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wen-kexing-apologist · 3 months

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Bengiyo Queer Cinema Syllabus

Hello! After a holiday hiatus, I am returning to @bengiyo’s queer cinema syllabus. We will be ringing in the new year with Unit 4: Heartbreak Alley, the totally light-hearted, definitely not agonizing section of the syllabus where I get to watch countless acts of violence be committed against queer people. That fuck I have Lesbians waiting for me at the end of this unit. The films in Unit 4 are: Bent (1997), Strange Fruit (2004), Boys Don’t Cry (1999), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Parting Glances (1986), Philadelphia (1993), The Living End (1992), Holding the Man (2015), Jeffery (1995), and Boys on the SIde (1995)

Today I will be writing about

Boy’s Don’t Cry (1999) dir. Kimberly Pierce

Content Warning: rape, murder, self harm

[Run Time- 1:58, Lang: English] [I was not able to find Strange Fruit anywhere online so will investigate my library to see if they have a copy]

Summary: A young man named Brandon Teena navigates love, life, and being transgender in rural Nebraska.

Cast: *Hilary Swank as Brandon Teena *Chloe Sevigny as Lana Tisdel *Peter Sarsgaard as John Lotter *Brendan Sexton III as Tom Nissen *Alicia Goranson as Candace

Side note: Boys Don’t Cry is based on the true story, and real life rape and murder of Brandon Teena, who was 21 years old when he was killed in Fall River, Nebraska.

To start, I’m glad that I looked this film up before I watched it so that I knew what to expect. I don’t know how often this will occur throughout the syllabus, but while the syllabus itself is a lead in to BLs it seems to be structured towards Baby Gays, which means that I am expanding my knowledge of famous trans people in history beyond Stonewall. I didn’t know who Brandon Teena was until I looked up this movie, I didn’t see his name printed in anything until I read Transgender History.

I am having a delayed reaction to this movie. While I was watching it, I was able to bear witness to the violence, it was graphic, and brutal, but I knew it was coming, I had time to prepare myself, I could abstract the violence being done in to a fictional character, I could remind myself it was a movie when the cameras panned away from the dead bodies and I could see the supposed corpses breathing. And then it was over and I couldn’t escape it anymore. I couldn’t escape the knowledge that this was real, that this actually happened, that what I had just watched, what I was not spared from, was bearing witness to an actual crime, to actual violence, rape, murder of an actual, real human being, of Family.

I said this in my last post from Heartbreak Alley that I went in to this section just expecting to be put through the wringer for almost the entire length of a film. I would say I went in to this unit expecting to feel my skin crawling the way it did with Mysterious Skin. Instead I have been gifted all sides of queerness: acceptance, homophobia, love, hatred, joy, pain, gentleness, violence. I want to talk for a bit about how grateful I was to see Brandon happy. His experience in this film does speak to truth, to trans experience, the complexity of being loved by a family member but not having your identity respected. Brandon’s cousin cuts his hair short for him, but can’t call him a man. Brandon gets in a bar fight and is beaming afterwards cause he got a shiner, cause random strangers didn’t clock him as trans. Brandon stays in Fall River for far longer than he should because he is riding the high of just getting to exist as himself. I know a number of friends who wanted to immediately get the hell out of dodge when they started their transition. Hell, I barely return home myself.

Brandon does stupid boy things, he flirts with every pretty girl, he pushes his own boundaries because he wants to prove that he is a man. He smiles. He smiles often. He smiles widely. He smiles. I loved how much he smiled in this movie. I love that his life was not all suffering. This movie is kind to Brandon while still having to put him through the inevitable.

This movie speaks to queer strength and queer fears, Brandon knew the people who raped and murdered him. They were his friends, he was their friend. They smoked together, drank beer together, and tried to dodge cops together. John (the man who will go on to murder Brandon) was one of the first people we saw affirm Brandon’s gender identity (at least in the movie). And I think this movie is smart in how they set John and Tom up. They are friendly but they are wild, we learn that John has issues with impulse control, we see how quickly John and Tom can escalate their behavior towards aggression.

Lana serves a reminder to trans people that we are worthy of being loved, and that there are people who will love us. I love what it says about Lana when she notices Brandon’s breasts during their first sexual encounter. When they finish she feels his lap, searching for a dick, she strokes his cheek and comments on how smooth his face is, she calls him handsome. For me this is where I think Lana figures it out, even if she isn’t told until later.

Lana (and later on Candace) serve as reminders to me that rural doesn’t mean bigoted. It can. It absolutely can. But there are queer people everywhere, there are allies everywhere, queer people can have a life, find love, experience joy anywhere. When Brandon returns to Lincoln for his court date, his cousin Lonny asks him “Fall River? You know they hang faggots there,” and that could be true. Fall River had people like John and Tom, it also had people like Lana, Candace, and the nurse.

[CW: the next few paragraphs will discuss sexual assault]

I loved that Lana was committed to Brandon as a person, she did not care what his body looked like. I loved that she refused to participate in Brandon’s humiliation. When John and Tom forcibly stripped him and tried to show Lana his vulva, she refused to look. It’s Brandon’s business, she loves Brandon, she doesn’t care, she will ease as much pain and humiliation as she possibly can.

