“Prostitution”? Joe Gillis simply acquiesced to a semblance of a pay-for-play MILF relationship with Norma Desmond, except he never wanted her sexually.
Call it a standard quid pro quo, cash-on-the-barrelhead transactional relationship. What’s the biggie? Is Gillis lying to Desmond by assuring her that he loves her and will always be loyal? No. Plus he admits at the halfway mark that she’s the only person in Los Angeles who has treated him with a semblance of decency or kindness. Okay, so she wants him to fuck her as a side benefit. Is that a crime?
Flipping the coin over, how many tens of thousands of Los Angeles women have been in such relationships in exchange for security and a flush lifestyle, and nobody bats an eye?
William Holden didn’t have to end up dead in Gloria Swanson‘s swimming pool. And he really didn’t have to submit to self-loathing when he began to fall in love with Nancy Olson’s Betty Schaefer, a fellow screenwriter.
Don’t forget that the second half of Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard was largely driven by self-revulsion — a young male screenwriter feeling morally sickened by his willingness to sexually satisfy a 50 year-old former silent-era star in exchange for a swanky lifestyle.
1950 was one sexually uptight year, you bet. It saw both the release of Sunset Boulevard and the widespread condemnation of Ingrid Bergman for having had Roberto Rossellini’s baby outside of wedlock. In the eyes of the general public there was nothing more odious than unsavory sexual behavior, or any kind of hanky panky outside the usual proper, middle-class boundaries.
But Gillis could have have just laid his cards on the table as he explained to Schaefer, “Look, I was broke…the finance company was about to take my car away. I’m not evil…I’ve simply been using Desmond and living off her largesse while I figure out my next move.
“Plus I did what I could to finesse her awful Salome script. What’s so terrible about that? Okay, so I’ve been to bed with her a few times. I’ve laid there while she rides me like a cowboy on a palamino…big deal!”
Schaefer: “Don’t worry about it, Joe. You did what you had to do in order to survive. Now pack your things. You’re moving in with me.”
Gillis: “But we haven’t even been intimate yet. And what about your devoted fiancé, nice-guy Artie (Jack Webb)?”
Schaefer: “Artie’s a sweetheart but I don’t love him…not really. Largely because he’s too possessive plus he’s not from the creative side, and writing is my lifeblood. We’re not a great match. I’ve submitted to his sexual advances on occasion but he doesn’t turn me on. I’ve never once blown him and I’m sorry but that means something. This may sound cold but all’s fair in love and war.”
HE commenter Dixon Steel (two years ago): “The image of anyone blowing Joe Friday is not a pleasant one.”
HE commenter Naido: “Yeah, my main takeaway is that now I have to think about Webb being blown. Or not blown, which would make me sad.
“I think most guys doing today what Gillis was doing would feel this way about themselves. If it were truly transactional and not a Macron thing. Not all would, but not all would have back then.”