Queer theory is largely derived from the post-structuralist theory and the deconstruction specifically. In 1970s, many authors brought the deconstructionist critical approaches in order to bear on the issues of sexuality, particularly on construction of the normative straight ideology. The queer theorists objected the validity and the consistency of the heteronormative discourse but focused largely on the non-heteronormative sexual practices and sexualities.
In this film known as “heat”, there is a professional thief called McCauley who has been tracked for sometime by a police detective Hanna. The thief seems difficult to catch. So, during one of the evenings, while tailing the car of McCauley, Hanna turns on flashers and then pulls him over. This is one of the acts of this movie that really increases the tensio
...n of this movie. This is because it leaves the viewers wondering what will happen next, whether the thief will be caught by Hanna, or the thief will escape. McCauley steadily shifts his gun. He carefully waits inside his car. At this time, Hanna approaches the car and asks the thief whether he would wish to have a cup of coffee, a suggestion that the thief states is a good idea.
There is tension when these two men are seated around a table taking a cup of coffee. This is because they represent different motives, one is a professional thief and the other is a tracker to this thief. Tension is created since no one knows what might happen to any of them at any particular time. Both have a lot of experiences in their lines of work.
McCauley is a skilled, professional and gifted thief. When Hanna subtly tries to sugges
otherwise, he responds, “You see me performing thrill-seeker holdups with the ‘Born to Lose’ tattoo clear on my chest?”The cop answers, No. their conversation abruptly comes to an end. When the cop says that he doesn’t know how to do anything else, the thief responds that he neither does. Now, at this point the scene seems to concentrate the facts of “Heat” that is, these cops and the robbers actually need one another: they do occupy similar space, which is sealed from the society’s mainstream, which is defined by certain rules. For truth they are enemies, but at this point, they are quite intimate, and are more involved with one another that the people who are expected to be their real friends, for example, their wives. This is another act that brings tension in the film.
Looking at McCauley, after coffee Hanna realizes that the crew of McCauley has escaped their surveillance. Trejo withdraws from robbery but McCauley recruits Breedan into this crew. The unit of Hanna gets a tip then interrupts McCauley’s robbery in a bank. In this gunfight, the thief’s crew loses Cheritto and Breedan then several officers are also killed. McCauley abandons Shiherlis with a doctor for treatment the breaks to Trejo’s place where he gets Trejo near death. During this time Trejo says that probably Waingro is the one who leaked the robbery plan to the police. Later at his request, McCauley finishes Trejo. Hanna makes an order that the police survey Waingro and they leak his premises to the criminal channels. This is hoping that McCauley will kill Waingro before he leaves town. Hanna gets Lauren being unconscious within his hotel
from an attempt of suicide and takes her to hospital.
Now, McCauley, makes a choice that leads to a turning point. On his way to the airport to flee, he gets information on the location of Waingro, which he first dismisses but later decides to take revenge. He goes to the hotel then pulls a fire alarm in order to distract the security and then confronts Waingro before he kills him. Just before he escapes, he sees Hanna coming through the crowds, which forces him to leave Eady for the sake of his freedom. McCauley is chased by Hanna until he is exposed in a field where Hanna wounds him near death. Just before death, McCauley gives Hanna his hand, and he is watched slowly as he dies.
The decision that sold McCauley was to fall in love with Eady. This is the conflict in this film, between this man with his work, and the principal female, a woman who desires to tame him. She wants him to remain at home. The thief has every amount of money he needs, to the point of getting another home in New Zealand, but because of a female figure, he gives in to the appetizing pleas, which later became the cause of his death. In the society, the female gender is presented as a trap to men and they can inhibit the plans of men to go on as planned.
McCauley is lonely in his social life. This exposes him to temptation of getting a woman to be his companion. During his struggle for power, and to escape, he gets another burden to take care of, his wife Eady. In most
of these modern films, Feminist or queer theory is expressed in the role that the women play in creating the termination of the whole movie. During the struggle of the thief against his adversary, a mood of expectation and uncertainty sets in the movie, where the viewers do not know what might happen later.
Work cited
- Adopted from the film “Heat”
