# Question about The Crying Game **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 11, 2006, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241 "2006-08-11T02:21:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![holmes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e95f7d/32.png) [@holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/holmes)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/21 "2006-08-11T14:21:18Z")
**Question** : Why didn’t the bartender tell Fergus? He knew oe at least suspected that Fergus didn’t know and clearly wanted to let him know what to expect. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/22 "2006-08-11T14:24:44Z")
[QUOTE=Askance] The only false note for me was the … shrinkage effect. Given the situation you’d expect him to be erect, I would have thought. I understand why they didn’t/wouldn’t/couldn’t show him like that, but it still seemed wrong to me. [/QUOTE] Even given my belief in the whole thing, there was a false note in that it was clearly a body double. Dill would have been slighter and more delicate than that, I thought. Not because he presents herself as feminine, but because that seemed to be his body type. ---
**Author:** ![Stillwell\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@Stillwell\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stillwell_Angel)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/23 "2006-08-11T17:19:26Z")
[QUOTE=Darth Vader’s Little Pal] She might only look masculine to you because you know she’s a man from the get-go. Remember, when we saw this back in the theater, nobody had any idea. [/QUOTE] This is what I’m thinking too. But then later in the movie when you see him as a man, he _did_ look feminine. I would have taken him for a girl in his natural state, but when he was _supposed_ to be a girl he looked to me like, well, a man in drag. But you’re right, I probably wouldn’t have picked up on it if I hadn’t know to look for it. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/24 "2006-08-11T17:45:52Z")
I fell for it, too, but I’m kinda clueless about these sort of plot twists. One reason why I dislike spoilers. A FOAF went to see this movie on his own and must have glanced away from the screen for the brief moment in time that really, really counted. Apparently the second half of the movie is _completely different_ if you’re still out of the loop. A conversation afterwards: FOAF: Hey, I just saw _The Crying Game._ That’s one hot black chick. Friend: Um, Jaye’s a guy, dude. FOAF: :eek: I don’t _think_ so! Friend: They showed his… you know… FOAF: :eek: They did not! ---
**Author:** ![Bites\_When\_Provoked](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bites_when_provoked/32/18073_2.png) [@Bites\_When\_Provoked](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bites_When_Provoked)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/25 "2006-08-11T19:11:52Z")
Ohhhhh, NOW I get it! I’ve never seen _The Crying Game_, but I was wondering how a guy could successfully pass as a beautiful woman for a whole movie. A woman, sure. A beautiful woman? That’s another thing altogether. Then I looked up the guy on Google. See, now if someone had said at the outset ‘It’s the same person who played Ra in the Stargate movie’, it would have been immediately clear to me. 😃 I remember when the Stargate movie came out, my first reaction on seeing that actor was ‘what a \*\*\*stunningly \*\*\*beautiful woman’. Later, I thought ‘Or…man?’, but I was never 100% sure of the actor’s gender in the movie, which I’m sure was the intent. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/26 "2006-08-11T19:11:57Z")
I first saw _The Crying Game_ after the Academy Awards nominations had already been announced. Since Jaye Davidson was nominated as “Best Supporting Actor,” that was a pretty obvious clue. I’m usually rather good at gender identification, but I think I would have taken Davidson for a natural-born female if I hadn’t known about the Academy Awards category. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/27 "2006-08-11T19:17:47Z")
My friend and I went to see it. Picture it: Two 17 YO virgins, who had never even \*seen \*a penis before (unless it was by accident), thinking it was a great movie, eating our popcorn and drinking our soda, and then OH MY FUCKING GOD! Yup, that’s how it went, more or less. Back then we were both strictly anti-reviewers and never read anything like that. Movie sounded good, and we knew enough that other people had liked it, so we went. Now? I dunno, I pay more attention to foreshadowing and suck-like, and might notice it. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/28 "2006-08-11T19:22:18Z")
[QUOTE=Anaamika] Now? I dunno, I pay more attention to foreshadowing and suck-like, and might notice it. [/QUOTE] Suck-like? You really are thinking about penises! I know, I know…I’m like a twelve- year-old. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/29 "2006-08-11T19:23:48Z")
