Gottschalk 1
Lauren Hope GottschalkMrs. Robbins
Critical Analysis of Film and Literature
30 October 2014
The Royal Tenenbaums
One symbol of The Royal Tenenbaums that stood out to me was Richie Tenenbaum's
headband. At the start of the film it is seen that Tenenbaum wears this headband all day, everyday.
Even as time progresses, specifically 22 years later, Tenenbaum is still wearing the headband. I think
that Tenenbaum wore the headband at a younger age because he wanted to show people that he was an
athlete. When Tenenbaum's tennis career ultimately failed he did not take off the headband. He
continued to wear it. I think this was because Tenenbaum wanted to hold onto the golden moments of
his past career. In short, he did not want to let go of what was once good. After Tenenbaum
hears and sees mistakenly that Margo Tenenbaum has been in a relationship with Eli Cash, he takes the
headband off. The headband to Tenenbaum symbolizes hope. As a child he wore the headband non-
stop because he may have been hopeful to win his tennis matches. As a adult he continue to wore it
because he may have thought that his tennis career still was alive or that him and Tenenbaum possibly
still could have a romantic future together even though she was just married. Lastly, Tenenbaum took
off the headband after he hears and sees mistakenly that Margo is involved in a passionate relationship
with Eli Cash. His hope was lost.
Why does Wes Anderson have Tenenbaum take off his headband after he finds out about the
relationship between Tenenbaum and Cash and not cut to a shot where Tenenbaum is taking
relationship between Tenenbaum and Cash and not cut to a shot where Tenenbaum is taking
off his headband immediately?
I agree that when Richie finally takes off his headband, he is showing that he is finally becoming a man and changing himself. Unfortunately he does not choose the best way to change himself immediately, but it still shows that he is letting go of the past and trying to turn over a new leaf. And this new leaf was trying to win Margot over and actually do something that makes him happy, because I feel that he has been sad for a very long time.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the symbolic value of Richie's headband to be a sign of hope and past success. I believe Wes Anderson made Richie take off his headband once finds out about Margot and Eli because it was such a strong impact on Richie's life goals. Since he ended up failing in his career and losing appreciating of his father in outcome. Margot was the only thing he had to look forward to therefore once everything was gone he felt no value in his headband and no hope for the future.
ReplyDeleteI like how you decided to focus on the headband in the movie! To answer your question, I don't think that the taking off of the headband was fully a result of his finding out that Margot had an affair with Eli. In my opinion, he's had suicidal thoughts for a long time, because throughout almost the entire film he's not in the best place that one could be in their life. I think that the new notion of Margot's affair with Eli was kind of like the last straw for Richie. He felt that not only was his family situation, his career, and life in general suffering, but now his love life was down the drain as well. At this point, he felt that he had not choice but to commit suicide. Good blog!
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