Gender Identity In Boys Don T Cry And The Crying Game

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According to Brenda Cooper, the most basic understanding of heteronormativity is that gender is ‘natally ascribed, natural, and immutable’. The literature surrounding gender identity initially defines two categories, male or female and is something that is resistant to change. However, the transgendered identity problematises this assumption within the response from popular culture and in particular, film. With the contradictory ideas addressed in the films Boys Don’t Cry and The Crying Game , gender identity is certainly a complex notion. This essay will explore ways in which these texts conform to, or are in denial of, the transgender identity through discussion of stereotypical masculine and feminine identities, transgender as performance, the complex nature of sexuality and the revelation of biological sex.
Identity, for many, is a concept which has enabled individuals to share mutual life experiences in order to share similar social positions such as sexuality, gender and class. Thus, in Boys Don’t Cry Brandon, a female to male transgender, predominantly acknowledges heteronormativity through visual images and mannerisms of stereotypical masculinity. Cooper suggests that the dominant image within the texts narrative is the ‘self-actualisation’ that Brandon is a male. The fact that Brandon is constantly referred to through the masculine pronoun ‘he’ and admires himself as a man by looking in the mirror. Cooper suggests that his life being a man is not an ‘abnormal or deceptive act’ and that the narrative ‘privileges’ Brandon’s self- identity over his biological genitalia. In order to construct his masculinity even further, Brandon imitates the aggressive behaviour of the two heterosexual characters John and Tom. Brando...

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...eronormative ideas and in turn, deny the transgendered subjectivity. In Boys Don’t Cry there is a strong sense that Brandon acknowledges stereotypical masculinity and the narrative represses any form of the transgender through Lana’s denial of Brandon’s biological sex. Similarly in The Crying Game, Dil conforms to heterosexual femininity and when her true biological sex is revealed, she continues to be a woman. On the other hand, both texts also challenge heteronormativity through the recognition of identities outside of the norms of gender and sexuality. Boys Don’t Cry and The Crying Game both provide the narrative with shocking revelation scenes which force the viewer to accept these new forms of queer identities. In conclusion, texts may open up different approaches to gender identity, yet it is never clear to which approaches we should or should not acknowledge.

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