There’s something spellbinding about borrowing from Shakespeare for your indie film about a sex worker traveling to find his mom with his best friend and unrequited love interest by his side. Setting the tales of Shakespeare in our present day often brings to light just how little has changed in societal attitudes and inequities, from prevalent racism to contemporary existentialist philosophy to the severe bloodshed in modern war. What My Own Private Idaho does to Henry IV is highlight just how far class inequity has gone in modern America. There are no “kings” or “princes,” but there are politicians and their children; here Scott Favor (Keanu Reeves) is the son of politician Jack Favor (Tom Troupe), the modern day versions of Prince Hal and King Henry IV, respectively. Falstaff may be a character, but he fits right in as Bob Pigeon (William Richert), a citizen deprived of basic human rights like shelter, food, and freedom to live as he is. The wealth gap in America is at the center of My Own Private Idaho, with protagonists that force you to witness the inequity we face.
Our two protagonists, Mike Waters (River Phoenix) and Scott seem at first to be in similar situations. Relegated to the streets, they engage in sex work just to get by, Mike having the added trouble of being narcoleptic. They spend their lives in run-down motels and shady streets with nothing but the clothes on their backs to keep them warm in the chilled, overcast city of Portland. A woman picks up Mike and his first reaction is noting that she “lives in a new car ad.” Wealth is noticeable, pertinent, and obvious, which is why it’s such a shock to learn Scott is actually the son of the mayor and expects to inherit his wealth in a week’s time.
There’s an uncomfortable shift as we learn this in a dreamy sequence with various characters as talking porn magazine covers. Scott is no longer just the only empathetic person in Mike’s life: he’s a player in a game he can always quit. He explains that all his delinquency will be resolved when he receives his inheritance: he’ll just clean up his act the second the money lands in his lap all to make his father proud. Despite this, Scott agrees to go with Mike to Idaho to see the mother, which soon becomes a wild goose chase with her absence in every location devastating Mike at every turn. Scott idly watches as Mike lashes out at his brother/father when he learns he’s a product of incest, runs as fast as he can from a cop that stops them on the road, and cries when his mother is not in Italy as they had been led to believe. Scott’s distance and confusion in moments of horrible vulnerability caused by Mike’s perpetual poverty and homelessness further emphasize that he chooses to live in poverty until he feels like leaving.
By the film’s end, wealth overtakes Scott in all its capitalistic venom. He turns away from his father figure from the streets, Bob Pigeon (William Richert), the Falstaff to his Prince Hal, and actively ignores any and all people associated with his previous street life. He refuses to even look at Bob when they meet again in a restaurant filled with bigwigs, his cold gaze denying Bob’s desperate pleas for even a hint of love, or at the very least acknowledgment. It’s not just that the two coinciding funerals of Scott’s father figures are separated by class in that the rich are solemn and the poor are erratic; the rich are silent and unfeeling while the impoverished are lively and full of emotion. In her essay “My Own Private Idaho: Private Places” for the Criterion release of the film, Amy Taubin notes its contrast between “the societal extremes of haves and have-nots,” with uproarious emotion as the key factor defining the poor and Mike’s own rage at the center.
Mike lives in far different circumstances. A product of incest, never knowing a “normal” life, Mike is triggered into bouts of intense sleep all at the thought of knowing his unreachable mother. It’s unknown if his sexuality is a reason why he lives so far from his family in Idaho, but it does inform one of the biggest differences between him and Scott.
The most memorable scene of Idaho is when Mike and Scott are sitting at a campfire on the road in Idaho, resting for the night before they continue their search for Mike’s mother. Mike struggles to get the words out, but the idea is clear: he loves Scott. Scott’s own retaliation is heartbreaking: “I only have sex with men for money. Two guys can’t love each other.” The most painful reminder of Scott’s wealthy upbringing are his conservative views: seeing gayness as hypersexualized vulgarity you can wear like a costume. Despite it all, Mike confesses: “I just wanna kiss you, man.”
But it’s more pervasive than that; it’s in Scott’s conservative ideas regarding sexuality, it’s in his story that he told the maid he was running away as if having a maid is normal and poverty is a choice. More than anything, it’s in Mike’s lack of security, housing, food, happiness, and Scott’s choice to lose those things to make himself look like a cleaned up, redeemed teen, deserving of political stature and heaps of wealth. It’s Scott early on playing a prank on Bob, stealing what he and his crew had just stolen, all to make him look like a fool. It especially lies in the parallel of Scott facing away from Bob when he speaks of first gaining his inheritance just as he does in the restaurant, showing plainly that Scott does not view them as equals; really he doesn’t view Bob at all.
To Scott and so many other affluent people, poverty is a costume, a mask, something akin to playing in the sandbox, then being called in for dinner time. Scott only shows empathy when he lives on the streets and the closer he gets to inheriting his wealth, the less empathy he has. Capital breeds indifference and individualism, it values conservatism and the act of rejecting your fellow person. For Scott, it removes his humanity, plainly defining the wealth gap in America: you don’t need to be royalty to be out of touch with the masses.
