YMMV / Being There

• Alternative Character Interpretation
  • The Twist Ending of the film begs the question of Chance's true nature: is he The Fool or The Messiah? The filmmakers intended the former, but knew the latter interpretation was possible. A rather twisty interpretation suggests that he started as the former, and became the latter as people grew to believe in him.
  • The film's existence was based on this. Kosinski wrote Chance as a representation of his fear of a style-over-substance world, having no idea someone could actually identify with such a character. Though they disagreed on the implications of his rise to power — Peter Sellers saw it as the meek inheriting the earth — Kosinski admitted that Sellers understood Chance better than he did.
  • By modern standards, Chance could be seen as autistic rather than mentally challenged, given his behavior. Either way, is it possible he could have been, or still might be, capable of more than he already is if he'd been given professional help rather than treated as a Madwoman in the Attic? Given that he does have genuine talent as a gardener, it shows he is at least capable of holding a blue-collar job and more if he was given more chances in life. He even shows Character Development in response to Ben's death compared to the Old Man's, implying Chance is capable of growing if nurtured properly.
    • One possibility is that Chance is dyslexic or had some other learning disability that made him unable to read. As often happened with children with learning disabilities in the past, his caregivers may have assumed that he was mentally retarded in all other aspects and decided not to bother even trying to teach him anything and to keep him isolated from the rest of the world.
  • Is Louise, Chance's caretaker, right to be annoyed as seeing her former charge gain political power, or is she an ableist who has always looked down on Chance for his mental issues? Was she right to peg Chance as a moron, or did she make Chance's problems worse by assuming he could never function in society?^note Sadly, the idea that mentally ill people were beyond help wasn't exactly uncommon at the time. It is, therefore, possible for Louise to have been a well-meaning person who gave up on Chance because of what people in her time believed.
• Adaptation Displacement: The novella is still in print, but with a picture of Peter Sellers as Chance on the U.S. cover.
• Accidental Aesop: While the movie's comedy comes from people putting so much faith and reverence into a man without much intelligence, the movie seems to also argue that people like Chance shouldn't be kept isolated from society. The Old Man not preparing Chance for the real world meant that when he died, Chance was forced from his home with no survival skills and would've been badly off if not for Ben's generosity. Chance's problems stem from being isolated from society more than any innate intelligence, and throughout the movie, he does show some emotional growth and mental development.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Are the book and the movie an indictment of a society obsessed with style over substance? Or is it that mentally ill people can be capable of things if given a chance?
• Award Snub: It only got two Oscar nominations—Peter Sellers for Best Actor and Melvyn Douglas for Best Supporting Actor. Douglas won, but general opinion nowadays is that Sellers should have won; he lost to Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer. (Sellers himself blamed the Gag Reel during the end credits for destroying the illusion of the character.)
• Comedy Ghetto: The most likely reason Peter Sellers didn't win, even when a mentally challenged character is usually Oscar Bait.
• Death of the Author: Kozinski's message about "style over substance" politics is lost on many people who see the movie as an inspiration for those with mental disabilities to better themselves. On the other hand, because the intended message has only gained Values Resonance in the 21st century, it's not completely lost for all observers.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: A large contingency of audiences in the 21st century interpret Chance as autistic, in large part thanks to his flat affect, lack of social awareness, manchild characterization, and strong fixation on gardening and television, which define nearly every aspect of his lifestyle. At least one autistic reviewer additionally described the scene where Chance wanders the city streets alone and confused, looking for a garden to tend, as paralleling autistic difficulties with interacting with neurotypical society. This interpretation even made its way to the liner notes of The Criterion Collection's DVD release.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Peter Seller's fans would prefer to regard this movie as his final film instead of the posthumous The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu, which was a flop in every possible way.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Actors Richard Dysart and David Clennon both appeared in this movie and shared a scene together, three years later both Dysart and Clennon would appear in The Thing (1982) as Copper, who is a doctor like Dysart's character in this movie, and Palmer.
• Inferred Holocaust: The movie ends with the President's associates planning to make Chance a political icon, and possibly the next President. Either the presidency could be in the hands of a naive person who can't even read, or this naive person could become a puppet of these powerful plutocrats. Either way, this does not portend well for the future of the United States.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "I like to watch."
  • "Now get this, honky. You go tell Rafael that I ain't taking no jive from no Western Union messenger." (More because of the Hilarious Outtake than the actual scene with the quote).
• Misaimed Fandom: Kosinski was frustrated that film audiences (especially younger ones) weren't unnerved by the implications of Chance's rise to power — that style will always trump substance; that people can become so warped by TV, etc. that they will not develop their own personality — or even realized them. Of course, Chance is an atypical example of this trope in that he isn't a bad person, but more a victim of circumstance. Due in part to Values Resonance, however, this misaimed fandom is not as much of a problem now.
• Signature Line: "I like to watch." This line is sometimes used to imply voyeurism, which amuses those who have seen the film as using it in that context is making a mistake some of the characters do.
• Signature Scene: The ending where Chance seems to be walking on water, with the President's speech being heard in the background.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Despite the otherwise farcial plot, Ben Rand's sickness and eventual death are played with genuine pathos. Within spending the whole movie being misinterpreted or spluttering the right answer by sheer luck, Ben's health is treated among few factors Chance shows sincere alertness towards due to previous experience.
  Chance: I'm sorry that you're so sick, Ben.
  • Following Ben's actual demise, Chance vacuously feels his head with his hand exactly like he had the Old Man, as if he has similarly felt nothing. When the camera cuts to Chance's face however, he is visibly weeping. Chance had genuinely matured during his time with Ben.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: Kosinski was accused of plagarising the 1932 Polish novel The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma. Nowadays, it's generally assumed the plots are not really that similar. While both feature a sudden rise of an unexpected character, Nicodemus was not simple-minded, he was poor, and at the end of the novel is usually not perceived as sympathetic.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Chance grows up with television serving as his only window beyond his Small, Secluded World, and watching TV is his favorite pastime, so the movie winds up presenting a large cross-section of what American television consisted of at the end of The '70s; the only show featured in the movie that's still on TV today is Sesame Street. The large clunky TV remotes frequently used by Chance and the fact that every television monitor is a CRT displaying analog broadcasts (whereas the vast majority of channels switched to digital-only broadcasting and the vast majority of households switched to LCD monitors thirty years after the film's release) also qualify.
• Values Dissonance: Chance was apparently isolated from society because his caretakers assumed he would never amount to anything. Nowadays, with a greater understanding of things like autism and learning disabilities, such treatment would be far less acceptable and Chance could possibly receive some kind of special education. Louise, his caretaker mind you, deriding Chance as "dumb as a jackass" would come across as downright cruel and despicable by modern standards.
• Values Resonance: The growing importance of style over substance, sound bites, etc. in media and politics since The '70s has granted both novel and film this. Chance (possibly) unintentionally cold reads almost everybody he meets, which allows them to put their words in his mouth and wildly extrapolate on the rather unremarkable things he says. In the age of the internet, it's a baseline for pundits to put a spin on any major political statement, making the film's message that much more tenable.

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