Taxi Driver- The relationship between society’s rejection, one’s identity and actions.

Last Edited, 2022

Wrote in 2021, essay from Questioning cultural identity lecture

As the inspiration of one of the most famous films in recent years, Joker, Taxi Driver has a lot in common with Joker, or rather is say, it is the other way around. Taxi Driver, a film released in 1976, is about a man called Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), a former-solder taxi driver(Wikipedia contributors, 2021)The film is directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. It shows the audience the protagonist's view of New York and was inspired by Paul’s experience back in the days when he felt lost and distant from society (Russell, 2021). As this film goes through the process distanced from society to search for identity, getting rejected again by society, changing, and finally earning his place in the end, it is a great film to analyze under the topic of the impact of rejection from society on one’s identity.

The beginning of the film shows the main protagonist Travis characteristics. In the film, as a taxi driver, his only purpose is to take passengers to the desired destination in return for payment. As if an emotionless tool in part of this city. This correspondent to Travis’s character at the beginning of the movie. As he would say animals will come out at night and hope the rain will wash them and the garbage away someday. This is a mentor as the garbage and animals he was talking, about are referring to prostitutes people who take drugs, and sell drugs. However, even though he hates these 'animals' so much, he doesn’t seem to care whether his passengers are one of these people or not. As this is shown more apparent later when Travis remains still when the underage prostitute Iris got dragged out of his taxi. Even when a woman got attacked by street kids right next to him, he remain stood by aside and did nothing. From the above actions, we can see Travis share similarities to his job, in which he is just a watcher and only do certain actions when being asked. Not only that, as he called these people “animals” shows he thinks he has the right and is different and better than them. Also, in the middle part of the movie, when Travis talked to the security, he said he would do well in the special department of the government as he said he is good at understanding people and used to be a soldier, further proving he thinks he is above average or even belong to the top level.

Soon after, he fell in love with Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) at first sight. He referred to her as “She was wearing a white dress . She appeared like an angel . Out of this filthy mess. She is alone. They cannot touch her" (Scorsese, 1976, 10:25). When Travis takes her out to have a meal, he describes “Betsy can have anything she wanted to." (Scorsese, 1967, 23:48) Here we can see in Travis’s eyes Betsy is an angel, followers of god, pure and perfect, to a sense which she is above all and is allowed to do anything she desires. More importantly, when he said the sentence "They cannot touch her" he was trying to approach her, meaning he believes he is not only in a higher position than everyone else but even, have the power to protect an angel. As if he is God. Later on, Travis tried very hard to find something in common between them. For example, when Betsy mentioned some problems of her co-worker, Travis immediately bought up his assumption and vexed Tom, and further ask for agreement from Betsy. However, in between the conversation, we could see their interest and characteristic are not alike. This could later be seen in another scene where Travis gave a gramophone record to Betsy and said he loves music but doesn’t catch up to music soon after Betsy indicates she loves music. This scene indicates that Travis knows he is different then Betsy, who he thinks is an angel, and higher above all. However, as identity is not given by us but the society, Travis needs someone who he thinks is on the same level as him to confirm this identity. Because of that, Travis is desperate to ensure Betsy and he has the same view on things and the same experience. When he found out his flaw, he would pretend to be someone else to cater to the quality he carve. What we can see here is Travis begins to search for his identity from others.

After Travis is rejected by Betsy because he took her to watch a porn movie, he went to Betsy's workplace and tried to get Betsy back. When he got no response from Betsy, he went on and said“You’re in a hell! You’ll die in hell like the rest”, and “You ‘re like the rest of them.” The narrator of his voice said, “I realize now how much she’s just like the others, cold and distant” (Scorsese, 1976, 39:28) In this part, Betsy is not just who he liked, but represents the society, as she has the power to disaffirm who he thought he is or to give the identity he wanted via common ground. When he got rejected by Betsy, he became disappointed. Yet, as he believes him in a higher position than Betsy, he believes it is Betsy who does not worthy enough to take him in. 

Starting from here, Travis changed. He no longer seeks identity from others as he thinks everyone is the same, everyone will burn in hell, except himself. As he continues to describe himself as the person who finally stood up. As if he is about to do something heroic, something extraordinary. He bought guns and started training. When he encountered a robbery in a shop, he immediately shot him without hesitation. the only thing that concerned him after shot someone down is whether he would get arrested because he have no gun license. The action from the shop owner indicated Travis did the right thing, as he continues to do a similar thing to the robber and told him he will take care of this. After this, Travis' view of the guns became more consolidated as he believe he just did the right thing. When he sees the same race male as the robber earlier, he pointed the gun at him and stares at him aggressively. Hereafter, Travis would carry a gun at home, and even when it is the tv content that violet God's rule, he takes a step and break the tv. We can see Travis’s contradiction here, as he thinks everyone besides himself is evil, but from the shop owner's actions, indicating he could still get approval from others. In light of this, society still means something to him. However, he did not aware of it. After he got a rejection by Betsy, he refused to take any identity from others. When he went to meet Sport (Harvey Keitel), he called Travis a cowboy and he smiles to imply he agrees. Yet, when Sport called him “hip”, he looks angry and said he is not hip. This is because Travis thinks what he is about to do, to save the girl Iris from the evil man by using violence, is the opposite of hipster's principle, which is love and against war. What's more is that he describe himself as the one who finally stood up, meaning he thinks love and no war are suppressed move, and only through violence, could bring peace to society. Because of that, he is not happy being called hip. This is also shown Travis rejects identity which is against what he gave himself. Not only that, when Iris tells him that she got dragged from his cab is because she was stoned, Travis refused repeatedly to believe in her words further showing he against accepting something that he opposed to what he believes in. This further shows how the rejection from society would make one begin to build on their new identity based on what they considered as right, and refuse to believe in other's perspectives. If their belief was astray in the beginning, being rejected by the public generally would not only isolate one but even strengthen one's belief.

From there on, Travis is no longer a taxi driver, he began to consider himself as something mighty and to prove that, he needs to take action that alines with this identity and his own belief. He went to Iris's place. Killed Sport, the men at the front desk, and the customer. He remain claim the process and even after the killing, he was being playful. After that, he became a hero in the public eye. The taxi driver who barely fought against gangsters and save a young girl. We can also see that he cut all of them out and put them on his wall. At night, Betsy went to his taxi. This time, Betsy looked at Travis with a different perspective, a look of admiration. After he took her to the destination, Travis simply smiled lightly at Betsy and rejected the crash from her. This is the opposite of the beginning which indicated his 'change'. After he drives the car and leaves, he desperately searches for Betsy’s back. Here we can see after Travis fulfilled his “destiny”, he earned a place in society. Even Travis acted like he doesn’t need to be given an identity by society, he was happy with the way Betsy admires him, the way he is not alone anymore, and being called a hero now. Even though he rejected the cash from Betsy, he still tries to search for her when driving away. Once again reinforce his still consider Besty as the person who he believes is at the same level as himself. He is still desperate in earning recognition from people who can give him the recognition he needed. He might have rejected to take someone in a direction they wanted, but only because it could help him build the image he wanted them to see. All these show that Travis needed recognition from society, even after he got rejected. This could be showing that even if one is lost and got no place in the community anymore, they would still try to do something which could help them in earning a place. To become the person they wanted to be seen as, in their way, as if this would be their only living purpose, to fit in. This further suggested that one does need others to survive because one's identity would not be able to form or be recognized without the help of society.To conclude, this film pointed out why having a recognized identity within society is important. The use of society is to regulate our actions, with no identity or rejection from society, one would simply become disconnected from others and act according to their morals.

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