Are you a gay trope?

[rareboy]

I think 'Uncle Feygele'?

And Oy. I am this as well.

 

[rainerdelaney]

Non-Binary Leather Person?
Gay DJ?
Gay Slut?
Guncle?

all of the above

 

[Latimer]

I stayed away from the Anthony Minghella Ripley, having previously seen Rene Clement's version, Plein Soleil, starring Alain Delon--at the height of his considerable beauty--as Ripley, as well as having read Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels years before. I did so because I understood that Minghella's script portrayed Ripley, played by Matt Damon, as overtly gay, whereas he is not in the novel. This seemed to me to be a huge misinterpretation of the character. If it exists at all, Ripley's homosexual orientation needs to be subliminal and unacknowledged. Highsmith herself in an interview stated that she didn't believe Ripley to be gay, instead she saw him as an opportunist--sexual and otherwise--happy to do whatever would bring advantage to him. In the Clement film, Delon beds Marie Laforet's Marge, lucky girl. (I've never cared to know what Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow's Marge get up to.) Delon's Ripley is more interested in Maurice Ronet's Greenleaf wardrobe--that is, his lifestyle--than he is in his dick.

If I remember correctly, Pauline Kael discerned a sexual tension between Delon and Ronet, with the emphasis on between.

 

[NotHardUp1]

I stayed away from the Anthony Minghella Ripley, having previously seen Rene Clement's version, Plein Soleil, starring Alain Delon--at the height of his considerable beauty--as Ripley, as well as having read Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels years before. I did so because I understood that Minghella's script portrayed Ripley, played by Matt Damon, as overtly gay, whereas he is not in the novel. This seemed to me to be a huge misinterpretation of the character. If it exists at all, Ripley's homosexual orientation needs to be subliminal and unacknowledged. Highsmith herself in an interview stated that she didn't believe Ripley to be gay, instead she saw him as an opportunist--sexual and otherwise--happy to do whatever would bring advantage to him. In the Clement film, Delon beds Marie Laforet's Marge, lucky girl. (I've never cared to know what Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow's Marge get up to.) Delon's Ripley is more interested in Maurice Ronet's Greenleaf wardrobe--that is, his lifestyle--than he is in his dick.

If I remember correctly, Pauline Kael discerned a sexual tension between Delon and Ronet, with the emphasis on between.

The second love interest, Peter, the pianist, makes Ripley unreservedly gay in the movie.

But, to your point, I have to wonder how Ripley is to garner reader sympathy as the protagonist if he is depicted as only ruthlessly opportunistic.

After all, the women are not central enough characters for either to be the protagonist, and Dickie is little but a spoiled manchild.

Why would we care about Ripley if he is not in love?