Boys Don't Cry

Peirce wanted to tell the story from Brandon's perspective. She was familiar with Brandon's desire to wear men's clothing: "I started looking at all the other coverage and a great deal of it was sensational. People were focusing on the spectacle of a girl who had passed as a boy because that is so unfamiliar to so many people. Where to me, I knew girls who had passed as boys, so Brandon was not some weird person to me. Brandon was a very familiar person."[18] Peirce was influenced by the public perception of the case, believing the American public were generally misinformed: she said, "People were also focusing on the crime without giving it much emotional understanding and I think that's really dangerous, especially with this culture of violence that we live in".[18] Peirce began working on a concept for the film and gave it the working title Take It Like a Man.[19]

Boys Don't Cry

This resulting shame is destructive. According to Englar-Carlson, boys are four times more likely to die from suicide and exponentially more likely than girls to be the victims or perpetrators of violence.

"I started looking at all the other coverage and a great deal of it was sensational," she says. "People were focusing on the spectacle of a girl who had passed as a boy because that is so unfamiliar to so many people. Where to me, I knew girls who had passed as boys, so Brandon was not some weird person to me. Brandon was a very familiar person.

"Because of the way she talked about him," says Peirce, "it's almost like the love affair became more beautiful in a way, because of the way she held on to her love. She felt this absolute spiritual love for Brandon. It was like a soul love, and society was saying, 'Well, you met him as a boy and now he's a girl. What are you going to do?' Society kept forcing them into these categories that I don't think they really needed. And that was so destructive."

Kimberly Peirce who directed this movie and co-wrote it with Andy Bienen, was faced with a project that could have gone wrong in countless ways. She finds the right note. She never cranks the story up above the level it's comfortable with; she doesn't underline the stupidity of the local law-enforcement officials because that's not necessary; she sees Tom and John not as simple killers but as the instruments of deep ignorance and inherited anti-social pathology. (Tom knows he's trouble; he holds his hand in a flame and then cuts himself, explaining, "This helps control the thing inside of me so I don't snap out at people.") The whole story can be explained this way: Most everybody in it behaves exactly according to their natures. The first time I saw the movie, I was completely absorbed by the characters--the deception, the romance, the betrayal. Only later did I fully realize what a great film it is, a worthy companion to those other masterpieces of death on the prairie, "Badlands" and "In Cold Blood." This could have been a clinical Movie of the Week, but instead it's a sad song about a free spirit who tried to fly a little too close to the flame.

don't really understand how people can watch the real life story of a trans person who was brutally raped and murdered shown through lengthy sequences and take away that this is a tragic romeo and julietesque story about how sad it is when society doesn't accept you... this is the reality for so many trans people, it's not romantic, it's horrifying.

I think everyone is familiar with Annette Benings performance in american beauty. Compelling, hilarious, bitchy as can be and heartbreaking at it's core with a touch of underlining sadness added into the mix. A prime example of that is the scene where she is slapping herself after she fails to sell a house for her real estate company. But many don't know that she wasn't slapping herself because she failed to sell said house. She was doing that because she knew her phenomenal performance would lose to the mediocrity that was Hilary Swank's role in this sap fest

Boys Don't Cry is about young people in America; that is to say, it is about unhappiness. Unhappiness, and the various desperate attempts to overcome it, and the ways in which those attempts are suppressed or crushed. Teena/Brandon (Hilary Swank) dresses like a boy and goes off to Falls City because she is tired of being called a "dyke" in Lincoln. She thinks that in a new place where no one knows her, she will be happier. Lana Tisdel (Chloë Sevigny), with whom Brandon falls in love, works in a factory weighing spinach, lives with her mother who drinks too much, and dreams of being a professional karaoke singer. She falls for Brandon because he treats her better than the other boys. She wants to go anywhere that's outside Falls City.

Some commentators write about these characters as though they represent an exotic life form. In respectable publications critics write with contempt about "trailer trash." In fact, tens of millions of people live in circumstances not too dissimilar to these. They are not participating in the stock market boom; therefore they don't count.

I don't know the immediate motives of the film's creators. Pierce obviously felt strongly about the tragedy. It took her five years to raise the money and assemble the cast of Boys Don't Cry. She told an interviewer: "My whole point was that I fell in love with Brandon. I felt his story needed to be told. The media coverage was very sensational from the beginning. Nobody got inside the character. No one ever really knew about the love story. My whole point was to honor him. My whole point was to explore the mechanics of hatred so that this stuff didn't happen again."

The rape and murder are presented in extended and graphic detail. Again, this suggests that the filmmakers don't quite know how to end their story or what to emphasize, so they take the less demanding way out and simply horrify their audience. That's not so difficult to do. There are always plenty of things to horrify people with. Unfortunately, some spectators may take the easy way out too, and choose to remember the violence while forgetting the relatively clear-eyed portrait that came before of a segment of the population so brutalized and alienated that the ultimate explosion seems almost an inevitable consequence. In any event, there is enough here of a sober and accurate accounting to make this one of the better American films of the year.

Educators, coaches, family members and parents, especially dads, have an excellent opportunity to help promote healthier masculinities among boys and young men. Emotional literacy among young men can lead to healthier masculinities and relationships, whereas living with gender stereotypes can have devastating effects on all our lives.

This means being kind, empathetic, rejecting stereotypes, engaging in peaceful and equitable interactions with everyone. Recognize and point out healthy behaviors among men and boys and help empower boys to be confident in their true gentle selves.

In younger years, talk to boys about consent using relatable examples such as asking permission to use a toy, or asking first before giving a friend a hug. Later on, talk about consent as an important aspect of healthy and respectful relationships.

Teach boys the meaning and value of allyship and how important it is to speak out against gender-based violence, racism, homophobia and transphobia. Educate boys about gender equality in all of its forms and encourage them to empathize and express solidarity in their everyday life.

As early as possible, boys and young men need to grow up with healthy models of masculinity. They are looking up to us for examples of equitable, inclusive, peaceful behaviors. We can all play a positive role. 041b061a72