I just finished watching it and I haven’t felt this infuriated by a movie in I don’t know how long… maybe never. I love Peter Saarsgard and I have no issue with the Midwest but I’d’ve probably murdered the former and turned the latter into a smoking crater moments ago if it had been within my power.
I can’t believe how irrationally angry this movie has made me. Hilary Swank definitely deserved her Oscar.
That movie stayed with me for days. It was extremely disturbing, and the fact that it is a true story just stuck in my head forever. I saw it once, but I won’t see it again, despite the fact that it is a brilliant film. It’s just one of those that is incredibly difficult to watch, but important.
Hilary Swank is awesome. She doesn’t make many movies, but when she does, she really becomes the role. I’m looking forward to Million Dollar Baby that’s coming out soon. Clint Eastwood directed it and is also starring. It’s about a female boxer, but that’s about all I know. Swank seems to like roles where she has to get all butched out. It’s interesting because when she’s on the red carpet, she’s gorgeous.
Great movie but does anyone have a link that details the rl situation it is based upon? I’d like to know the full story before I take the movie as gospel.
Much more at http://songweaver.com/gender/teena-sentencing.html.
It’s not gospel. It’s not supposed to be gospel. It is a reasonably accurate recounting of the facts of the case, with dramatic license taken for the purpose of storytelling. For example, there was a third person killed at the same time (Philip DeVine). He was left out of the movie because he didn’t figure in the story prior to the night of his murder and the director felt it would be distracting to audiences wondering where he came from.
For some reason, British Air was showing this in June '03 when I flew to Heathrow. Seemed like a very weird choice of airplane entertainment.
Boo-fucking-hoo.
If you’re a woman that wants to pass herself off as a man, knock yourself out, I say. Be the best man you can be, then. But don’t hang out with psychotic, drunken fucking rednecks, OK? I mean, expecting “understanding” of your gender issues from someone that care barely spell their name is a bit much, isn’t it?
Don’t get me wrong here. In a perfect world, it wouldn’t matter. People would love each other for the content of their character, not the color of their skin, their sexuality or what gender they really are.
But until I can look out of the window and see Black, White, Hispanic and Asian kids hand-in-hand skipping across a field with docile tigers looking on - just like in the Jehovah’s Witness pamphlets - it just ain’t gonna happen.
In a perfect world, a woman should be able to wear whatever she wants to a biker bar too, but dressing up like a hootchie around a bunch of drunken, violent men is a recipe for disaster too.
Sorry, but all my friends recommended this movie to me as one of the best films ever made. Five minutes into it I knew that dumbass was gonna get himself killed.
I’m about as bleeding heart as liberals get, but I’m with Rex on this one. A few years back, I lived in rural West Virginia - think Deliverance - and knew a guy that moved to town who was totally gothed out - he’d wear the white pancake makeup, black lipstick and eyeliner, etc. Though I went through a goth phase in high school and am totally receptive to many alternative lifestyles, I told the guy that this was simply NOT the place. He ignored it, and a few weeks later, he got the shit beaten out of him by idiot rednecks.
Should he be able to look however he wants? Sure. Should he know better than to do that around the type of cavemen that inhabit rural West Virginia? Definitely.
Considering its plot and how it was advertised, the ending was a foregone conclusion before I ever ordered it from Netflix but that doesn’t change its visceral impact nor does Brandon’s admittedly idiotic behaviour somehow make his murder less appalling.
No one in this thread is crying over this movie and aside from **Indygrrl **saying it was a brilliant film, there’re no insinuations that it’s one of the greatest movies ever either. If it didn’t impact you in the same manner, fine, but don’t belittle those that may have felt more. As someone that grew up in a sociopolitically backwards area of the country and that isn’t entirely straight himself, this subject matter tends to inflame.
Oh, I actually liked it as a film. It’s just that my reaction to the reality that it was based on was less anger at the rednecks as it was at Brandon for putting herself in the situation and practically begging for what happened.
Boys Don’t Cry is one of the few movies I’ve been deeply affected by that I’ve never been able to watch a second time.
Brandon did some dumb things, true, but he wasn’t the one who made the situation dangerous, and he didn’t get himself killed. The situation wasn’t dangerous for Brandon until the police outed him. Brandon did what he could to protect himself when he was raped; he went to the police, and then hid for a week while the men who should have been in jail hunted him and the police did nothing.
