Boys Don't Cry

[TotallyOz]

Boys Don't Cry

Boys may not cry, but grown men may want to once they finish this movie particularly when they discover it's based on a true story. This is real tragedy, the type that comes from ignorance and repression and the all-too-human hatred of people who are different.

But, this isn't your standard Hollywood tragedy, where a perfect example of a minority group is struck down by evil members of the majority. There is nothing saintly about the main character, Tena Brandon. She's as flawed as anyone else in the film and that's what makes it work.

Because s/he comes off as human and not a cliché, we feel much more for Brandon when the world comes crashing down than we would have otherwise. It goes to show that imperfect people have the right to happiness as well, and you don't need a minority to act like a token to get your point across.

What's interesting is that the movie works not only because of the main storyline, but also because of the other things that happen. It takes place mostly in a trailer park in a flyover state and we get to watch how people live and love and try to get through the day in rural areas where there just isn't much to do.

The movie is as much about how poverty, lack of access to mental health care, and poor education lead to tragedy more so than any innate sense of evil.

Even the characters who do horrible, horrible things at the end of the film are themselves victims of the system. Both are diagnosed with poor impulse control and can't get treatment and it's unclear if the system even thinks it's worth providing people like them with treatment.

What's going through their heads when they lash out isn't I hate fags or fucking dykes; it's just, I was lied to. I was made a fool of. Now I need to strike back. Then, once it's done, you can see the horror on their faces. They just couldn't stop themselves. It's almost like their destiny was just as doomed from the start as Brandon's was.

The story is fairly basic. Brandon is a dude born into a woman's body in a time and place where transsexual issues were not clearly understood.

Everyone in his home town knows he doesn't have a dick, so when he tries to pick up girls there he gets hassled by the local homophobes.

So, he decides to head a couple hundred miles away and try to find people who don't know him - and will assume that he really is a man.

His choice is helped by the fact that he's been charged in his home state with grand theft auto, stealing checks, and burglary a fair motive to leave town beyond any gender identity crisis issues.

He eventually gets into a bar fight with a redneck who is being shitty to a girl in a bar. She and her friends decide he's cool, and invite him to crash with them for a while.

Brandon decides to stay, partly because he's feeling real friendship for the first time, and partly because he meets a girl named Lana played by Chole Sevigny who he at first wants to bone and then falls in love with.

Lana falls in love with him too, and the two of them start having an affair (with him making a ton of excuses as to why he likes to go down on her but doesn't want to take his own pants off).

Brandon continues to be sort of a sketchfest, stealing checks from one of his new friends, making up stories about his family back home being wealthy, and even pretending he has a son back home.

This all falls apart when he decides to use a stolen check to pay a traffic ticket, and the cops realize he is a she.

Remarkably, Lana is totally cool with her boyfriend not having a penis, and even lets him instruct her on how to eat pussy.

The rest of his new friends, on the other hand, feel angry and betrayed, and decide they need to get revenge. This is where shit gets real. First, they rape Brandon and tell him that if he reports it, they will kill him.

Brandon tries not to report it, but Lana calls an ambulance and the cops get him to sign a complaint against the rapists. Lana's mom doesn't want her daughter to turn lesbian, so she tells the guys where Brandon is hiding.

At that point they turn up and in a drunken rage, shoot several people to death (not necessarily the people you are expecting them to kill).

Along the way, we learn what life is like working in a factory, see interesting sports you can play with a pickup truck, and see a lot of people drinking booze and smoking weed simply because they are bored.

One character's dream in life is to own a trailer park. That's the greatest ambition any one of them can actually have.

So, the real tragedy here is poverty and ignorance. We see a bunch of generally good people who end up ruining their lives, and the lives of others, simply because they don't see any alternative.

That's the real tragedy of America that the richest country in the world lets poverty like this happen, and then is shocked at the results.

Boys Don't Cry makes that message very clear and is rightly considered one of the best LGBT films in history.

cc boytoy.com 2013

[Guest josephga]

Haven't seen the movie but know the story well. I remember seeing news reports and a documentary on it.

I do think Brandon contributed to her as well as the 2 friends death. It was the lies and sketchiness that led to the ending results

[Guest lurkerspeaks]

come on now Joseph.. that sounds like the "she asked for it" testimony for rapists. No matter what she(he) did, or what lies she(he) told, no one deserves to be raped or murdered.

[BiBottomBoy]

She was sketchy but being sketchy shouldn't be enough to get you killed.

[Guest josephga]

I never said she deserved it . I said she contributed. It all started with her lies

[BiBottomBoy]

Yeah, but in that era and that place I'm not sure she had the option to not lie.