Hennely[?] wrote: <<as to Lauren's statement that Marcellus is shamed because of homophobia, I would bring up the psychological tendency of shame, however unjustified, that accompanies rape and other acts against one's person, especially of a sexual nature. Furthermore, there seems to be an implication by several posts on this group that "homophobic" statements or reactions by a film's characters make the film/filmmaker homophobic as well. This seems to me to be a very shortsighted consideration of art. I know this is a long standing argument among theorists d bring it up again here lest we lose sight of our assumptions.>> I just want to say that in my remarks about the film's alleged homophobia, I was referring to the film's FIGURATION of homophobia--its ironization, if you'll forgive the term--not its enuciative homophobia (tho I think a case can be made for the latter as well...along with its "ironized" sexism, racism [there utterly modsquad romanticized in spots--T's/Jimmy's wife is a black nurse..]). I never said that Marcellus is shamed; I just asked another poster why he thought shame the self-evident reason for exiling willis, er butch. why should male rape be a cause for shame unless homphopbia or simple homohatred is operating? In asking this, I do not attribute the shaming/homophobia to T, but to a viewer who assumes the self-evidence of the relation between shame and malerape. That viewer misses the irony--which irony is, in a final irony, itself a arguably homophobic. Sorry this is so picky. I hope it clarifies. Someone a few posts back said it best about the gangstarapping of citational irony.