The film centers gender-nonconforming individuals and transvestites within its core ensemble. Rather than using these identities as peripheral caricatures, the narrative integrates them into the primary social fabric. This approach challenges heteronormative structures through central characterization.

Traditional gender hierarchies are disrupted by focusing on a fragmented ecosystem lacking nuclear family stability. Women, including call girls, are presented as active participants in a decaying landscape. This subverts domestic femininity in favor of desperate, urban survival.

Bakshi’s surrealist animation style often obscures specific racial markers through abstraction. While the Coney Island setting implies a multicultural population, characters are defined more by socioeconomic status than ethnic agency. This prevents a more distinct portrayal of race.

The film critiques the American Dream by portraying Western pillars like capitalism and social order as decaying. It prioritizes the lived experiences of the disenfranchised over institutionalized morality. The setting serves as a metaphor for failing mid-century values.

Characters are depicted through a lens of grotesque physicality, suggesting neurodivergence or physical non-conformity. While it avoids 'inspiration porn,' the reliance on exaggerated, freakish features risks aestheticizing deformity rather than providing nuanced representation.