LGBTQ Thoughts [movie spoilers]

[metoo]

It is also questionable whether Eli actually made a choice at all regarding his appearance. This is the film tread, but the subject is dealt with a little more in the novel. There, Eli seems to wear whatever clothes he gets his hands on.
However, he does wear his hair at shoulder length, adding to his appearance as a girl, but this could just be part of his general unkemptness. He might just not have bothered to cut it for some time.
His facial features, however, where certainly not his choice, and neither was his slender build, both of which contributed greatly to his girlish appearance.

[lombano]

Still he kept Eli's boyish traits ("what are you doing" instead of "who are you/what's your name" it their first meeting, and the "hit back" instead of comforing Oskar when he is hurt), and he showed Eli's neutering scar, and initially meant to show neutering scene. He also stated the the story is asexual.

I hadn't realized that about that initial dialogue. Eli in the "hit back" scene has always sounded to me more like an older brother than any other role.

[dongregg]

Still he kept Eli's boyish traits ("what are you doing" instead of "who are you/what's your name" it their first meeting, and the "hit back" instead of comforing Oskar when he is hurt), and he showed Eli's neutering scar, and initially meant to show neutering scene. He also stated the the story is asexual.

I hadn't realized that about that initial dialogue. Eli in the "hit back" scene has always sounded to me more like an older brother than any other role.

Or a vampire child, one who had been abused at some point.

[lombano]

Well, yes, but I'm relating it to something more common to identify some kind of "role" here, including in terms of typical gendered behaviours - it's more common for a boy to have an older brother than to have a vampire (not-a-)girlfriend.

[drakkar]

Or a vampire child, one who had been abused at some point.

I've always viewed LTROI as a tale about children who happens to have a vampire in it, so I agree with lombano in this one. It wan't the vampire ho asked Oskar what he was doing, it was the awakening child.

[dongregg]

Or a vampire child, one who had been abused at some point.

I've always viewed LTROI as a tale about children who happens to have a vampire in it, so I agree with lombano in this one. It wan't the vampire ho asked Oskar what he was doing, it was the awakening child.

I agree with you both, but his/her advice to hit back didn't seem masculine or feminine to me, Just "Eli". I also agree with the member who wrote earlier that a girl might have offered sympathy whereas a boy would have offered a solution. However, I was so tuned into Eli at that point in the film that it just seemed like something Eli would say. Not suggesting that it was vampiric in the sense that it was the vampire infection talking, but just drawing attention to the fact that, boy or girl, he/she is very powerful and has lived a rough life for centuries. I still like my shorthand version: "a vampire child, one who had been abused at some point." I'm all in with the awakening child concept. I think it drives the film. But he/she is Eli the (necessarily) serial murderer, unsocialized and semiferal, as well as Eli whose childhood (and ability to love) is being reawakened by her relationship with Oskar.

[drakkar]

agree with you both, but his/her advice to hit back didn't seem masculine or feminine to me, Just "Eli".

It isn't any particular incident that does it, it is the sum. Eli show boyish behaviour at times, he uses every opportunity to say that he isn't a girl, and at last he show himself as a neutered boy (be me a little scene).

I'm all in with the awakening child concept.

This is what I see in the "hit back" scene, and what seems to awaken, is boyish.

[Klesk]

During Christmas days my six years old niche told me she will beat me so much that I will vomit my Christmas dinner closely followed by a punch in my stomach. This is my six years old niche and Elis advice to hit back is neither masculine nor feminine, it is just Eli.
So I agree with dongregg.

[lombano]

Well, the other day I playfully lightly punched a certain woman in the arm and she punched me back hard (thankfully she doesn't box or anything), I know another female who broke a finger by hitting someone and used to know a woman who beat up a would-be mugger. It's not that I think the substance of Eli's advice would only be given by a male, but that the whole of the dialogue (including the focus on advice for concrete action) strikes me as more "older brother" than any other particular role. Yes, someone other than an older brother might have the same dialogue, but I think that's what I'd guess if I read the dialogue without knowing anything about the characters or context. It seems more "typical."
In these matters, I have to distinguish between the book and the film. Film Eli is genuinely androgynous - sometimes a very feminine demeanour, but sometimes acts masculine. Book Eli is a boy, and not even a "tomgirl" (or whatever non-derogatory term one might use for the male equivalent of a tomboy).

[jetboy]

My two cents, as usual, plays up the vampire aspect more. To me her advice was coming from a place of wisdom compiled from living so long. Here she is, in one instance, giving, to my eyes, the exactly correct advice. Advice that no other adult gave him who were standing by letting his life go down the tubes.