I guess I'm coming in to this with less than an open mind, as the theory, "Diane was the victim of sexual abuse, with Aunt Ruth as a silent witness", is the base of most of my ideas about the movie.

but if I recall, many theories don't address the presence of Dream-Adam as central to Diane's story -- which leads to the following gap:

If the beginning 2/3rds of the movie is Diane's dream, why do we spend so much time on Adam's story. Almost everything else features Betty, or is a short scene; but we follow Adam's entire plot without her...except for their encounter as Betty is taken to the movie set, where they share a long, long glance -- with Adam showing a confusing mix of sympathy, pity, or guilt.

Some things that I've been thinking about recently have pleasing implications if we run with the idea that "Adam = Aunt Ruth"

The germ of this idea came from a thread where the topic of "what does/doesn't support the Diane was Sexually Abused theory" -- more specifically, the idea that Adam's wife's sex with Gene the Pool Man, implies sex inside the gene pool, implies incest.

When Adam walks in on his wife in bed with Gene the Pool Man, their response was always completely unexpected and illogical, given the situation at face value. Going from memory, Gene says, "why not just forget you've seen it, it'd be the best way." Some of those lines make sense if its Aunt Ruth walking in on Diane being molested by (Adult Relative X -- Uncle/Father/Father's Best Friend/Grandfather, whatever).

I imagine it could be argued that most of the sex-related dialog has sexual abuse-related undercurrents/buzzwords, so this isn't strong evidence (though I'd say that this is strong evidence for abuse being a key element of the story). But if Adam = Aunt Ruth, it directly addresses that gap:

we're spending so much time on Adam in Diane's dream, because Dream-Adam is Aunt Ruth, and Diane's wish-fulfillment dream is that Aunt Ruth is forced to break her silence:

The stare, Adam's pleading look of sorrow towards Betty, is Aunt Ruth's guilt (or at least, the guilt that Diane thinks should be there -- its her wish we're watching, anyway).

It also gives a meaning and purpose to Adam's whole plotline, and is directly related to Diane (not just passively related to her because of its Hollywood casting/conspiracies imagery): he is forced to say, THIS IS THE GIRL.

So, what do you think; an adamant idea, or just bad espresso?

(I could go on with a parallel idea about how the other non-Betty character, Rita, has an equally-Diane-related plot -- how her trauma/amnesia dovetails with Diane's molestation/repressed memory, and that Betty is the safe/distanced character helping Rita through it...down to the sex-with-Rita (herself) that releases the path to Club Silencio, seen again in the real world as her pained, blurry masturbation (sex with, again, herself) which released her memories...and how all this is only tangentially related to the REAL events in the present surrounding Real Diane (a lover, a breakup, professional failure, being spectacularly jilted in public, ordering a hit)... but how that lack of connection to reality isn't a key problem, because the dream is her self eating her self, and it doesn't have to take any outside contact as anything but symbols...but I think that'd be pushing my luck).

I'll just toss something out there to help out with this.

Kingsley, the DIRECTOR of the movie in INLAND EMPIRE, wears a scarf in one scene.

But that said, I think Adam is just a separate character trying to figure out why his own day got so strange.

Adam reflecting Aunt Ruth is an interesting take, and I think there's definitely material there to support it. If we speculate that the Cowboy represents the uncle/abuser, I think we get some additional interesting possibilities...

• Gene is played by a country singer, which could be another way of reflecting the "cowboy" persona.
• Aunt Ruth's apartment in the dream has a cowboy hat, suggesting a cowboy lives there.
• The apartment also features the Beatrice Cenci painting, potentially suggesting that abuse took place there.
• The things the cowboy says to Adam might also make sense with Aunt Ruth in Adam's place, if we take it as Diane's wish fulfillment version of the conversation. In real life, the cowboy wanted Ruth to "ride along in his buggy" by remaining silent; in Diane's dream, he wants Adam-Ruth to declare "This is the girl."
• The cowboy's words about attitude determining how one's life will be are also a bit reminiscent of Gene's suggestion to "Just pretend you never saw it. It's better that way."
• The cowboy has red hair. Aunt Ruth might not (since we see red wigs in her apartment). If we should interpret this as her intentionally making her hair the same color as the cowboy/Uncle's, perhaps this symbolizes her going along with what he wants her to do.

I also recently re-watched Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and was struck by the Harry Dean Stanton character's line (speaking about Teresa Banks's trailer), "That g**d**ned trailer's more popular than Uncle's Day in a whorehouse!" It immediately made me think of Diane and her apparent connection to prostitution...

I do not see a connection between Adam and Aunt Ruth. Sorry. Though I must say the connection bewteen the cowboy head in the apartment, Gene played by a country singer and the cowboy is interesting.

Before the conversation with the Castigliani brothers, Adam is told twice and very distinctively to keep an open mind. This is because Adam has to play three different roles in the dream.

During this conversation he plays the role of director of "The Sylvia NOrth Story" but we know that he did not direct that in reality.

During the scene at home he plays the role of the grandmother, who catches her husband abusing Diane.

With the Cowboy he plays the role of Diane to which the Cowboy speaks directly.

Notice that during the party scene there is no mention of Adam being a director.