Originally Posted by
RanRan79
I don't think any of that makes him dull. Flawed, sure. Dull? No.
Brian was a product of his time and, more importantly, his environment. Brian was trying to fix an impoverished community, bombed by racism, unemployment, drugs and crime. To him, someone like Tracy, with her brains and drive, choosing to look pretty for a living and play dress up, instead of use those brains and attitude to help the people, it was a foreign concept. In real life Brian would have been the rule, not the exception. A more interesting movie would have been Brian eventually understanding Tracy and Tracy figuring out a way to balance her initial dream with also "giving back" in the end.
It seems to me that the fun Tracy thought she was having in Rome wasn't much fun at all. That she was making some accomplishments, but was leaving herself behind. I've always read into the story that part of Tracy was definitely the southside of Chicago and in the end, even Rome couldn't compete with that. Brian is the southside, so is Tracy. She went back to what she knew and what she ultimately loved. If Rome was all that, she would've stayed and never went back home.
Brian was trying to make people's lives better. Tracy was expressing herself through the art of fashion. There's no comparison on which is contributing to the greater good, but there was a better way to craft the story so that both perspectives found a way to meet in the middle.