Analysis of Boys Don't Cry Film - Essay Example

Gender & Sexual Studies: Boys Don't Cry (1999) Summary The film, Boys Don't Cry (1999), is a narration of the story of Brandon Teena, a transgendered person who was born a female, but opted to live the life of man, always contemplating to undergo the Sex reassignment surgery, so that her physical characteristics and the functions of her sexual characteristics would be changed, to represent those of a man (Shamir and Jennifer, 7). It is a true story that is based on the life of Teena Brandon, who did not psychologically appreciate to be a woman, rather preferring to live as a man, an aspect that eventually saw her life end in tragedy. The story revolves around the life of a young female-to-male transgendered Brandon Teena, who was non-operative sexually as a man, but opted to live her life as though she was a man, often dating girls and dissenting any aspect of life that would identify her as a woman (Shamir and Jennifer, 12). Though born and raised as a girl, her sexual orientation started changing when she was in high school, always opting to express masculine characteristics, despite the fact that she had male testosterone hormones that would make her sexually function as a man. At birth, she was given a female name, Teena Brandon, which she reversed later on, to adapt the name Brandon Teena, which would display her as a man. However, a brother of a woman she once dated discovered that she was anatomically female, an incident that forces her to run away from her childhood neighborhood, to Falls City, Nebraska where she forges friendship with an ex-convict male John Lotter and his friends Nissen, Candace and Lana, a woman with whom Brandon later establishes a romantic relationship (Shamir and Jennifer, 59). Lana is unaware of the biological sex and the female anatomical body characteristics of Brandon, until Brandon is arrested and charged in a court of law, for some crime she had previously committed. This presents the perfect opportunity for the biological sex of Brandon to be revealed, since she is placed in a female prison section, and identified by her female birth name, Teena Brandon (Shamir and Jennifer, 21). Lana bails Brandon out and on questioning her why she had been placed in the female section of the cell, she lies to her that she was a hermaphrodite, and was in the process of securing a Sex reassignment surgery, would leave her as a man. However, the media reporting through a newspaper publishes the case of Brandon arrest, incidentally identifying her by her female birth name. This raises suspicion amongst her male friends, who then seizes an opportunity to force her to undress and showcase her real sex even to her girlfriend, Lana (Shamir and Jennifer, 77). The two male friends; Lotter and Nissen subsequently forces her into a car and take her to a secluded place, where they raped her and threatened her not to raise the issue with the police. However, her girlfriend implored on her to file a report with the police, something that she does. Eventually the two friends who had raped her realize it, and make a plan to murder her. They eventually execute the plan and shot her and her friend Candace, while Lana is left crying over her dead body, having been unable to protect them from killing her friends. Analysis The film, Boys Don't Cry (1999), is a wholesomely gendered piece, revolving around the life of a female, who is uncomfortable with her biological sex status, and is striving to forge a different identity as a male, an attempt that finally leads to her loss of life. In this film, the position of the female is a subordinate to that of the female, and the male dominates the society, through doing everything as they please, while the female gender must conform to a certain social path. The problem in this case is that Brandon, the main character in the film is dominated by the estrogen Hormone, which makes her a non-operative transgendered female-to-male individual. Through the dominance of the estrogen Hormone, Brandon is anatomically female, and she struggles very much to hide her female anatomy characteristics, such as her breasts, to enable her pose as a man (Jung and Ralph, 36). The concept of heterosexism has completely dominated Brandon, such that she has a high preference for the male gender, which struggles very much to fit in, despite the fact that her biological and physical traits do not conform to the masculine characteristics of the male gender. Both the oral language and the non-verbal messages applicable in this film serve to assert the dominant role of the male gender in the society depicted by the film. It is a piece that depicts the concept of cultural feminism, where the male and the female gender have different skills- characteristics and tendencies (Jung and Ralph, 55). For example, just because Lotter and Nissen have discovered that Brandon is anatomically and biologically female, they have the liberty to force her to undress and inspect her, while also taking her to a secluded place and raping her, under intense threats that she should not report the incidence. When they eventually found that she had reported, they also had the liberty to shoot and kill her. The dominance of the male in this society can be attributed to the possession of the Testosterone Hormone, which is responsible for the masculine character development for individuals, including muscle strengthening, violence and aggression characteristics (Jung and Ralph, 61). The Corpus colossum is much developed in women than in men, making the connection between the left and right side of the brain for women far much firm than the one existing in men. This way, women are able to use both the left and the right side of the brain through high frequent usage shift, from one side to the other (Iacoboni and Eran, p33). This explains why it was possible for Brandon to pose as a man for all that long, despite being anatomically feminine and possessing all the biological characteristics of a woman. Additionally, the character of Brandon defied the provisions of the theory of Symbolic interactionism, which provides that we learn gender through communication (Iacoboni and Eran, p42). Despite the fact that Brandon had coexisted and forged close relationship with her friends, none of them was able to know her true gender, until it was disclosed through the use of a her female birth name, in the media report. Thus, the film, Boys Don't Cry (1999), has represented gender issues regarding the concept of search for personal and gender identity, male dominance of the society, female heterosexism and bias towards the male gender, and the feminine intelligence that surpasses the male dominance. Works Cited Jung, Patricia B, and Ralph F. Smith. Heterosexism: An Ethical Challenge. Albany, NY: State Univ. of New York Press, 1993. Print. Iacoboni, Marco, and Eran Zaidel. The Parallel Brain: The Cognitive Neuroscience of the Corpus Callosum. Cambridge, Mass. [u.a.: MIT Press, 2003. Print. Shamir, Milette, and Jennifer Travis. Boys Don't Cry?: Rethinking Narratives of Masculinity and Emotion in the U.s. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Print. Read More