Ted, you’re right — Baker plays an actor, but is his role gay or bisexual for the purposes of furthering his career? I seem to remember he had a girlfriend…or is that another movie?

To your point, GPW, redemption is a common theme not only in film but also in literature. Don’t we all want to believe that even the worst of us might, in some great moment of truth, do the right thing? For women, I suppose living a dishonorable life means being a prostitute. (There are so many more crime options for men, I suppose.) It did become something of a cliche in the 90s that it seemed that an actress’s only hope of an oscar nomination was playing a hooker or a nun. Talk about the Madonna-Whore complex!

Now for a more difficult challenge…how many movies feature characters who basically led respectable and ethical lives and then went horribly off track. I’m thinking of Bill Macy’s character in Fargo. Surely he didn’t set out to be a crook but he became one nonetheless.

Regards,
Peter H.

Do I know Doris Day? I knew her before she was a virgin.

Just another Hollywood flick following the Hayes Code; “the fag dies…”.

I agree one of the themes in L.A. Confidential is redemption, but that includes both cops (and a posthumous redemption of the Kevin Spacey police role as well) and is not unlike a 1950s noir Faust or Parsifal (Wagner’s version). The male prostitute is apparently expendable, but I don’t know about drawing larger Hollywood conclusions from the movie.

Now why its a hooker? Probably because society looks down on them and they are generally marginalized group. They are easy devices to make the victim and to make objects of scorn, that they have fallen in society. And its a woman, because, men are often the heroes but there are stories of men finding redemption with a woman as the light so to speak.

And of course it can happy with a gay twist, slash fanfiction is full of hurt and comfort heh.

I find it very insulting to have all these hookers. Only Steve Martin was able to pull off an unbalanced love affair with a shop girl. At least she had the respect of an honorable job.

The rest of Hollywood has no respect for women – making them hookers is part of that mentality.

Regards,
Peter H.

It seems we Americans like films where our heroes fall for the whore and rescue her from her “fallen” life, redeeming her through romance. …Bud White… takes a fancy to the striking pseudo-blonde. And that fancy blossoms into romance.

Isn’t it a “redemption” that affirms the underlying cynicism of the left-liberal worldview, at least partly? It’s been awhile since I’ve seen the film. If I remember correctly, the romance would have been presented as a near-miracle (except that there is no God, of course) against the type of world-is-sh*tty, everyone-cheats-and-lies-and-backstabs backdrop that leftists tend to favor in art.

Hollywood Likes the Redeemed Hooker

Only when he or she is culturally and politically a left-liberal. Remember Jeff Gannon? Typically, left-liberals don’t even acknowledge his redemption. For example, one GP commentor always speaks of Gannon as a current prostitute, whether commenting in 2007 or in 2009.