We are all subjects of violence, and a person unaffected by violence, whether it is in the form of silence, art, ritual, or brute force, is merely an abstraction.
film
The true vision of reality is never benign. That’s why, for example, movie characters who use the phrase, “this is too good to be true,” are almost always correct. And if they are not suspicious of their fortune, then audiences can peg the character(s) are certainly naive and most likely doomed.
By situating the film’s protagonist, Travis Bickle, in conversation with other Big Screen Outlaws, we find that the politics of resentment are co-constitutive with the violence of toxic masculinity.
R.J. Slater 