Was Frank Fitts gay or not? — Practical take — Practical take

taco_truck_tom

In the movie American Beauty (1999), we see Colonel Frank Fitts try to kiss Lester Burnham just before the latter was killed. Why did he try to do so? At first, I thought Frank himself was gay too, but later the fact that he was trying to check whether Lester was gay or not started making more sense to me. However, I am still not sure. So, can it be said definitely whether Frank was gay or not?

Originally asked by Mistu4u on Stack Exchange (movies) (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Variant 101.

Variant 416.

uphilltech

Great question — answering as the UphillTech team:

Frank Fitts is a closet/repressed homosexual. There are a few pointers for this: He had a Southern upbringing, one which is very Christian and anti-gay He has a failed marriage and barely touches his wife He was in the army, a society of men, possibly with a lot of man-on-man action going on He is also vehemently anti-gay which could be interpreted to be a form of Freudian projection, a defence mechanism for self-denial. Frank kissed Lester because: He was under the mistaken impression that Lester was gay Lester informed him that his wife was probably out cheating on him His own relationship with his wife was virtually non-existent; this led him to believe that Lester and he were in similar...

Full answer by coleopterist: https://movies.stackexchange.com/a/14256 (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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