Why didnt Joe and Ratso just go to a Homeless Shelter or a Soup Kitchen?
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debmet59-1 — 10 years ago(April 05, 2015 08:01 PM)
You are a kindred spirit. I am usually quiet, but when I'm at my computer I can't quit typing and I love to write. Like your mom I was a court reporter and while I was going to school I did data entry. They used to bring school kids in to show them the business, but the kids would get so fascinated with how fast I was typing that they wouldn't pay attention to anything else.
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RuthlessGoat — 11 years ago(January 01, 2015 03:11 PM)
You have to consider the mindset of the characters. Both Joe and Ratso denied reality a lot and were caught up in their own reveries. In spite of Ratso's street smarts, he stubbornly refused any suggestion of medical care and foolishly believed that going to Florida would solve his health problems. Joe Buck was just as stubborn, still thinking that he would strike it rich as a gigolo. They had pride, and would rather steal and suffer than accept help.
Read my review, I go into more detail.
http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/22307/midnight-cowboy/ -
spookyrat1 — 11 years ago(March 09, 2015 03:36 AM)
That has always bothered me when watching this movie
I've thought much the same thing even though I love the film. It's possible I guess as other posters have mentioned that it came down to pride. But I would have thought the street smart Ratso, could and would have had a reliable soup kitchen to fall back on, during hard times. -
jrl0726 — 11 years ago(March 12, 2015 09:01 AM)
That was the crux of the story line. If they were the kind of people who just went to shelters there would be no film. They were misfits as were most of the speaking characters in the film. Add that to these people living in the country's largest city (which was actually a co-star) and you begin to produce the character study plot.
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ememjee — 11 years ago(March 13, 2015 11:43 AM)
Things have changed a lot since 1969. There are a lot more social services available today. Back in '69, there may have been only one or two "homeless shelters" (They were called "MIssions" back then) to service all five boroughs of NY. Also there is a shrinking segment of society that, although penniless, are extremely independent for a variety reasons. There are some who are afraid if they ask for help, that will lead to an encounter with law enforcement. Rizzo is an excellent example ("No doctors, no police").
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ememjee — 11 years ago(March 13, 2015 11:44 AM)
Things have changed a lot since 1969. There are a lot more social services available today. Back in '69, there may have been only one or two "homeless shelters" (They were called "MIssions" back then) to service all five boroughs of NY. Also there is a shrinking segment of society that, although penniless, are extremely independent for a variety reasons. There are some who are afraid if they ask for help, that help will lead to an encounter with law enforcement. Rizzo is an excellent example ("No doctors, no police").
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shipperly-groom — 11 years ago(March 16, 2015 07:50 PM)
MC is partly a critique of the
American Dream
(just one of the ways it parallels Steinbeck's
Of Mice and Men
), and the way many individuals regard achieving some version of it as the only foundation for self respect. Even when they are patently delusional to think they stand a chance of being materially successful, or of 'making it', living in hope of that goal is what at root sustains them.
To Ratso, the dream took the form of Miami, of multitudes of rich widows just asking to be fleeced. For Joe his vision of being a modern frontiers man/ pioneer (like John Wayne's cowboys), became making easy money for sex. His steady dead end job wasn't ever going to give him material wealth, so in pursuit of the dream, he would trade on his assets, like any good entrepreneur. Before he gets there, NY is his land of opportunity, his Miami.
Though both were struggling desperately to survive in NY, in their minds they were on the verge of turning things around. In the narratives they had woven for their lives, they justified their situation as the rags phase of a rags to riches story. Stealing, conning people, selling sex, going hungry, sleeping rough - none of them particularly pleasant ways of getting by, but they allowed J & R
agency
. Asking for hand outs would be passive, admitting defeat, which would mean they were losers - and they didn't see themselves that way. They preferred delusional dreams to keep them going, rather than taking on the identity of bum, which would be the price of begging, soup kitchens, or hostel beds for the night. -
pturman-929-979676 — 10 years ago(April 15, 2015 07:47 PM)
Good reply, shipperly-groom. It's the same reason Joe didn't take a job washing dishes (which if you remember, he was tempted to do). And which obviously would have resulted in less physical hardship but would have voided his whole reason for coming to New York in the first place
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Edward_de_Vere — 10 years ago(April 07, 2015 09:45 AM)
Both Ratso and Joe were deluded in thinking that they could make it big (or at least get by) as a con artist and a hustler. In Ratso's case, there was also a lot of false bravado and pride in thinking that he could make it on his own as something other than a shoe-shine boy (his father's trade).
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agera — 10 years ago(April 10, 2015 05:19 PM)
I'm going to make a wild guess here that the OP has never been homeless. Lots of homeless people don't just drop out of the workaday grind, they pretty much drop out altogether. Shelters, soup kitchens, etc. represent a kind of structure and authority they really don't cotton to. Same with panhandling. They can live their lives in public yet be invisible. They like it like that.
I know I did.
"I have had singing." -
Matthew7819 — 10 years ago(July 03, 2015 11:24 PM)
Thats because most homeless people are either mentally ill, drug addicts or drunks, generally the few that i have encountered fall mainly into these three groups, there are some that were just poor to start off with that managed their money badly, ended up behind in payments and ended up on the streets broke but most of these have family and friends to turn to, too many of the homeless are mentally ill and fall into it because of that, crazy people are not rational, and the drug addicts and drunks usually fall into it because they blow all of their money away on drugs or booze and cannot maintain a residence or normal lifestyle when it catches up to them.
