The Amorality in America’s Morals: An Analysis of ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ (1975) and its Political Implications

Since its establishment, the Hollywood film industry has been marked by controversies over its negative portrayals of homosexuality and transsexuality. Such depictions reinforce the marginalization and silencencing of queer people, showcasing the homophobic tendencies of North American society, in which people often prefer to see LGBTQ characters defined by their sexual orientation rather than conceive them with any complex character development. 

However, Sidney Lumet’s extraordinary 1975 film, Dog Day Afternoon seems to break that pattern. Still to this day it remains one of the most outstanding portrayals of the LGBTQ fight for liberation. It tells the true story of a heroic gay man who, just three years after the Stonewall riots, conducted a bank robbery which became notorious as an act of literally taking up arms against the cis-het-normative society. 

Dog Day Afternoon takes place on August 22, 1972, the same day conservative Richard Nixon was renominated to the Presidency at the Republican National Convention. It is on a hot summer day in Brooklyn that Lumet begins delving through the helter-skelter of the American working class: the dirt on the streets, the homeless, the frenzy of cars rushing past traffic lights. All of this leads up to the image of Sonny sitting in his car seconds before his robbery of the Chase Manhattan Bank. Just moments later, when it is revealed that the heist’s impetus was raising funds for the sex-change operation of Sonny’s lover, a crowd of three thousand people gather to acclaim the act. 

Within the next two hours of screen time, Lumet uses Al Pacino’s incredible acting to humanize Sonny as the picture’s hero, whilst tackling the big issues surrounding the seventies – many of which remain central in American society nowadays. 

One particular ongoing debate investigated in the movie remains prevalent in global politics today: police brutality. Whose rights are cops really trying to protect? How much do they value other people's lives? Hours into the heist, as Sonny metamorphizes into a mediatic idol, and the police become increasingly threatening towards his own as well as the hostages’ lives, he screams: “Attica! Attica!” This is in reference to the massacre at the Attica Correctional Facility, an event in which prisoners protested for better living conditions and political rights, leading to New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller ordering the police to regain control of the prison. The result of this unisolated act of police brutality was the killing of over 39 people. 

The film denounces local police, the FBI, and goes as far as criticizing the involvement of the US military in Vietnam. Thus Dog Day Afternoon continuously reiterates the idea that the law enforcement system stands for nothing but the rights and interests of a white, cis-normative elite, and is anything but democratic in character. Yet still, in 2020, the aforesaid system remains the organization which receives the most governmental funds in America. The cry heard in Attica is the same one yelled by Pacino, and wistfully still the same we hear nowadays, asking for nothing but humanity.  

Subsequently, Lumet develops his analysis of North American society, exploring the miserable ‘American way of life’ lived by the vast majority of the country’s population: the working class. Amidst an unemployment crisis and an inflated economy that fails to provide him with sufficient income, Sonny tries to fulfill his lover’s dream and give her a sex change operation. As his plan goes astray, the tale unveils the nature of the ‘American dream’: a sexist, violent, homophobic country, in which people will do anything to get a higher place in capitalist society, to the detriment of any and all minority classes. This discloses a society in which consumerism is the only way to ascend socially and in which people have turned into mere objects. This has resulted in the fragility and volatility of relationships, to the extent that marriage has become a failed convention. It is a world which has become objectified.

Dog Day Afternoon shows this reification of men when, immediately after the real reasons for the robbery are disclosed, the police officers around Leon, Sonny’s lover, start mocking the situation. Lumet brings to light one of the many recurrent images of institutionalized homophobia, in which queer people are oftentimes seen as lesser, by others. This scene notably presents much more respect for homosexuality than most films ever have. By presenting a seemingly harmless, and often unnoticeable act of disrespect repeatedly present in society, Lumet places a spotlight not only on the way homophobia was seen as the norm, but also on the atrocious treatment police officers often inflict against the LGBTQ society, compared to cis-het people.     

Amidst the surge of a new sexual consciousness amongst the youth, Lumet takes the opportunity to highlight the issue of gay liberation within his vast analysis of society in the seventies. Aside from the passage above, the film presents its take on gay pride, and homophobic shame, through the issue surrounding Sal’s ‘Christian’ values. Sal is a man who is willing to end dozens of innocent lives, yet will not tolerate being mistaken as homosexual by the news reports regarding the heist. 

Whilst the film illustrates the stigma and marginalization of queer society, it also displays the relevance the heist encompassed for their fight for liberation and for respect. The bank robbery, aside from openly having its roots in an act of anti-capitalist and anti-institutional resistance, is also portrayed as a great event in queer history and politics. Wojtowicz, the real-life Sonny, later details in interviews and documentaries that he was extremely involved with the Gay Rights Movement, a movement also shown by Lumed in the movie. This is seen when over three thousand people crowd gathered to cheer the hero, and a group of LGBT activists start wailing “Out of the closets! Into the streets!”

It is also worth noting that the film presents the issue differently from the frequently stereotyped way of presenting queer characters. From before the film’s release, to the present day, queer characters have been repeatedly depicted as inferior to other cis-het roles. Al Pacino’s Sonny, however, breaks that paradigm, offering an often unseen presentation of queer characters. Similarly, the film gives compelling visibility to the LGBTQ issue, with a special emphasis on the unprecedented visibility of trans people, as Leon’s character takes the centre place of a nearly nonexistent representation of transsexual people in Hollywood. 

Whilst the film’s ties to the Stonewall riots may not seem as tight as they did in real life, as the director opted not to disclose the close connections between Wojtowicz, the Gay Rights Movement, and his role in the riots, Lumet creates a first-rate analysis of the capricious political implications of the affair, along with an underlying commentary on the North-American system. Sadly, the film continues to hold a lot of truth about contemporary society. Thus Dog Day Afternoon remains - almost 50 years after its release - an important study on the amorality present in North American society, its morals, and the importance of social movement as a collective action against the defective establishment.