Mysterious Skin is a subversive film, as it’s main subject, pedophilia, is still relatively taboo, and the way it is represented is certainly unconventional. Araki offers us a unique glimpse into the underground world of male prostitution, using this world as a means of showing the viewer the long-lasting effects of sexual abuse in childhood. However, this world also serves another important purpose: subverting mainstream American culture in the early 90’s. Araki exposes the homophobia that was, and still is to an extent, so entrenched in American society, without ever directly exhibiting it. The men Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character, Neil, has sex with in exchange for money are all indicative of their society’s homophobic culture. The first man we see Neil pick up looks like an average, middle-American man. He is a father (as indicated by the teddy bear with the word “Daddy” stitched onto it that hangs from his car’s rearview mirror) and works as a grocery store supplier (as he tells Neil). This man is obviously a closeted gay man, and there is something profoundly sad about the cagey manner in which he must fulfill his sexual desires, likely for fear of being ostracized if he were to live as an openly gay man. Eventually, a relatively naïve Neil begins to realize the danger he is putting himself in by prostituting himself. He contracts crabs, and, once in New York City, is put in various precarious situations he had not experienced in Kansas. The most severe of these situations is when a man who Neil had picked up beats and rapes him after he attempts to escape, sensing that the man was volatile. Neil’s downward spiral awakens the audience to the dangerous world of the marginalized, and Araki effectively demonstrates the adverse way in which prejudice can dominate lives.
Furthermore, Neil and his friends, Michelle Trachtenberg’s Wendy and Jeffrey Licon’s Eric, clearly represent a teenage counterculture in the early 90’s. Their appearance – dyed hair, multiple piercings, heavy makeup – indicate that they do not subscribe to mainstream culture. At the same time, both Neil and Eric are gay, and the gay community at that time was somewhat of a counterculture in itself. Araki aligns himself with them in the film, subverting mainstream culture by contrasting it against the liberal, free-spirited friends. In one poignant scene, the group pulls up beside a trucker at a red light. The trucker, obviously troubled by their unconventional appearances, stares at them threateningly. Neil challenges him, demanding to know what he is staring at before kissing Eric as a dissent. The trucker, now at his breaking point, pulls out a shotgun, and the group quickly peels out of the intersection. Neil, ever defiant, sticks his upper body out of the passenger window to give the trucker the middle finger. This exhilarating scene, in which the three teenage misfits essentially conquer a traditional American lifestyle (represented by the trucker), reveals to the audience that Araki identifies with these teenagers, struggling to express themselves in a stiflingly conservative society.
Finally, Araki’s most prevalent insurrection against mainstream America comes through in his way of representing pedophilia. Their baseball coach sexually abuses Brian and Neil; the Little League setting of the abuse is an important, deliberate choice made by Araki. Baseball’s nickname is “America’s Pastime” – it is the quintessential American sport. Playing in the baseball Little League is an all-American activity. The fact that this acts as a setting for pedophilic sexual abuse means that Araki is, again, subverting American culture, exposing the dark world of sexual oppression that lurks beneath its surface. It is significant, as well, that the coach is described as looking like “the lifeguards, cowboys, and firemen” in his mother’s Playgirl magazines (Araki). These male archetypes are distinctly American figures, and the coach, with his conventional good looks and “Marlboro Man” moustache (Araki), clearly fits with the traditional conception of an all-American man. When he is attempting to seduce Neil, he takes him to a ‘slasher’ movie, buys him pizza, and plays video games with him – all components of a classic American childhood. As well, he gives Neil a value pack of an assortment of sugary breakfast cereals to eat, which, as well, is a distinctly American phenomenon. When Neil and the coach playfully throw bits of cereal around the coach’s kitchen, it is amongst the Fruit Loops and Frosted Flakes scattered across the kitchen floor, symbols of American consumer culture, that Neil is sexually abused for the first time. All of these elements associated with an American childhood are twisted by Araki to, instead, represent something sinister. In this way, Araki is providing a critique of American culture, drawing attention to all that it suppresses.
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