Among his many interesting suggestions, Dennis P. Bingham
made one ambivalent comment upon which I'd like to comment
(ambivalently).

That is:  I think parts of the comment are off-target, but
I'm not upset about this.  Rather, I think looking at the
question provides some insight into interesting aspects of
the film.

Bingham suggested that part of Kubrick's postmodernism
involves a play with familiar "cultural signs and types."
Amongst these "types" which he identifies as "troubling"
are:  "a prostitute's Asian clients, a New York Jewish
tailor (who looks a bit like Kubrick himself), an anxious
gay man."

All of these descriptions I find slightly off target, which
I think underlines the fact that the types themselves may
not be so fixed.

[SPOILERS ALERT:  IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM STOP READING
NOW.]

Example one:  what Bingham identifies as "a prostitute's
Asian clients."  The character is not yet a prostitute when
we first meet them, and they're in drag and in their
underwear (semi-drag? un-drag?).  Exactly which Asian
stereotype is this?  It's all a bit too mixed up and
perverse to be easily decipherable.

Later when these two men appear, they do indeed seem to be
the girl's clients (with her father's blessings).  At that
point they're dressed in something closer to business
attire, and then we might say they're stereotyped Asian
businessmen--had we not already seen them in wigs and
makeup.

Example two:  why is the tailor "Jewish"--or "New York
Jewish," to be more exact?  I read him as middle-eastern or
Arab American.  Is he a type?  And he isn't really a
tailor:  he rents costumes.  Does the tailor-ness make him
closer to a type or narrow middle-eastern-ness to
Jewishness?

Third example:  the anxious gay man.  Are you thinking of
the hotel clerk?  Considering he's describing a hotel patron
with a bruise being rushed out of the hotel by two big
thugs, he doesn't seem nearly anxious enough!  It's not
really his anxiousness to me that codes him as gay, but
rather the way he's so complicitous with the Tom Cruise
character.

The fact that the role is played by an actor I believe to be
gay helps me code him that way.  It also seems like one of
the few rational justifications one can come up with for why
he would be so forthcoming with a total stranger--doctor or
no.

To me this is a delicious scene, because the actor just
seems to want to eat Tom Cruise alive:  he's practically
drooling, as I would be if I met Tom Cruise.

This does also fit with the use of (Proppian) 'helper'
characters in the film and helps lend it a fairy tale
quality.  (This is also lifted from _North By Northwest_.)
Everyone the hero meets seems to help him:  (a) because he's
a doctor, (b) because he's charming as all getout, and (c)
becaus otherwise the film couldn't happen.

Try, just try, to find that many people to help you do
*anything* in New York City.  (Kubrick's isolation from
reality perhaps takes its toll here--unless you don't want
the film to be about the New York we know but rather a fairy
tale version, which actually makes a bit more sense.)

Perhaps my point is the same as Bingham's:  one needs
certain categories in order to read the film, but the film
also refuses these categories to some extent.

Sincerely,
Edward R. O'Neill

----
Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu