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Boys Don't Cry
# 7 Best of Film of 1999
We are an odd humanity.
Being separated by oceans, deserts, mountain ranges, and borders has allowed us to be individual in our beliefs, culture, religion, etc. Technology and the media has diminished the borders and distances between us. We know more about one another; we communicate one with another, despite our differences.
The idealist in me says that as we learn more about one another, the more understanding and tolerant we become; more importantly, the more apt we are to see one another as one large human family. We finally break the animosity and hatred that certain social structures perpetuate. We respect. We strive for equanimity for all.
However, the pessimist in me knows this is simply a pipe-dream, not because we are unable to individually care but because as nations, cultures, religions, establishments, governments, political allegiances, and social structures, we are engrained with notions that "lift" ourselves higher than minority groups. We establish "types" and we live and love according to them. If someone or some group doesn't fit into these "types," then we ignore, abuse, and/or even kill them.
Boys Don't Cry is one such film about a person struggling to be what and who she feels she really is, a man, but is raped and murdered when her mates find out the truth.
Hillary Swank's performance as Brandon Teena is amazingly realistic, so much so that I had a hard time seeing her as a "her." Her performance alone is near reason enough to place this disturbingly poignant film in my top ten. But I would be amiss not to mention Chloe Sevigny, who plays Brandon's love-interest. Sevigny's performance is soft yet demands attention. Her character longs for that better life she knows will only come by getting out of the dead-end town she lives in. She also longs for love, not the type that comes from the boys she hangs with. She does fall in love with Brandon Teena because he has something she hasn't ever known in a boy, the ability to care. In all, through Sevigny, we glimpse love for what it is - unconditional, caring.
Boys Don't Cry is most noteworthy on a historical level - it accurately depicts the social environment in which the hate crimes towards homosexuals are primarily prevalent (low-income, uneducated, rural communities). It's also relevant due to the politically charged debates in California regarding Proposition 22.
But at face value, this is a story about love and hate. Such a romantic tragedy reminds me of William Shakespeare, who sought through his plays to make the audience see themselves (as if by a mirror) in the characters on the stage. He'd question us: Do we love for loves sake, or is it conditional? Why do we hate? Why do we kill?
I am also reminded of the four gospels. Christ seems to question us: Why do we turn away from those who need us, pretending nothing is wrong? If we are created in the image of God, why do we oppress people in the name of God?
Boys Don't Cry opens with the blurry headlights of passing cars. We become hypnotized by them. In life, we can become hypnotized by prejudice notions. The test, then, is not to become blinded by them.
Oliver Cromwell said regarding harboring prejudice notions: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."
Finally, Jacob Bronowski, in his documentary The Ascent of Man commented, while standing in the pond at Auschwitz, "This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods."
"We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people."
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