Thursday , March 28 2024

The True History of the Kelly Gang

Sexual Content

OK, let’s deal with the dresses first.

As mentioned in the intro, Ned’s father (Red) cavorted in women’s garb, which Ned and his sister, Kate, discover (and burn). Cross-dressing emasculates Red in Ned’s eyes, and the two don’t speak much after that. When Ned returns home after several years away, he discovers that his brother, Dan, also wears women’s clothes quite often.

The dresses are more than just a weird sexual predilection, though. Red and Dan believe they’re following a hallowed tradition: An Irish group called the Sons of Sieve have leaned into anarchic mischief for generations while dressed in women’s clothes, and the Kelly men believe they’re holding to that custom. It serves a purpose, too, Dan claims: “If you wear a frock to a fight, they think you’re crazy,” he says. “And nothing scares a man like crazy.” (That rationale doesn’t explain why Dan also attends dances in frocks, but we’ll move on.) Eventually Ned and most of his closest compatriots fight in lacy and frilly gowns.

And we’re not done yet. Sexual fluidity seems to be one of the movie’s most obvious undercurrents. While Ned does get involved, and falls in love, with a young prostitute (we see her naked in one scene, revealing her backside and the side of her breast) and apparently conceives a child with her, his relationship with men is freighted with homoerotic undertones at times, too. Ned wrestles with Joe Byrne at times—sometimes when they’re mostly undressed—and they stroke one another’s faces and kiss one another’s foreheads. (It’s not completely clear that they’re in a sexual relationship, but the movie seems determined to suggest they could be.)

Ned later meets Constable Fitzpatrick, and they hang out in a well-appointed brothel where Fitzpatrick is completely naked except for a pair of lady’s stockings. (His bare legs obscure his privates.) He tells Ned that it’s fun to have sex while wearing a dress; when a Shetland pony noses his way into the scene, Fitzpatrick shoves the beast away saying, “Not again,” hinting at an act of bestiality. Fitzpatrick also works a deal with the Kelly family in order to be with Kate, Ned’s younger sister. (Fitzpatrick is, by the way, engaged.)

Ellen performs oral sex on another constable, and a spying Ned watches the encounter. Ellen and Ned’s future owner, Harry Power, exchange veiled sexual banter before he, too, spends the night. Ellen insults Ned’s father and his manhood. Ned’s father tries to display said manhood either to entice or provoke Ellen.

We see plenty of provocatively dressed prostitutes and hear about illegitimate children. Cleavage makes occasional but noticeable appearances. Ned is shirtless much of the time, and we see him (both as a child and as an adult) taking baths (from the chest up). Another scene implies masturbation.

Harry Power and a young Ned barge into a room where a constable and a prostitute are engaged in obvious sex. The woman leaves, leaving the constable completely naked and covering his privates with his hands. Which leads to …

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