The main issue finally of the Wheeler’s firing of Andy was his dissembling (in their view), that he wasn’t who he purported to be, that he pretended to be one of them when he wasn’t. Once he was exposed, they scramble to assert their difference from Andy, which suggest they fear the lack of difference there really is between them. Visibly, we watch the firm interact in all-male enclaves of the top floor offices, boardrooms, and bath house, which look remarkably similar to contexts some might imagine Andy. All the more reason for their quick action to distance themselves from him once he’s discovered.
Andy’s testimony that Charles Wheeler (Jason Robards) was the lawyer he thought he most wanted to be like, indicating it was actually Andy who was the one deceived, that Charles let him down when Wheeler revealed his truly small, vicious, and essentially unlawful (a true cut by another lawyer) nature. The final ignominy is the firm’s contention that they saw nothing of Andy’s illness and so couldn’t have been discriminating against him on that basis. Their lead (Mary Steenbergen) puts a mirror up to Andy and forces him to admit the lesions he asserted they saw weren’t really all that detectable; Joe Miller (Denzel Washington) asks Andy to take off his shirt to reveal what all know. Many (except Andy's family and, signficantly, Joe) look away, especially those former fellow lawyers in the firm, refusing to acknowledge, to see, the apparently Medusa-like sight of Andy’s lesions and ravaged body, which the film audience only sees reflected in the mirror Joe holds up for Andy.
I don't feel Andy hid who he was or decieved them. They never asked if he were gay so it wasn't a requirement of his work to be open about that. there was never an instance in the movie where anything about his personal life came up. He did the work they asked of him and did it very well.I also couldn't understand why she said 3 feet away because when the one guy noticed the spot on his head he was standing 6 inches from him.
ReplyDeleteI agree that he wasn't deceiving because it wasn't asked of him, except for the moment where they ask what is on his head and he covers. But he only hid his identity because he realized that the environment was hostile and unaccepting. I found it interesting that the lawyers were basically trying to avoid seeing Andy as similar to them, they didn't want to recognize him as another man. If they did, then his situation becomes far more tragic and devastating instead of disgusting and his own fault. They wanted him to be perceived as a bad lawyer, incompetent, etc. This was meant to contrast their characters as professional and successful lawyers. It makes sense that they would want to distance themselves because it was hard to accept the tragic plight of Andy, but it was not right.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that a persons sexual interests define who they are. Andy did not deceive the firm by not telling them he was Gay. He didn't because at the end of the day his personality, traits, or what makes him Andy didn't change. A persons sexuality is just a fraction of who they are, not the entire person. So, Andy did not deceive his flu coworkers.
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