[QUOTE=Mahaloth] Suck-like? You really are thinking about penises! I know, I know…I’m like a twelve- year-old. 😃 [/QUOTE] :eek: Well, I guess I was at that moment - but not really in that sense! Wow, that typo is almost worthy of _ **Anastaseon** _. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/30 "2006-08-11T19:24:39Z")
I was suprised. The later re-watching, I caught several ‘little’ hints that you wouldn’t catch if you didn’t already know. For instance, the opening scene at the fair, a song plays. ‘When a Man love a Woman’, funny in retrospect, except that they edit the song to include the line _When a man loves a woman he’s the very last one to know loving eyes, can never see_ Or when Stephen Rea gets to the bar to meet Dell, the bartender starts to tell him something about her, only to be interupted by her hitting the stage and he simply says, “she’s on”. Then Dell sings the title song, and the first line is _I know all there is to know about the crying game_ which could clue you into the fact that the secret of the movie will be revealed by her, or not. There were others but I can’t recall them all now. Why don’t I own this movie? ---
**Author:** ![Jean\_Poutine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a5b964/32.png) [@Jean\_Poutine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jean_Poutine)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/31 "2006-08-11T19:37:55Z")
What I don’t understand, is when people are rattling off big movie twists, like Sixth Sense, Usual Suspects, etc., they usually name this movie as well. I know it’s very nitpicky, but when I saw the movie, based on this, I expected the reveal to be an actual part of the movie plot, which it isn’t. It’s like, there is a movie with a plot and all, and oh yeah one of the characters is dating a girl who is really a man, but this has no effect on the plot at all. It would have been better if the penis could have been part of the plot, and not just a shock device, but it’s a great movie nonetheless, and would have been so without the penis. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/32 "2006-08-11T19:45:20Z")
Actually, it is part of the plot. Dell, doesn’t know that Stephen Rea is/was a member of the IRA. Dell hunts down the IRA officer telling her boyfriend what to do because she is jelous of the woman. Did you get him with those tits? ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/33 "2006-08-11T19:50:52Z")
[QUOTE=Bites When Provoked] Ohhhhh, NOW I get it! I’ve never seen _The Crying Game_, but I was wondering how a guy could successfully pass as a beautiful woman for a whole movie. A woman, sure. A beautiful woman? That’s another thing altogether. Then I looked up the guy on Google. See, now if someone had said at the outset ‘It’s the same person who played Ra in the Stargate movie’, it would have been immediately clear to me. 😃 I remember when the Stargate movie came out, my first reaction on seeing that actor was ‘what a \*\*\*stunningly \*\*\*beautiful woman’. Later, I thought ‘Or…man?’, but I was never 100% sure of the actor’s gender in the movie, which I’m sure was the intent. [/QUOTE] Ah, good. Now we’ve completed the Jaye Davidson career retrospective, from start to finish. ---
**Author:** ![Stillwell\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@Stillwell\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stillwell_Angel)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/34 "2006-08-11T19:57:05Z")
[QUOTE=Jean Poutine] It would have been better if the penis could have been part of the plot [/QUOTE] 😃 Best.quote.ever. ---
**Author:** ![Encinitas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Encinitas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Encinitas)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/35 "2006-08-11T20:34:25Z")
Well I was surprised by the reveal but the first thought that flashed into my brain was “Hermaphrodite”! It took me a moment to figure out she was actually a he. ---
**Author:** ![Operation\_Ripper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/34f0e0/32.png) [@Operation\_Ripper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Operation_Ripper)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/36 "2006-08-11T21:27:07Z")
[QUOTE=Jean Poutine] What I don’t understand, is when people are rattling off big movie twists, like Sixth Sense, Usual Suspects, etc., they usually name this movie as well. I know it’s very nitpicky, but when I saw the movie, based on this, I expected the reveal to be an actual part of the movie plot, which it isn’t. It’s like, there is a movie with a plot and all, and oh yeah one of the characters is dating a girl who is really a man, but this has no effect on the plot at all. It would have been better if the penis could have been part of the plot, and not just a shock device, but it’s a great movie nonetheless, and would have been so without the penis. [/QUOTE] Guy, I saw this film in the theater. The surprise wang deserves to be considered among the biggest movie twists ever and was certainly central to the plot, it recast everything in a different light, prior and subsequent events. Seeing the movie “based on this” may have drawn the sting a bit. It was _not_ a “shock device.” ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/37 "2006-08-11T21:33:55Z")
