In the film 'elephant' do you think that the main characters were gay? & why do u think this?

Question

I'm talking about the two guys who did the shooting in the film about the high school massacre.

do you think that they had suppressed gay feelings?
do you think that these suppressed feelings contributed to their carrying out the shooting?
or was the gay thing just a bit of teenage experimentation?
If they had continued to make love, then would they have still wanted to carry out the shooting?
or do you think that the whole gay thing was just a fantasy of the director & irrelevant to the story?

Answer 1

Well, the taunting was based in part on some actual shootings.. but the scene in question they start by talking and they are both virgins, they are planning on dying, and decide..why not.. There is never a point where you can say they are or they are not.. it was never discussed other than as a way of not dying a virgin.

Answer 2

gus van sant is gay would know what it was like to be gay and picked on -- it would be a bigger stretch for him to make a movie where the characters were picked on for other reasons. it gives the movie a more personal perspective. i think that is all he was going for. the fact that all the characters are the actors real names -- the script was really more of an outline and actors were free to improvise -- most of the extras are unscripted -- he was trying to make the movie a personal experience for everyone -- hopefully the sincerity would show and you might get something out of it on a personal level too.