The rape scene was brutual and hard to watch, especially because they don’t start it right away. Brandon is being interrogated, you get the implication, and while I was writing notes to myself I was just about to write “i’m glad they spared us the scene” when they cut to Brandon’s rape sequence. I sometimes struggle with displayed assaulted scenes, especially when they are associated with real people, because I think it is important to really, fully understand the violence that was committed against Brandon. I think the brutality he was treated with is very much an important thing to sit with and understand, and I am not one to feel like people should turn away from observing acts of violence. But I also don’t know that I love watching the assault of a man who actually existed who was really beaten and gang raped, I don’t think we have any way of knowing if he’d want to show that. I don’t think we have any way of knowing if that honors his memory.

Either way, I did find it absolutely fascinating from a characterization standpoint what happened after Brandon was raped. Because before they get confirmation that Brandon is trans, they are using Brandon’s name and pronouns, then they get the confirmation and partway through they switch to Brandon’s deadname and misgender him. When they rape him, they misgender him. When he’s raped we see him getting thrown around, slammed against the car, punched in the face, etc. he is treated with such violence, and then it is over and Tom and John and Brandon kinda go back to normal? They gently place his shirt over his torso, they call him buddy, they help him stand up, they help him get in to the car, they ask Brandon if he is okay.

They take Brandon home, and immediately go back to affirming his identity. Like Brandon is in the bathroom, trying not to hold back or quiet down his breakdown, and John and Tom refer to him as ‘little dude’ when they start asking him if he is okay and if he will need any help. Like???? I feel like I will need to sit in that scene for a while trying to pick apart what John and Tom’s brains are doing there. Don’t get me wrong, the less I have to hear Brandon be deadnamed or misgendered the better, but it was truly a wild thing to see Brandon’s cousin deadname and misgender him all the time while still caring about and loving him, and to see Brandon’s assaulters and future murderers just slip so easily back in to masculine terminology for Brandon in this scene.

[Assault conversation over]

We get a similar thing with Candace where she is the first person to figure out that Brandon is trans, and she is horrified. But when Brandon comes a-knocking on her door, at first Candance cannot even meet his eye but she still uses his name, and the second she picks up on the fact that something is wrong with the way his voice wavers, she faces him, she softens, she asks him what they did to him, and she lets him back in to her home, she tries to hide him to keep him safe long enough to get out of town.

And Brandon gets another moment of peace, he and Lana have sex with Lana knowing everything about him. Knowing that he lied about his life, knowing that he has a vagina. They have another moment alone to dream, to talk about leaving Fall River, to plan to run away together. I don’t know if any of that happened in real life, but the movie at least grants Brandon one more moment of joy before his entire life is ripped away from him.

And it happens so fast. Candace is shot and killed instantaneously. Branon is shot in the head and he dies instantaneously, and John stabs him to make sure he’s finished the job, but in an instant, with the pull of a trigger Brandon is just…gone. Twenty-one years old, a whole life ahead of him. I think movies too often grant its characters a dying monologue. They get to have a final moment before they finally, slowly succumb to their injuries. But not here. Brandon is alive one second, and dead the next. There is no moment for silence right after, there is no remorse with John or Tom, they turn against Lana, they turn against each other. They are firing bullets at random, John is stopping Tom from killing Lana or Candace’s toddler.

I’ll tell you what though, sometimes the parallels parallel. Two days ago, my friend and I learned of the death of someone we cared about and loved, it’s a devastating loss for our household, and a devastating loss for the broader community. As far as I know, they did not die from any violent action, but they were a part of an incredibly stigmatized and disregarded community. The last few people who have passed away in my life died slowly, I was able to brace for it, but this was quick, unexpected and I say this only because seeing Brandon die so quickly, knowing he was real, knowing he had so much time taken from him, that knowledge just wrapped itself right around the rest of my grief for the week. I had a delayed emotional reaction to this movie, it took a couple minutes of silence afterwards to feel the blow, but I think having watched this when I did, Brandon Teena’s story will live in a different, deeper part of me than most of the films I’ve watched so far.

Favorite Moment

There isn’t one scene that really stands out to me, cause everything was so strong. I feel like my favorite moment is maybe right at the beginning when Brandon looks in the mirror after his haircut and sees himself and you can just see the happiness take root in his body.

Favorite Quote

“You’re so handsome”

Lana says this after she and Brandon have sex for the first time. I talked about it a bit above, but I think she figured out that Brandon was trans here, and I see her calling him handsome as affirmation.

Final Score

9/10

This was a fantastic film with incredible acting.

#bengiyo queer cinema syllabus #queer cinema syllabus #boys don't cry #boys don't cry (1999)#brandon teena #unit 4: heartbreak alley #apologies for skipping Strange Fruit y'all I went to watch it and I can't find it online so I will need to scour the library for a copy #i do hope I will be able to watch it #wka long post

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