The film Boys Don’t Cry is the story of Brandon, a female to male transgender. After being misunderstood and treated harshly by the people in his town, he moves to a new town and finds a group of friends. Brandon begins to date a girl named Lana, who doesn’t know that Brandon is a biological female. There are instances along the way that clue Lana in to the truth about Brandon; for example, when Lana sees Brandon’s cleavage, and when Brandon has to answer for the reason he is in the women’s prison. Nevertheless, Lana loves him. When her friends begin to question Brandon’s gender, they make him pull his pants down, and Lana tries not to look. She doesn’t really care what gender Brandon is. Brandon is later raped and killed by two of Lana’s friends.
In Judith Butler’s Performative Acts and Gender Constitution, the correlation between gender and sex is questioned. Butler talks about how sex is what you were born as, but gender is basically a social construct that places certain ideas and expectations onto someone. In Boys Don’t Cry, Brandon did not fit into the typical role of a female, so he was shunned by many. Lana’s love for him does not depend on gender though, as she stuck with Brandon throughout the entirety of the film.
We live in a black and white world where people see gender and sexuality as a binary thing that can either be male/female and masculine/feminine. In being shaped by a society who relies so heavily upon these roles, we as people are forced into a world constructed for us, which is much what Brandon was experiencing in Boys Don't Cry. I having someone who was transgendered in a world that has not a huge cumulative understanding of what that exactly entails, it is something that is not known about. In being ignorant to the subject at hand, Lana's friends judge what they do not know and are selfish for answers in their quest to "out" Brandon for their own personal satisfaction and to answer curious questions. In allowing a portrayal of gay identity this way in a film (and especially having it happen in real life) it brings to light the misunderstanding that people have in life about LGBT issues and really makes us consider the idea that Judith presents to us: why do we make the decisions we make in acting male/female? - Because society has shaped us to attain to these standards of binary living.
ReplyDeleteI believe Brandon is wrong for not letting Lana know that he was biologically a female. But, at the same time Lana's friends did not have to rape and kill him. All of that could have been avoided just by telling the truth and not hiding it.
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