Travis Bickle's Taxi Driver: A Hero

Taxi Driver: A Hero
In the movie Taxi Driver, there are many different views on the main character, Travis Bickle. There are different opinions on whether he is a maniac or a hero. It is hard to have a satisfying answer to this question, but it is safe to say that what he did, at least in his mind, was the right thing to do. Besides when he attempted to assassinate senator Palantine, But that was done for the movie to show a political message. That message is that sometimes political leaders are just as bad as the pimp’s and the robbers that lie, cheat, and steal. Through the movie he is always seen as an outsider, someone who doesn’t quite belong where he is. They keep referring to him as the cowboy, and how he isn’t quite normal.
To me this is a narrow minded point of view, just because Travis is a normal person and kills these scumbags of New York doesn’t make him any less of a hero compared to any police officer or soldier in the army who does the same thing. The ending of Taxi driver creates an ironic twist which makes the movie what it is. In spite of his strange behavior towards Betsy, his killing a black man, attempted murder of Palantine, and the insane blood bath at the pimp 's hangout, the psychopathic Travis Bickle is still a hero showed by Iris ' parents and their letter of gratitude, as well as being cleared of all charges by the authorities. As Scorsese proclaims, "strange things, as we know, have happened in this city"(Ebert). This ironic twist was not understood by all the critics who reviewed the film at the time or since. Critics according to Ebert had rejected the film because they were unable or unwilling to understand the meaning of this ending. Most reviewers of the period condemned Scorsese for the immoral outcome of what they referred to as the second ending.(Ebert) In Newsweek, Jack Kroll expresses this feeling of misunderstanding by writing, “in their eagerness to establish rich and moral ambiguities, the Catholic Scorsese and the Calvinist
The positive reviews of the film were more subtle in their appreciations and saw the ending as a social metaphor. Pauline Kael is one of the first critics to take Scorsese 's side in the debate. Quoted from the New Yorker, "This film doesn 't operate on the level of moral judgment of what Travis does. Rather, by drawing us into his vortex it makes us understand the psychic discharge of the quiet boys who go berserk. And it 's a real slap in the face for us when we see Travis at the end looking pacified. He 's got the rage out of his system for the moment at least and he 's back at work, picking up passengers in front of St-Regis. It 's not that he 's cured but that the city is crazier than he is"(Caron). This reading is supported by Michael Henry, "Never has society showed so much attention to Travis. Having shaved his head like a Mohawk Indian as if to rekindle the purity of America 's aboriginal origins, he finds himself recognized, renowned and in the end assimilated to his contemporaries of the silent majority"(Caron). We see that although these two critics see the irony of Taxi driver they still saw the ending literally. But for film critic Jack Kroll of Newsweek, "it is simply incredible when Travis is hailed a hero after the slaughter, despite the fact he 'd been armed like a weapons platoon and had previously been