ODE TO BILLY JOE MOVIE 1976
ODE TO BILLY JOE
Version of the Story in Song:
The 1976 movie Ode to Billy Joe was based on the Hit song 'Ode to Billie Joe' by Bobbie Gentry. The song itself didn't reveal why
Billy Joe killed himself. His death was seen as sad, and long ago, and
unnecessary, and the singer recalled it as a key event in an unhappy
time.
In the song's story, there is a thoughtless and offhand discussion of the suicide of local boy Billy Joe McAllister, who jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge in Leflore
County on
Choctaw Ridge in Greenwood Mississippi.
What was Thrown Off the Bridge?
Even in real life, this type of 'unconscious cruelty' that people can have is shown in the fact that more people seemed concerned with what was
thrown off the bridge. But what was thrown off the bridge really
isn’t that important.
Everybody has a different guess about what was thrown off the
bridge—flowers, a ring, even a baby. But the real message of the song revolves around the nonchalant way the family talks about the
suicide. They sit there eating their peas and apple pie and talking,
without even realizing that Billie Joe’s girlfriend Bobbie Lee is sitting at the
table, a member of the family.
The Song Reveals 'Unconscious' Cruelty:
This is very typical of the time, and even today in the culture especially of smaller towns. People don't want to be concerned or involved in any way, but rather just to gossip about it for dinner conversation as though it is something unrelated to their experience that could never touch them or apply to them or worse, paint them in any type of bad light.
What were they
throwing off the bridge in the movie Ode to Billy Joe?
In the movie version, Billy Joe (played by Robbie Benson) and Bobbie Lee (played by Glynnis O'Connor) become a couple, but who are not yet 'romantically' involved. The movie reveals Billy Joe
tosses his girlfriend Bobbie Lee's rag doll off the bridge and jumps the
following day, tormented by uncertainty over his sexual identity due to a drunken homosexual encounter.
What made Billy Joe
McAllister jump off the Tallahatchie Bridge?
In the adaptation, the pair throw a rag doll off the bridge, while a
homosexual experience with the owner of the sawmill is established as the
reason for Billy Joe's suicide.
While drunk for the first time he has just had a
homosexual relationship ("a sin before God and man") - this would
have been a compelling enough reason for a young adolescent, or anyone for that matter.
What's more, he then finds himself impotent with Bobbie Lee due to the trauma.
Symbolic Meaning of the Bridge and the Doll:
To throw off something is to cause a departure from an expected or desired course. And, to throw off a bridge is a figure of speech used to describe a level of stress so high that one dreams of, or comes close to ending it all and jumping off a bridge.
In this case however, Billy Joe is so distressed that he actually does just that. The further metaphor of a 'rag doll' is that it symbolizes childhood innocence which has now been ended and destroyed.
Impact and Consequences:
In his inebriated state, he has sex with another man, later revealed to be his sawmill boss, Dewey Barksdale (James Best). Obviously this man is the 'guilty' party in this scenario. As the older person, and worse as the 'boss', he would carry the greater responsibility in the act and in his premeditated intention.
Instead of watching over his young 'employee' he takes advantage of him in a lustful, loveless and shameful abuse of his power over a younger person who is drunk and in a vulnerable state.
Luke 17:2 "It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little (younger) ones."
Total Devastation of the Soul:
The act committed on Billy Joe was so completely and permanently life-altering, devastating, destructive, horrifying, defiling, demeaning, degrading, shameful, depraved, low, sick,
profoundly disgusting, woeful, abased, desperate, doleful, despondent, ruinous, traumatizing…
The abject sadness, guilt, powerlessness, hopelessness, embarrassment, shame, anger,
and fear that Billy Joe felt was far too much for him to deal with. Let's face it, this is the very Truth of this absolutely careless and horrendous act.
And this is Done Every Single Day...
The Bible has it exactly right - This Man gives Him (Billy Joe) intoxicating drink to make Him drunk to get him in nakedness and perform a heinous act. This is a Him to a Him - and is done intentionally to make another man unable to defend himself against a homosexual act.
Habakkuk 2:15 "Woe unto him
that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and
makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness! Thou art filled with shame…
A CAUTIONARY TALE FOR ALL AGES -