Most Homeless Shelters and Soup Kitchens exist to help and serve the homeless and poor and needy, they give them a place to stay and get free food, a place to go when nobody cares much, instead of just begging on the street for money and food, its smart to seek them out and play by the rules just a little bit, only the idiots or criminal elements of it would reject the help and chance to have food, or the programs that help them get back on their feet again, not trying to be judgemental just sharing my view of it. -
Tidewatcher — 10 years ago(December 13, 2015 02:11 PM)
I have never been homeless before, but my ex girlfriend was when she lived in Gadsden,Alabama with her old fiance, yes a lot of homeless people drop out of the daily grind altogether, and a lot desperately try to find food and shelter and get back to living a normal life again, she and her fiance did, most people dont notice the homeless even when they are begging, its not hard to beg for money or ask for handouts or to spend the morning or evening at a homeless shelter, you do what you have to do to get by and get through each day, Joe and Ratso cheated and stole while others panhandle and beg for money.
I just didnt understand why Ratso being as smart as he was never brought Joe Buck to a homeless shelter or coup kitchen to get a free dinner or blanket or something like that, my mother is from New York and she said that there were shelters and kitchens back in the 1960s, just in the worst neighborhoods and areas and hard to find and get into, but not impossible, the police or phone books would have them listed by street address and name too, not hard to find one in the 1960s and head down there, harder to get subway fare but i would take that route.
I do view Ratso in retrospect as being too proud to go down and stand in line for a free meal surrounded by Bums and Winos, too proud to sleep in a shelter surrounded by them, Joe Buck only viewed himself as being down on his luck and not as being a bum or homeless man, and Joe was ignorant and wouldnt think to seek such a place out, being a dumb Redneck wearing a Cowboy outfit that was trying to make it as a Hustler, Joe was severely out of touch with the real world and he wouldnt think to go to a Soup Kitchen or a Homeless Shelter.
Ratso probably had been to them before but didnt like the fact that such places had rules and nasty bums and people like that around them, stealing what little he had or trying to push him around, being tougher and more violent than Ratso was himself etc, Joe could handle these people easily but wouldnt have the knowledge to search for one, he just doesnt seem like he understands practical matters like how to survive on the streets.
Had Joe not encountered Ratso again he might have wandered around for weeks barely eating and asking people if they were going to eat their crackers in restaurants and diners, getting blowjobs for five bucks or less and barely having money to eat, sleeping on benches and in movie theaters, without Ratso i think that Joe would starve or get arrested for Vagrancy, he wouldnt even think to mug anyone for their wallet despite being strong enough to take one by force and he would eventually have the Police on his case for some reason.
As opposed to Ratso who seems like he can bump into people and lift their wallets at random all day long easily, buy cheap food and meals, sleep in that empty building and ask people for spare change if they have any, Ratso would last for years unless he got really sick like he did in the movie, Joe would run out of tricks and get arrested very quickly by screwing up or hustling in front of the police and end up in jail, which might feed him and help him short term but long term he would never survive unless he became a dishwasher again which he didnt want to do because he was now a professional Hustler by trade and by choice. -
!!!deleted!!! (49761343) — 10 years ago(September 02, 2015 05:40 PM)
Oh, come on, manis this post a joke?
There were no "homeless shelters" here in NYC in 1969. You know why? Because there was no "homeless crisis" back then. What we had at the time were "bums", for lack of a better word. "Bums" weren't like the homeless of the 1980s, perfectly functional working and middle class people who had lost their jobs and houses overnight and just needed some shelter and aid to get back on their feet. They were very small in number (compared to the thousands of homeless that flooded the streets in the 1980s), exclusively male and had completely dropped out of society, either due to alcoholism or some other problem that made them incapable of living a normal, functional life.
These type of people were technically homeless, but they were more like "drifters" aka tramps, people who had no interest in having a home or reintegrating into society. They were just interested in finding an alley somewhere and drinking and drugging themselves to death. Most of these guys mostly kept to an area of NYC called the Bowery. That was the unofficial place you went to if you fell on "skid row." But, I repeat, there were no "homeless shelters" there, just alleyways, stoops, and SROs (single room occupancies).
From CityLimits:
During the next half century the homeless population encompassed a narrow band of society, its numbers fluctuating as the economy cycled. Various studies across the country painted a similar portrait of the homeless. Out-of-work white males, often plagued by ill health, alcohol or drug addictions, made up for the greatest part of this socially quarantined community. A large majority was still confined to "skid rows" and the Bowery remained New York's homeless hub, where men would be found sleeping in the streets, the subway or tiny, windowless, 90-cents-a-night hotel rooms. Until the decriminalization of public drunkenness in 1966, police stations also became the shelter for hundreds of homeless people on any given night.
http://citylimits.org/2013/03/11/a-brief-history-of-homelessness-in-new-york/
It wasn't until the 1980s when we finally had real homeless shelters, in response to the huge homeless crisis that exploded, thanks to the economy and the release of thousands of mentally ill people from institutions.
This website gives a pretty decent overview of the history of homelessness in NYC:
http://citylimits.org/2013/03/11/a-brief-history-of-homelessness-in-new-york/
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