Buffalo 66: an Exploration of Childhood Trauma’s Effects on Adulthood

Upon first watch Vincent Gallo’s 1998 film: Buffalo 66, may just seem like a disturbing tale of grooming, abuse, and poor parenting. While those things do play a part in the movie, it is so much more than that. In reality Buffalo 66 is a nuanced masterpiece that perfectly encapsulates many of the things trauma can do to a person. Nostalgia and trauma are big components of this film, and essentially act as an overarching theme for the movie’s somewhat mundane, very “everyday life” plot. The thing with Buffalo 66 is that while it does contain some action, some romance, some comedy, etc. it does not fit into a genre. It is a raw showcase of real life experiences with semi-autobiographical characters that tell a real story: one of learning, love, and loneliness. It is not some pithy art film about who knows what; it’s about life. While the former is true, over all else, the thing Buffalo 66 does best is beautifully portraying the effects of childhood trauma on adult behavior and relationships.
The movie opens with Billy Brown: our main character, fresh out of prison. He finds himself in a dance studio where he kidnaps a young tap dancer named Layla. Once in the car, he informs Layla she will have to roleplay as his faux-wife “Wendy Balsam” to convince his parents (unaware of his five year stint in jail) that he is a successful man. They travel to his parents house in Buffalo, New York, decorated in full with Buffalo Bills memorabilia, and have dinner with his parents. While talking to his parents, we gain a few insights into what Billy’s childhood was like. In one scene, Mrs. Brown offers Billy a chocolate donut. Billy declines, reminding her that he is, in fact, allergic to chocolate. Mrs. Brown insists he doesn’t have a chocolate allergy and is adamant about Billy’s love of chocolate. It’s at this point that we see a home video come on screen. The video depicts a young Billy seated alone at a table covered in chocolate and hives, his mothers voice audible in the background. She is heard dismissing the efforts made by Billy to inform her of his adverse reaction. This is a clear example of neglect. Neglect is defined as “the failure to provide for all aspects of the child's well-being”(Norman). In this situation neither Billy’s physical, nor his emotional, needs are being met. Neglect is a form of childhood trauma that can severely affect adult behavior. One study found that there seems to be “a causal relationship between non-sexual child maltreatment and a range of mental disorders (...) [as well as] suicide attempts”(Norman). While Billy Brown may not follow through with committing suicide in Buffalo 66, there is an extremely graphic portrayal of his idealized suicide towards the end of the movie, indicating he had a clear plan to kill himself. He also very clearly had an extremely difficult mental state, proven by his suicidal ideation and self esteem issues (two indicators of depressive disorders). It is extremely clear that Billy’s adult self battles with mental illness that can be attributed to his childhood neglect.
Later at the dinner table, Layla asks Mr. and Mrs. Brown for photos of Billy when he was young. Mrs. Brown gushes, and asks Mr. Brown to bring in the photo album. Instead of being filled with photos of Billy as a child, the scrapbook is packed to the brim with photos of Mrs. Brown with various members of the Buffalo Bills, and one, single, photo of Billy. Mrs. Brown at one point in the evening says she wishes she had never had Billy, recounting the only Bills game she ever missed one day in 1966: Billy’s birthday. There is a common thread in Buffalo 66 of Mrs. Brown prioritizing her obsession with the Bills over Billy. This lack of a present mother figure in Billy’s life leads to complications down the line. “A child's relationship with her or his mother is the foundation of a sense of self” and Billy didn’t have this motherly connection (Apter). Due to his severe lack of maternal comfort and nurturing he lacks self esteem and is left with lots of shame. Another maternal dilemma Billy faces is the mother-complex, a spin on the Freudian Oedipus complex, that is “less about (...) wanting to fulfill (...) sexual desires, and more about wanting the experience of nurturance that is often between a mother and child” (Pulis). Because of this some men (including Billy) “[try] to return to the nurturance of the archetypal mother through other women who fill that image” (Pulis). In Billy’s instance, he finds Layla. While she is much younger than him, she takes on a nurturing role in Billy’s life, supplying him with love he had never received before. In one scene Billy sits in the fetal position in the bathtub of a motel, in his tighty whities (as he refuses to get completely undressed). Layla calls to him, asking to sit in the bathroom with him. He refuses all offers of intimacy until he caves and allows her in the restroom where she sits on the side of the bathtub, looking at him lovingly. The next scene depicts a birds eye view of them lying in the motel bed, him curled up to her in the fetal position once more. Billy remains in a childlike state throughout the movie, clearly having never been able to recover from the pains of his youth.
