Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.
Someone needs to explain Hilary Swank’s career to me. If memory serves, Boys Don’t Cry is the sixth of her films that I have seen. The two of them that follow the naming pattern of The [Noun] (The Reaping, The Core) are utter shit. The four that don’t (Boys Don’t Cry, Insomnia, 11:14, and Million Dollar Baby) are films that I’ve either liked or at least appreciated. Swank has won two Oscars; she’s obviously got talent. But man, does she pick some truly shit movies sometimes. Maybe she should just stick to dramas and avoid anything that delves into science fiction or horror.
It’s interesting to me that Boys Don’t Cry, the story of a transsexual named Teena Brandon, who has changed her name to Brandon Teena (Swank) who falls in love with Lana Tisdel (Chloe Sevigny) and ends up killed was released less than a decade before Transamerica and Brokeback Mountain. How quickly the discourse changes regarding transsexuality. Mind you, I’m not complaining. Where Transamerica turned out to be in many ways triumphant and accepting of its characters, Boys Don’t Cry is a brutal story of rejection, pain, and various gender and sexual phobias. I have no doubt that while the national and international conversation has changed, that there are large swaths of this country and the world that react far closer to the people in Boys Don’t Cry. This is still a reality for many people, and Boys Don’t Cry is thus still relevant.
