"Taxi Driver" in the 21st Century

A deep dive into this movie & it's complex cultural relevance

NOTE: This is a shorter version of my undergraduate thesis Travis Bickle: the Incel Prototype. This format does not allow the same depth as a thesis, but if you would like to dive deeper my thesis is available on the Butler University Library website.

Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver is one of my favorite movies — and yes, I know that is a red flag. I recommend reading a synopsis if you have not seen it because I will not give a full summary here. The way it deals with gritty realities and dives so deep into its main character Travis Bickle caught my attention immediately. It took a couple of years, but I eventually realized one reason why it stuck with me is because it reminds me of today. From full-of-shit politicians, to racism, to sexual violence, there are parallels than can be drawn to our current moment. The parallel most prescient is the connection of Travis to the current incel movement.

For those whose brains have not been rotted my pop culture analysis, incel stands for involuntarily celibate. In short, it is a group of primarily young men who claim that they are celibate because women will not take a chance on them. Many believe themselves to be unlovable due to their physical appearance and frequently blame women for being so shallow. The community is primarily online, and as a result, its members tend to be socially isolated. They say extremely violent things about women online, and most do not play out these actions but some have.

Back to Travis — his social isolation is one of his defining characteristics. Travis works long hours only speaking in passing with his taxi passengers and grabbing the occasional cup of coffee with his colleagues. That social isolation leads Travis down a dark path into madness. His main two actions come from the rejection of a woman and disgust over other men’s lust.

Travis develops an obsession with Betsy, who works for Senator Palantine’s presidential campaign. He sees her as “not like other girls” and a pure, chaste, woman who needs saving from her sad life. After Betsy rebuffs Travis, his obsession only grows.

Through the changing decor in his apartment and cab, we can see that his obsession with Betsy creates an obsession with Palantine. When Travis attends the Palantine rally with a gun, the assumption is that he has come to shoot Palantine. This may be true, but his obsession with Palatine is inextricably linked to his obsession with Betsy. It could be revenge or an attempt to save her, but Travis most certainly would not care about Palantine without first caring about Betsy. That link makes his actions more a result of sexual frustration than political.

Travis’ second violent action comes when he rescues Iris, the teen sex worker. They developed a strange, but chaste companionship when Travis wants her to go back home and quit sex work. Again, we see he is obsessed with protecting the virginal and pure. While his actions are not attached to a sexual interest in Iris, they are attached to a sexual possession of her. Travis sees it as his responsibility to control and protect her sexuality. He is determined not to let her become one of the many adult women he despises. His actions to save her are rooted in that kind of sexual frustration.

So, Travis Bickle may resemble modern incels in his psychology, but so what?

Well, it speaks to ways we may be failing as a society. Many of the same issues Travis dealt with are true of today: lack of opportunities for socialization, unnamed trauma, toxic masculinity, and men not knowing how to support one another.

The psychology of an incel appears when people believe the world is against them. Even if that belief isn’t true, we have to ask why it’s there. My favorite quote about Taxi Driver came from Pauline Kael’s review for The New Yorker:

“By drawing us into his vortex it makes us understand the psychic discharge of the quiet boys who go berserk.”

That phrase, “quiet boys who go berserk” has stuck with me. It evokes images of the stereotypical school shooter, a quiet boy with unaddressed psychological issues who everyone will lament that they wish they understood before it was too late.

However, I think that phrase can be applied to anyone. The idea behind it is that anyone, regardless of their outward persona, can go berserk given the right circumstances. What Travis teaches us is that when people are not given community resources and proper outlets to deal with their issues, they go berserk.

For a movie made in 1976, Taxi Driver is startlingly prescient. While Scorsese deserves praise for being so daring, we also deserve some pause for how little has changed.

Bibliography

Note: Not all of these sources are quoted or directly used in this article, but they were all a part of my research and knowledge base on the topic.

Am, Ari Ben and Gabriel Weimann. "Fabricated Martyrs." Perspectives on Terrorism (2020): 130-147.

Ebert, Roger. "Taxi Driver Review." Chicago Sun-Times January 1976. Newspaper.

Fairbanks, David. "Religious Forces and "Morality" Policies in the American States." The Western Political Quarterly September 1997: 411-417.

Harrison, James B. "Men's Roles and Men's Lives." Signs (1978): 324-336.

Hauser, Christine. "Reddit Bans ‘Incel’ Group for Inciting Violence Against Women." The New York Times 9 November 2017.

Jeffords, Susan. ""Things Worth Dying for": Gender and the Ideology of Collectivity in Vietnam Representation." Cultural Critique (1987): 79-103.

Kael, Pauline. "Underground Man." The New Yorker 9 February 1976. Magazine.

Lopes, Filipa Melo. "What do incels want? Explaining incel violence using." Hypatia (2021): 1-40.

Nagle, Angela. Kill All Normies. Zero Books, 2017.

"North America (US and Canada) Domestic Movie Chart for 1976." 2024. The Numbers. April 2024.

Rodger, Elliot. "My Twisted Life: The Story of Elliot Rodger." NY News Daily, May 2014.

Siskel, Gene. "'Taxi Driver': Violence ends a fine ride." The Chicago Tribune 27 February 1976: 35.

Sparks, Brandon, Alexandra M Zidenberg and Mark E Olver. "Involuntary Celibacy: A Review of Incel Ideology and Experiences with Dating, Rejection, and Associated Mental Health and Emotional Sequelae." Article. 2022.

Taxi Driver. Dir. Martin Scorsese. 1976.

Zoladz, Lindsay. "God’s Lonely Men: ‘Taxi Driver’ in the Age of the Incels." The Ringer 30 July