Though Billy exhibits multiple examples of childhood trauma, he isn’t alone. Layla also shows some toxic traits that can be attributed to experiences from her childhood. Throughout the film, Billy is awful to Layla. For starters, he literally begins their relationship by kidnapping her. He forces her into her own car and makes her drive all while berating her about her driving skills and her intelligence. At his parent’s house he forces her to eat tripe (intestines) though she had explicitly stated prior that she was a vegetarian. He has verbally abusive tendencies towards her throughout the entire movie (not to mention the toxically massive age gap, as Layla is rumored to be 17 and Billy is 28). The problems with Layla lie in her responses to Billy’s behavior. For example, in the car scene while she’s being kidnapped, Billy sits in the driver's seat, but realizes the car is a stick shift (which he cannot drive). He and Layla both step out, and walk around the car to switch seats. This is an opportunity for Layla– a kidnapped young girl– to run from her captor. Instead, she complies with his demands calmly, even talking back to him at times. She treats him, not like a kidnapper, but as a friend, or a crush. The question must be asked though, amidst all of Billy’s emotional abuse: why does she stay? Fear of abandonment may be the answer. Abandoned people don’t realize that “by missing out on the nurturing and caring [that is needed] from both parents, [people] sometimes develop beliefs that can hurt [them]” , and Layla is a perfect example of this (Wade). In Buffalo 66, an overlooked detail may be the fact that Layla's parents are never present or mentioned. She gets kidnapped, yet no relative reaches out at all. This leads me to believe that Layla may also have a fractured relationship with her family. Oftentimes when people who were abandoned or neglected get into relationships, they get attached out of fear. By staying with Billy throughout his abusive behavior, she may just be accidentally hurting herself while trying not to get hurt.
Some people think that by presenting Billy’s character as a nuanced portrayal of personified trauma, the emotional damage Layla endures during the film is erased. They say that “Although child abuse and trauma can have distressing lifelong effects, this does not cause someone to abuse their partner later in life.” (Bri and Nicole). They argue that trauma is not a life sentence, and that while trauma can be harrowing and difficult to overcome, there is no need to form a cycle of trauma by inflicting pain on others. I do not think people that believe this are incorrect per say. I think they are right on the fact that Billy’s past doesn’t excuse his present, but I don’t believe that looking at Billy through the lens of a damaged man instead of the lens of an abuser, completely discredits his wrongdoings. I think this argument is purely one sided. There is a psychological approach called “humanism” that explains Billy’s behavior. Humanistic psychology was pioneered by Rogers and Maslow and focused on “the individual (...), emphasis on conscious experience, and everything to do with the wholeness of human nature” (Benson). This approach looks at humans as beings that are determined to reach their full potential. Imagine a tree, growing to be as tall as possible. The things that stop growth are things like trauma, which can put a person on the wrong path. To revisit the tree analogy, negative events trigger wiry branches and rotting bark, and stunt its growth. I consider Billy to be a person that, without the trauma he endured in his youth, may have reached his full human potential. So while I don’t think his behavior towards Layla is excused, I think it can be explained.
Buffalo 66 is not a comedy, nor is it a dramedy, or a romance film. Buffalo 66 is a reality. It is a gorgeous and multifaceted journey in which a person can find the best and worst parts of themself. It truly is a film I think everyone that watches can learn something from. Thanks to Vincent Gallo’s excellent character building, the audience is able to feel for, and empathize with them. Through the use of multiple well fleshed out characters and nuanced storytelling, Gallo does an exceptional job at portraying the effects of childhood trauma on adult behavior and relationships.