This is an interesting question, because you might be right about Ashby's intentions. But if so, that might open the film up to criticism on other grounds: specifically, that I'm not sure the people who love it came away with that impression. They mostly seem to like the characters a lot. So it might be an either-or thing, where someone can dislike the film because it seems to be turning crappy behavior into something romantic and admirable, or because it fails to portray the appropriate level of nuance, so that viewers comer away finding said behavior romantic and admirable when that was not the intent.
Here's something semi-relevant to that argument:
That's an interesting argument, one that I think about a lot. If enough people misinterpret a character/plot point in a film, is it the fault of that film, even if there is textual evidence which indicates otherwise? For example, many people wrongly interpret the first half of
Full Metal Jacket as lightheartedly funny while not recognizing that the insults Sgt. Hartman uses are done to dehumanize the men into killers. Or, with the pic up above, many people wrongly idolize those characters and call them cool, while failing to recognizing that they're ****ty people who shouldn't be idolized.
This example also goes beyond unlikable characters. For example,
It's a Wonderful Life is often falsely read as being upbeat and happy despite it actually being really dark.
My take on this though is that
Harold and Maude,
Full Metal Jacket, and the films and shows in the above pic have enough textual evidence which indicate that these characters aren't meant to be idolized or to be read as kind, good-mannered people. Their flaws are presented clear as day. Yes, people will still misinterpret them, but my issue with holding that against those films is that by showing too much negative ground for them, this could dilute the points of the characters achieving happiness for what they do, which can be an interesting thing to watch in and of itself due to the complex emotional response it can have on me. With
Harold and Maude, if it showed too much examples of their actions negatively harming other people, then the point that they achieved happiness might be harder to pick up on.
With that being said though, I'm curious what your take on this argument is. It's an interesting point. If you think what you're describing is a problem with
Harold and Maude, how do you feel about
Full Metal Jacket, the films and shows in the pic I posted up above, or even
It's a Wonderful Life?
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interesting.
