Travis Bickle or Rupert Pupkin : Which DeNiro Character is Really a Villain?
On the other hand, The King of Comedy was almost universally ignored by critics and audiences when first released; many critics complained that it was nothing more than a pale imitation of Taxi Driver that followed the same general plot line of a psychotic individual achieving a level of fame after committing a violent act. It is the fact that Travis Bickle winds up as the hero at the end of Taxi Driver that has driven much of the acclaim for that movie. It has been held up as a shining example of the rise of the antihero in the films of the 1970s. In fact, the latter film stands as a much more complex example of antiheroism in film because Travis Bickle’s standing as an antihero must be held up to question; Bickle is actually a simple hero in comparison to his counterpart Rupert Pupkin in The King of Comedy. Yet both characters are last seen in the guise of socially accepted hero.
While the earlier film has retained much of its status, it has taken some hits from critics questioning the validity of many assumptions commonly made about it. In contrast, the stock of The King of Comedy has risen as in retrospect it has come to be seen as eerily prescient in the way it foresaw the rise of the culture of the pseudo celebrity. In another American Film Institute list, Travis Bickle was voted as the 30th best film villain of all time. In fact, Bickle should not have been on the villain list at all, but rather the hero list. Why is he on the villain list? Because he threatens to kill a Presidential candidate and because he does kill several people at the end of the movie. But who does he kill and why? He kills drug pushers, pimps, scum. And why? To save a twelve year old girl from living amongst them, from being a prostitute. In fact, if one were to change the circumstances and the characters around a little, Travis Bickle could have been played by John Wayne. And, in fact, he was. In The Searchers, Wayne played an equally psychotic hero trying to save a young girl after she was kidnapped by Indians. (I’m not equating Native Americans with drug dealers and scum, by the way, but rather how Wayne’s character views them as savages from which a good, white American should be saved).
Contrast the motives of Bickle with Rupert Pupkin. Pupkin kidnaps TV talk show host Jerry Langford at gunpoint, ties him up, gags him and blackmails his way onto Langford’s television show so he can show off his comic talents. While Travis Bickle commits crime in the name of saving a young girl, Pupkin commits crime in the name of becoming a celebrity. And become a celebrity he does. In the coda of Taxi Driver, newspaper headlines show that Travis Bickle has become a minor celebrity, thanked by the girl’s parents and now the object of romantic interest by a girl who earlier spurned him. In the coda of King of Comedy, Pupkin has become a famous celebrity. Not just a celebrity, but a celebrity more famous for being famous because he committed a crime than for any real talent. Pupkin is the fictional forerunner of such pseudocelebrities as attempted murderer Amy Fisher or homemade porn queen Paris Hilton.
Very few moviegoers would not be able to immediately identify from which film the following quote comes: “Are you talking to me?” The vision of Travis Bickle, portrayed by Robert DeNiro, standing in front of a mirror in and continually making this query of his reflection has reached an iconic state. The story goes that DeNiro basically improvised this scene during shooting; regardless, that quote could stand as a thematic motif of the film as a whole. Travis Bickle both chooses to be alone only after having loneliness thrust upon him. In essence, his story is one of a disconnected individual responding to society with suspicion tinged by curiosity. Travis Bickle is not really part of the world in which he lives, nor is he completely certain whether or not he wants to be. His basic response to life is exemplified by those words, “are you talking to me?”
In contrast, Rupert Pupkin, the main character played by the same actor in The King of Comedy, might well be asking, “Why aren’t you talking to me?” Rupert Pupkin is a struggling comedian trying to go straight from his mother’s basement to late night television. (Echoes of Paris Hilton’s rise to international fame). While Bickle questions whether he really wants to be a part of the world around him-ultimately, he decides he’d rather try to remake the world from scratch instead of joining it-Pupkin eagerly tries to join the world he desires. At the end of Taxi Driver when Travis Bickle refuses the come-on of Betsy, the girl who rejected him earlier, it’s clear he has decided not to join the world that finally accepted him. In contrast, Rupert Pupkin is given fame and fortune to join the world he always wanted and there is never any doubt that he won’t become an official member.
While there are similarities between the two films, the major differences lie in the main characters and how critics and audiences have responded to them. Travis Bickle seems a likely villain because his violence is blood-soaked; Pupkin seems less threatening because he’s a jokester. But in the end, Travis Bickle is no more a villain than a John Wayne character and Rupert Pupkin’s villainy has been accepted into our living rooms in the guise on celebrities ranging from Tonya Harding to the most hated participants on such shows as Survivor and The Apprentice.
