of a paternal kind of love.
as for looking at him getting changed, he could have just wanted to see if white men had smaller penises than black men. oh no, wait, yes you are right

Interesting take . . . but I don't think what you're talking about is "homoerotic." People (read: Americans) see "homoerotic subtexts" in situations WAY too loosely (especially in movies/books/etc. depicting male behavior and relationships in foreign cultures). I learned this lesson traveling around the world; my sheltered American ideas about male "distance" and "propriety" were tested and shattered many times. For instance, in Europe, no one thinks two young males traveling around together (even staying in the same small hotel room) is at all odd . . . whereas we in America would look twice and make instant assumptions. But you are right that there is more to sexual "energy" than actual sex. In most foreign cultures, what we might interpret as "homoerotic" is usually in fact power and ranking games (including the crowning of the "alpha"), if you will. Women go about this process in a different way.

I think there are people out there who are obsessed that MacDonald's films have homoerotic subtext.

Update on my opinion: Amin was a dictator and probably had a sense of propriety over Nicolas and pretty much anyone he came across, which may have read as sexual.

And there was that scene where they smell each others farts. VERY EROTIC, don't you think?

That scene has beer, ASSpirin, and a bat. The doctor gets behind the big black dude and uses the bat.

I am laughing hard as I am typing this.

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Use the Force.