# "Boys Don't Cry" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 2, 2005, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653 "2005-01-02T04:36:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/1 "2005-01-02T04:36:37Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Indygrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@Indygrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indygrrl)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/2 "2005-01-02T04:42:33Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Lochdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/edb3f5/32.png) [@Lochdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lochdale)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/3 "2005-01-02T04:44:37Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/4 "2005-01-02T05:00:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*…[Teena] was discovered to be biologically and legally female by local police who arrested him on a misdemeanor check forgery charge two weeks prior to his slaying. Police then publicly released this information to the local newspaper, the Falls City Journal. One week later, on Christmas Day 1993, Brandon was raped and assaulted at a Christmas party by two men, whom he identified to local police as Nissen and Lotter, despite the fact that they had threatened to kill him if he reported the incident to the police. > > However, charges of rape and assault were not filed against Nissen and Lotter until after Brandon’s slaying despite the fact that his sister Tammy Brandon had called Richardson County sheriff Charles B. Laux four days before the slaying to ask why Lotter and Nissen had not been arrested even though Brandon had identified them as his attackers. According to Tammy Brandon, Sheriff Laux had responded to her inquiry by telling her that “he didn’t need [her] to be doing his work.” … > > …**After learning Brandon had reported the rape, Lotter and Nissen coldly and calculatingly plotted and searched Brandon out for an entire week to kill him. They drove to Lincoln (2 hours from Falls City) looking for him. They carried rope and a hatchet in their car, along with a change of clothes for each of them, because of the blood splattering they anticipated. When they finally found Brandon at the farmhouse, he was hiding under a blanket – totally defenseless. After killing Brandon, they allowed Lisa Lambert to put her baby in a crib before they shot and killed her**…\* Much more at [http://songweaver.com/gender/teena-sentencing.html](http://songweaver.com/gender/teena-sentencing.html). ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/5 "2005-01-02T05:17:38Z")
> [@Lochdale](#): > > 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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/6 "2005-01-02T05:56:39Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rex_fenestrarum/32/7265_2.png) [@Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rex_Fenestrarum)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/7 "2005-01-02T07:52:04Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Freejooky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ba8739/32.png) [@Freejooky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freejooky)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/8 "2005-01-02T08:20:04Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/9 "2005-01-02T08:22:10Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Freejooky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ba8739/32.png) [@Freejooky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freejooky)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/10 "2005-01-02T08:33:53Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/11 "2005-01-02T08:55:57Z")
_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. > [@Freejooky](#): > > 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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rex_fenestrarum/32/7265_2.png) [@Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rex_Fenestrarum)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/12 "2005-01-02T09:25:37Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > 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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/13 "2005-01-02T12:06:34Z")
…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. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/14 "2005-01-02T12:11:44Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/15 "2005-01-02T13:50:57Z")
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.) ---
**Author:** ![Priam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/77aa72/32.png) [@Priam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Priam)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/16 "2005-01-02T14:44:47Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![KellyM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/57b2e6/32.png) [@KellyM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KellyM)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/17 "2005-01-02T15:44:42Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > (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 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. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/18 "2005-01-02T15:54:46Z")
> [@Rex Fenestrarum](#): > > Boo-fucking-hoo. Nice response to the rape of one person and the murders of three. > [@Rex](#): > > If you’re a woman that wants to pass herself off as a man, knock yourself out, I say. You show a fundamental misunderstanding of transgenderism. > [@Rex](#): > > But don’t hang out with psychotic, drunken fucking rednecks, OK? Nothing like blaming the victim huh. > [@Rex](#): > > I mean, expecting “understanding” of your gender issues from someone that **care** barely spell their name is a bit much, isn’t it? 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. > [@Rex](#): > > Don’t get me wrong here. Oh, I think we can get you just right. > [@Rex](#): > > Five minutes into it I knew that dumbass was gonna get himself killed. 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. ---
**Author:** ![shy\_guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@shy\_guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shy_guy)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/19 "2005-01-02T16:54:48Z")
**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. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653/20 "2005-01-02T17:24:56Z")
> [@even sven](#): > > I wish they could make a movie about a transgendered character where they don’t kill them off in the end. [Different for Girls](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116102/combined) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boys-dont-cry/282653.md?page=2)