[QUOTE=JThunder] Oh, great. Now you tell us. [/QUOTE] He meant, uh, man, was that a great movie! ---
**Author:** ![Jean\_Poutine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a5b964/32.png) [@Jean\_Poutine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jean_Poutine)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2006, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/38 "2006-08-11T21:46:22Z")
No, no, I agree it is one of the great movie shocks, and very important, as the relationship between the two characters changes and evolves based on this, and it is probably the only major film ever to deal with the aftermath of this type thing in a thoughtful manner. A minor nit to pick, I know, but I don’t consider it a “twist ending” as most people refer to it, a la The Village, Diabolique, Last Seduction, etc., as the movie resolution does not hinge on this revelation. It is not a part of the ending of the film. Maybe people I know are idiots, but they all refer to the “twist ending of The Crying Game”. It comes in the first part part of the film IIRC, and doesn’t have any impact on the major plot of the film. I agree totally it is great film, a great shocking surprise, and a major part of the subplot, but there are actually people I know, who probably haven’t seen the film and only heard about it, who put it in the class of Keyser Soze, etc., when the girl being a dude does not have any effect on the major plot, only the subplot. I ain’t knocking it, just picking a minor nit. In other words, if it had really been a girl, the resolution of the film would have been the same. It is only an issue to the guy dating her, and doesn’t have antyhing to do with the IRA stuff, which is what the film is mostly about. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/39 "2006-08-12T00:51:08Z")
[QUOTE=pinkfreud] I first saw _The Crying Game_ after the Academy Awards nominations had already been announced. Since Jaye Davidson was nominated as “Best Supporting Actor,” that was a pretty obvious clue. I’m usually rather good at gender identification, but I think I would have taken Davidson for a natural-born female if I hadn’t known about the Academy Awards category. [/QUOTE] Same here, I saw it for the first time after the nominations. I was angry that the movie had been “spoiled” for me, but it’s not like they were going to nominate Jaye in the Best Supporting Actress, so the fault was mine for not seeing it sooner. I love how Stephen Rea’s dialogue in one part of the wonderful **Breakfast On Pluto** harkened back to his role in The Crying Game. His character Bertie has taken up with the reality-challenged but strong-willed transvestite Patrick “Kitten” Braden (a brilliant performance by Cillian Murphy) in a platonic relationship, and at one point this exchange takes place: > [@](#): > > **Bertie** : You know, Kitten, I made a decision a long time ago. > Patrick “Kitten” Braden: What decision was that? > **Bertie** : That I wasn’t destined for sentimental side of things. But if I ever did let myself fall for someone, I think it would be a girl like you. > Patrick “Kitten” Braden: Bertie, please, I have to stop you. There’s something you should know. > **Bertie** : Or maybe what I should say is, it would be a girl not a million miles away from where I’m standing. What’s the matter, Princess? > Patrick “Kitten” Braden: Well, you see, the thing is, Bertie, I’m not a girl. > **Bertie** : Oh, I knew that, Princess. > Patrick “Kitten” Braden: You did? > **Bertie** : Of course. What I said was, it would be a girl like you. ---
**Author:** ![Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/bc8723/32.png) [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unauthorized_Cinnamon)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2006, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241/40 "2006-08-12T01:30:49Z")
[QUOTE=gigi] When I saw the genitals it actually took me a moment to process what that meant! [/QUOTE] Ditto - I had a total “does not compute” moment. You have to realize, many people had no idea to look for something out of the ordinary. The setup of the story provides plenty of drama, character growth, and angst without the gender issue. Personally, I went to see the movie when a friend asked, “Wanna go see a movie about the IRA?” and that was all I knew going in. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-crying-game/368241.md?page=3)