Pearl Harbor (2001)
by Casey Penfield
Clutch the Pearl -- This war movie is really a big, gay love story in disguise.
When the lead couple in Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor give each other "that" look, honey, you just know there'll be more fireworks than a few exploding battleships. Forget anticipation of the sneak attack. The tension here is building up between these two, with that gotta know question, "Will they or won't they?" The chemistry between them is stronger than anything ever cooked up by Monsanto, and when there's a teary farewell early on as flyboy Rafe McCawley (Ben Affleck) announces he's being transferred to England -- without the love of his life -- the hurt looks and broken hearts burn up the screen. Yes, maybe his oject d'affection is being a little bit possessive and needy, but it is rather rude to suddenly ship out to a foreign land with no warning. Still, you just know these two will be reunited, and eventually they are, just before the Big Event that is the film's apparent raison d'etre. But because of minor complications involving some navy nurse named Evelyn Stewart (Kate Beckinsale), when Rafe returns, lover boy Danny Walker (Josh Hartnett) is, shall we say, a bit conflicted.
What, you thought I was talking about Rafe and the nurse there? Oh, puh-leese. Those two have as many sparks between them as two wet washcloths. And later on, when Danny and Evelyn hook up, it's as obvious as an elephant in drag that he's only trying to get into Rafe's pants by proxy. Watch closely, and you'll see what I mean. Danny's got the nurse in his arms, but his eyes (and other organs, and I mean his heart, you filthy-minded pervs) are pointed elsewhere. The chick is just a prop to make the love story at the center of this testosterone bomb-fest look conventional, but the love story going on is Rafe and Danny all the way.Don't believe me? Then explain that business early on, when we meet Young Rafe (Jesse James) and Young Danny (Reiley McClendon), playing fighter pilot in a treehouse built out of an old airplane. It's just two boys and their toys, blasting away at unseen enemies, far from adult supervision. You can be sure the two of them discovered the real meaning of the word "joystick" not long after this opening sequence, and "pilot to co-pilot" took on a whole new meaning when they both landed on puberty. To emphasize the point, shortly after this, the two boys take off in Rafe's daddy's cropdusting plane (or it may have been Danny's daddy's; it's not really clear), quickly find out that they can't control the thing and wind up skimming their way across several cornfields before a hard landing. If that isn't a Freudian metaphor for experimenting with forbidden grown-up things, I don't know what is. And when Danny's white trash daddy (William Fichtner) threatens him with physical abuse, Rafe is right there to beat him off with a stick, calling him a "filthy German" and telling him to leave Danny alone. If this isn't the reaction of a defensive lover, I don't know what is.
Flash forward seventeen years, and both boys are in the Air Force. Now, granted, we're told that they've always wanted to be pilots, but they've also conveniently arranged to be together in the same outfit, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that this is still peacetime. They enlisted. Together. No women, aside from the military nurses who occasionally poke and prod them. Just Rafe, Danny and the boys. And their joysticks. And the two of them never seem happier in this film than when they're playing flyboy in this man's army, pulling off aerial games of chicken while bickering like an old married couple over their radios. These two are obviously joined at more than the hip, and most definitely know why they call it a cockpit.
Yep, they're inseparable until Rafe announces he's shipping off to England, the land that invented buggery, and Josh Hartnett's performance gives away the entire game that Bay tries to whitewash with all that Evelyn silliness. Danny's reaction is not that of a platonic best pal whose friend is going away. It's the jilted lover getting dumped with no warning. Watch his face, the deep hurt in his eyes, the sheer panic. He does everything but a Scarlet O'Hara impersonation -- "Where'll I go? What'll I do?" After all, it is 1940 and these are two Tennessee farmboys who probably think they're the only ones in the world who've discovered The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name. If Rafe leaves, Danny will have no one to turn to. Of course, I think Danny could do better than Rafe. Not that Rafe isn't attractive, but he's just such a selfish little bitch, to go running off on a dangerous assignment and cavalierly leave his buddies behind. (Or is that buddy's?) Regardless, anybody who could treat doe-eyed, loving Danny so cruelly has no soul. You just want to hug Josh Hartnett when you hear his heart break. Hell, you just want to hug him anyway.Significantly enough, it isn't until after Rafe dumps the news on Danny boy that he starts things up with Evelyn, and it's pretty obvious that it's all some misguided effort to play it straight, pretend the past didn't happen and emotionally prepare himself for separation. Rafe and Evelyn "meet cute," sort of, and Rafe goes to the extreme step of letting Evelyn poke him in the butt (with a needle) until he literally passes out. (Hm. Wonder how many times that's happened to Ben... er, Rafe before?) Oddly enough, even though the Air Force Boys team up with all the Nurses during a little furlough before shipping off to Hawaii, Danny doesn't hook up with anyone. He just stares forlornly into his drink as Rafe goes on pretending, the wounded, jilted twink hoping his love will come to his senses.
And Rafe does pretend. His very brief time with Evelyn has all the passion of a Sunday School Prom, and it's never really implied that the two of them even do the nasty. It's as if he pulls off this entire two week thing with her just so he can tell the British pilots he'll be hanging out with that he's got a girl back home, without having to mention that his girl's name is really Danny.
Naturally, Danny and Evelyn wind up together at Pearl Harbor, and their relationship early on is exactly like that of two abandoned girlfriends, a pair of sob sisters lost in a tropical paradise while their man is off to war. When news comes through that Rafe is missing in action, presumed dead, the two of them naturally come together -- but there's a ghost between them, and it's never less than obvious that neither one of them is interested in the other, but only in recapturing their dead love. Now, I'm not giving anything away by saying that Rafe isn't really dead. What, you think they're going to kill off their big star halfway through the film? Right. But when Rafe suddenly returns, all the awkwardness and recrimination is between him and Danny, and the rest of the movie concentrates on resolving that relationship, not Rafe and Evelyn's. After all, when the Japanese bombs start falling, it's our two flyboys who go off fighting together, nursey left to fend for herself.To say more would be to give away too much, but let me just reveal that the big emotional climax of the film comes between Rafe and Danny, in what is probably the most flamingly over the top gay moment in recent film history. Evelyn is an afterthought before the closing credits, a bit of windowdressing thrown in so that Rafe can keep on pretending and living in his little world of denial, safe within his picket fence closet.
Perhaps this is why Pearl Harbor didn't quite live up to expectations at the box office, despite the hype. Gay-themed movies have a more limited audience, and make no mistake about it, Pearl Harbor is as queer as a Honolulu Christmas. But the two leads, Affleck's big dumb brunette and snacky Hartnett's moon-eyed little blond, make this a luau worth attending, and you'll want to stuff a pig or two afterwards. Grab a friend, get out your Kleenex and dash off to your local Cineplex, then get ready to be touched by this steamy romantic tale of forbidden love among the boys in uniform.
Casey Penfield, noted bon vivant and racounteer, is the author of numerous books on Queer Literary Theory, including the controversial For Whom the Belle Toils: Homoeroticism in Hemingway. He currently divides his time between Montauk, Long Island, and Phuket, Thailand.
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