Boys Don't Cry

This paper is an examination of some of the issues raised by Kimberly Peirce's 1999 movie, Boys Don't Cry, and possible political organizing strategies that might be effective in dealing with them. This devastating film, based on a true story, suggests a number of common social problems that require social, legal, and political support to confront.

Teena Ray Brandon was a 21-year-old from Lincoln, Nebraska, who struggled throughout her brief life with a self-identified sexual identity crisis. Born female, she never felt comfortable as a girl, and she began dressing as and passing for a man. Using the name of Brandon Teena, she befriended a group of bored, lower-class young people with too much time on their hands. She eventually fell in love with one of the group, Lana, a lost, hard-drinking teenager who found the drifter's sensitivity appealing and was touched by Brandon's attentions. For quite awhile, Brandon managed to hide her true gender from Lana as well as from the others.

Brandon was not an innocent. To support herself and maintain her charade, she resorted to petty thievery, forgery, and stealing cars, and she used a false drivers license to escape detection. Ultimately, her lies were her undoing. A routine police check uncovered her true identity and the outstanding warrants against her. When she was thrown in jail, Lana's friends began to figure out the truth and, once she was released, attacked her and forced her to admit her true gender.

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case again drew national attention to the problem. When the story broke, a local high school was rehearsing a production of The Laramie Project, a play about the murder of Matthew Sheperd, another gay teen who was killed in Wyoming as a result of homophobic rage. The student production drew considerable attention outside their school to the production, which effectively dramatized the varying reactions of townspeople to Sheperd's death and to gays in general. The production has done more for raising awareness than hundreds of public service announcements. Finally, public pressure must be applied continuously to examining existing hate-crime laws and the publicity surrounding their application. If it can be proved that a murderer chose his victim out of prejudice or hatred, hate-crime laws can make the penalty even more severe. Opponents argue that trying to legislate thoughts and motivations amounts to a suppression of free speech and is too difficult to prove, but, by raising visibility in cases where homophobia was obviously an issue, the courts can help increase public revulsion for such crimes. Another set of issues raised by the movie concerns teenage runaways, underage drinking, and juvenile crime, all of which are re

Category: Film - B