Colonel GENERAL FRANK FITTS AND RICKI FITTS

Colonel GENERAL FRANK FITTS Colonel General Franks Fitts is Ricky’s father who is married to timid Barbara. Colonel Fitts is a man who believes in extreme forms of discipline and has off putting personal habits such as: he has a wide collection of guns , a strange Nazi memorabila, uses violence and anger to discipline his son, and also stands by his wife. Frank is very stern and is an overpowering father and treats Ricky his son how a drill sergeant would treat his troops.He may seem to appear homophobic but we ultimately learn that he too is repressing homoerotic desires.

Ricky fitts Ricky Fitts is the son of Colonel Frank Fitts and Barbara Fitts and happens to be also the local drug dealer. Ricky makes thousands of dollars each week which is from selling drugs. Where he uses this money to support his hobby which is video taping the world around him and seeing the beauty in mundane images. When the Fitts family moves next door to the Burnhams, Ricky quickly develops feelings for Jane – the girl next door. Ricky analyzes everything very deeply and is a thinker.

How are these characters represented to us? Colonel GENERAL FRANK FITTS is first introduced to the audience when Ricky goes to the family kitchen to have his morning breakfast. There we see Mis En Scene of the Fitts family in the kitchen. Mrs Fitts cooking breakfast, Mr Fitts reading the morning newspaper and Ricky Fitts sitting down at the dining table. Ricky Fitts is first introduced when he starts filming the Burnham family. He watches as Jane gets out of the car and walks towards the house. Suddenly Jane looks up. For a moment it looks like there is nothing there until a boy stands up and turns on the porch light to reveal himself. He continues to record her while she walks into her house as she is flicking him off and calling him a asshole. Frank Fitts has a huge power over his son Ricky and this shows when he beats Ricky. When Ricky gets beaten up by his father he takes in the pain and looks in the mirror and wipes excess blood. You see Ricky is obviously not afraid of his father, yet being hit by his father is not a happy situation for him. One of Ricky’s astounding characteristics is that his apparent belief that his father loves him despite the way his father treats him by beating him up and the lack of trust are simply his unique way of showing his love .

Colonel Fitts is very controlling of Ricky (or at least he believes he is) He monitors Ricky’s drug use by random urine samples and also dominates his timid wife. Ricky controls his own destiny and makes his own decisons Colonel Fitts is in utter denial about his sexuality. As he has a strong hate towards Gays and he is very Homophobic, however he turns out to be bisexual himself. Ricky is not in denial about anything, and is the most free and honest character in the film. Ricky is the character that has the best analysis/ see things as they are. There seems to be a contradiction between his empathy for others and his cold image that we see “observational”. He also seems mature beyond his years - shows interestering values when Jane reveals herself to him , as the camera zooms in on her face instead of her body

Many interpretations of the Colonel represnts the quasi- fascist(Nazi’s) under belly of America. There is much to commend this view, given his collection of ‘Nazi Shit’ and his emphasis upon “authority, structure and decipline”. The Colonel is full of impotent rage at the state of the world. Even though the Fitts family is not perfect and has their family issues Ricky’s desire to stick by his broken mother and angry father is very touching in its impossibility. Tatiana Boaza