By the time I finished watching Taxi Driver and reading The Metal Children, I decided, these two main characters are hardly noble. If they have anything in common, it’s that they are both instigators who are borderline crazy. I found Travis to actually be more interesting as a character because he was so psychotic; throughout the whole movie he was searching for an identity. I can actually see the rhyme to Travis’ madness; he spent the whole movie searching for romance and a way to affirm his masculinity. Around him though, the decaying city showed everything around him being tainted. Sex was tainted by prostitution, and he was part of a relationship tainted by Palantine who was condescending towards Travis. He came home from Vietnam a war hero, but of an unheroic war. He dressed as a cowboy vigilante and posed as a CIA agent, but none of them seemed to fit his persona. He was is affect a lost soul. He takes the fate of the city in his own hands by finally standing up and being active, though in his deranged ways.
Tobin, on the other hand, is so passive that it’s painful. He is nothing more than a disgruntled man upset about his circumstances with regard to his wife. She left him for the editor, so he copes with this by writing a book venting his anger, letting his smoking and drinking habits get out of control, and letting his apartment become a mess. What kind of way of coping is this? (I’ll admit it’s better than killing gangsters, but it’s still a shame.) He was a good writer, he could possibly have had a promising future, but instead decided to let his problems gain control of him. Then instead of being happy that he had achieved controversy through the medium of art, he was passive and uninspiring when he addressed the students of the high school who had supported him. He also takes no accountability for the repercussions of his book in his community and basically sweeps them under the carpet. He bottoms out by sleeping with Vera; it seems as though he was confused at the time.
Tobin and Travis hardly evolve as characters, they are stuck in the past, and unwilling to move forward. Travis looks in the mirror and asks, “Are you talking to me?” in the memorable moment that shows the ambiguity of his identity. His mind is shattered, and we don’t even know if he’s questioning and reflecting inward or showing his anger to the perversity that surrounds him. Tobin’s mind is shattered too. He does not know what his role in society seems to be anymore, is he for what the girls in the small community, or does he have disdain for them?
Thematically though, we see this ambiguous feminine theme throughout the movie and the book. The girls think they can achieve freedom through having birth and gaining control over their bodies, but they do not realize that they are still slaves to the child and raising him/her once the baby is born. Iris, in the movie, thinks that running away to New York is her way of escaping, but she finds that she has to be part of a prostitution ring in order to support herself and attain protection from the elements. If anything, the overriding theme is stupidity. These girls felt these were their only escapes, but they did not look at the bottom line. If anything, the movie and the book commented on isolation, selfishness and the notion that no matter what, humans will follow their motives or missions, and once their minds are made up, nothing can stop them.