Me too - on both on the “backwards area of the country” and the “isn’t entirely straight himself” thing. I guess this is why it pisses me off so much.
This poor gay kid moved to my school when I was a senior and he was a freshman. He developed a crush on me and would sometimes write these long, angst-ridden notes about how everyone at school made fun of him and gave him grief constantly. However, on a typical day, he’d wear: a black “Greek fisherman’s hat”, a white turtleneck, cut-off jean shorts, black and white striped girl’s tights underneath that and penny loafers.
As much as I felt bad for the guy - as one of the original “freaks” of my high school, I was used to getting harassed and my sexuality questioned - but this poor kid was just asking for it.
As the “freaks” and “queers” often has similar interests (not to mention enemies), we often hung out a lot outside of school. I remember one day at a friend’s house after school, the poor kid just lost it and started crying. Just about everyone else there - straights and gays alike - were telling him to chill out with the nail polish and tights, but the poor guy never “got it”.
On a happier note, I saw him at my ex GF’s 10 year high school reunion and he moved out of the 'burbs and into Midtown Atlanta and is now as happy as a clam.
There’s was point to this post, but I seem to have forgotten it. Sorry 'bout that.
…as bad, politically incorrect and distasteful as it may seem, there is such a thing as “asking for it”. There are some people who do that, whether they can help it or not or whether they realize it or not. I feel awful for them and I wish it could be different. But if you drop a piece of candy on the sidewalk, the ants will come get it.
It sucks that the ones in the wrong in these cases aren’t the ones who pay the price instead of the ones who committed the crime of being different.
I wish they could make a movie about a transgendered character where they don’t kill them off in the end. It’s an old trope in movies- introduce a challenging character, let them have some adventures, and then kill them off. It’s good to see trans people being part of the media, but I wish there were more positive portrayals that don’t end in tears.
Memo to Rex Fenestrarum:
If by “asking for it” and the previous posts, you’re saying that people should have the common sense not to expose themelves to dangerous situations unnecessarily, given the world as it is and not as it ought to be, then you might have a point.
But there is absolutely nothing about conducting one’s own affairs in the manner one chooses that justifies anyone else committing violence on them – regardless of the code of ethics ( :rolleyes: ) of schoolyard bullies.
I’d appreciate a clarification of your position post haste, before you get Pitted by someone. (Note that your first post to this thread could very easily be read to justify violence on Eve, KellyM, or Jomo Mojo for living the life they have chosen.)
I had my hackles raised for a moment as well, Polycarp, but I’m pretty sure Rex merely meant that Teena should’ve exercized much more due caution in his life given the location in which he found himself. This is certainly true. It does not, however, provide excuse for those who cold-bloodedly hunted him down and murdered him for no better reason than being different. We do not blame a cop who is shot and killed because he didn’t wear a bulletproof vest during a situation he knew would be dangerous. We blame and punish the gunman who pulled the trigger. However, the fact that he was not should be mentioned to prevent possible future harm towards another innocent.
I say all this because, as I watched the movie, I felt a similar emotion to the one Rex is describing: impotent anger. I really liked the Teena character and thus I spent most of the movie angry at him for the risks he was taking. Its the same anger I would feel for any friend who seemed to be living his life on the edge of the catastrophe curve. It’s that breathless point where you’re watching a glass wobble around on it’s base just before the deluge. That horrible moment when you just want to start shouting “Oh hell no! Don’t do that! Don’t do that!” but you know it won’t do any good. That sense of unavoidable tragedy and rage almost made me throw up during my first viewing.
I question the degree to which I have “chosen” my life. I’m not a transsexual by choice. My transition was a last resort to avoid suicide, not something I decided to do because it sounded like fun.
Nice response to the rape of one person and the murders of three.
You show a fundamental misunderstanding of transgenderism.
Nothing like blaming the victim huh.
Find me where Brandon discussed his “gender issues” with his murderers prior to them being revealed against his will. Brandon was living full-time as a male.
Oh, I think we can get you just right.
How clever of you to figure out that a movie about someone who was murdered would end with that person being murdered. I bet you figured out the end to Dead Man Walking and Death of a Salesman all by yourself too.
Priam, I agree completely. I don’t see how anyone can help but have extreme sympathy for Teena during the course of the movie… but that didn’t stop me from furiously thinking “What the fuck are you doing?!” throughout the entire thing.