Looking Back At Billy Joe

I saw Ode to Billy Joe soon after its release. I was about eleven or twelve at the time. So Billy Joe McAllister played by Robby Benson might be the first gay movie character I encountered after I realized I was gay. I saw the film a couple of times after that. The last time was probably about thirty years ago.

I just finished watching it again. I thought the first half laid on the broad and farcical comedy a bit thick, and some of the dialogue was a little stilted, but the film did a good job in establishing the innocence of Billy Joe and Bobbie Lee. They were both sweet kids bursting at the seams with romantic ideas, and at least Bobbie Lee was feeling the heat. However, we eventually learn that Billy Joe’s heart really wasn’t in it. He had desperately played the part of the old-fashioned suitor. He gave it everything he had. Maybe he thought that if he just went through the motions his feelings would catch up at some point.

The song told us that Billy Joe threw himself off of the Tallahatchie Bridge, and the movie told us why. I remember crying for Billy Joe when I was young, and I guess I, more or less, accepted that Billy Joe’s self-destructive act was reasonable and understandable under the circumstances. I guess I believed what we were told to believe, that being gay was a tragedy, an awful, heartbreaking thing because you could never hope to be accepted or walk among “normal” people if they found out your secret. Now at forty-nine, I’m disturbed and angered by that idea.

I think the film, although a bit sappy at times, was a good film. I think Billy Joe’s suicide was a realistic plot development. An LGBT youth living in 1950s Mississippi… Probably quite a few killed themselves in one way or another, and it’s still happening even today. Thankfully, the film depicted Billy Joe sympathetically. He was adorable. The film may have helped a number of people wonder what was so awful about Billy Joe. But I wish there had been other narratives. In the ’70s, the movies usually took us to a world were LGBTs didn’t exist, so it seemed like a gift from heaven when I came across a gay character, but did they always have to so tragic?

In 2015, it seems so monumentally senseless that Billy Joe, a fresh out of school eighteen-year-old, would throw himself off of a bridge just because he got drunk one night and had sex with his boss. Why should that be so horrible? Even if the guy wasn’t right for him, even if going to work on Monday was going to be awkward, even if he wished he hadn’t done it the next morning, why should letting the old guy screw him be anything other than mildly embarrassing? And what if Billy Joe had liked it? What if he wanted to fuck everything in pants after that night? So what? Why should anyone give a shit?