“Boys Don't Cry” portrays the true story of Brandon Teena, a teenager who is faced with a serious sexual identity crisis. Although Brandon was born with a woman's body, he feels at heart and mind that he is a man. Brandon is portrayed as a loving and romantic individual who's not afraid to embrace himself in a world that often dismisses divergency. This unfortunately leads to Brandon's death at the age of 21. Two men, driven by ignorance, jealousy and hate lead to the murder of Brandon. Gender roles and social norms often deem people from becoming their true selves. Boys Don't Cry explores the constant struggle in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community through the eyes of Brandon Teena.
Brandon approaches several strategies to make himself look more like a man. Transgender individuals typically focus on their outer appearances. Social
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We live in a society where men are perceived as the strong initiators and women are the receivers. Brandon was not afraid to approach women; in the film we are shown Brandon taking the initiative and pursuing romance with women as men are expected in our culture. He had more than one sexual encounter with women. In our society men are expected to adopt the macho persona; men are expected to be courageous and must take up any challenge. Brandon portrays his manliness by participating in dangerous activities. In one scene Brandon shows his chivalry by defending his female friend; This leads him to a bar fight with another man twice his size. In the film he gets in a street race and tries to outrun the police. At one point, Brandon also gets involved in a very dangerous activity involving holding on to a car with piece of rope. He falls and hurts himself more than once but continues to get up and participate in order to impress his new friends because that is what is expected from a
Brandon Teena is the main character in Boys Don’t Cry. He is a boy that, as he himself proclaimed “had a birth defect or something”, meaning that he was born a girl. Throughout the movie, he is searching for acceptance, for somewhere that the way he is doesn’t matter. This is first shown to the viewer when he moves out of Lincoln, Nebraska, to Falls City, Nebraska. At the end of the film, Brandon Teena is brutally raped and later murdered. Though Brandon’s fate was in no way his fault, nor does it excuse or forgive what happened, Brandon brought his fate upon himself because he knew that the culture where he was living explicitly rejected and hated people like him. Brandon also kept trying to prove to himself that he really was a man, but he never truly satisfies himself. He also has many dreams that he lusts after but never does anything to accomplish. These things, in the end, are how Brandon Teena brought his fate upon himself.
Whether this be through morals, choices, beliefs, or personality. Holloway argues that it is through toxic/abrupt masculinity that boys are constantly caught in the crossfires between fight or flight. Masculinity becomes toxic when it becomes obsessive and disruptive. When society gets to the point where they cannot even focus or be themselves because of the fact that the only thing they care about is being the perfect man. The idea of striving to become this perfect man is an example of flight in society. Men are being forced to attempt to fit into these ideals and “prove, and re prove that they are men” in order to avoid the feeling of not fitting in with the rest of the group (Holloway). Holloway continues to discuss how throughout their lives men are constantly seen as emotionally tougher which causes them to grow up believing that if they show emotions they are weaker and are not allowed to be a part of the pack. Therefore instead of fighting this ideal and deciding to stand up for who they are, it is easier to conform and attempt to fit in because if they show discontent then they are shown as weak and unable to handle the “social constructions of masculinity” forcing them to become a social pariah and damage their spiritual
boys shed their civility and expose the evil that is hidden in all of humanity. To demonstrate this,
This film contains some classic examples of the kinds of real life issues adolescents deal with. Issues such as popularity, peer relationships, family/sibling relationships, sex, and struggles with identity are all addressed in this ninety-minute film.
It imposes a consciousness that timidity is not a characteristic that men should have. In order to prove themselves, men usually attempt unhealthy and destructive acts to perform their courages and fearless, but these actions prone to suicidal and various other types of out of control or untouchable behaviors. Michael Kimmel states that, “ Men ages nineteen to twenty-nine are three times less likely to wear seat belts than women the same age”(Kimmel 468). Mr.Kimmel quoted a data to claim that young men assume safe driving as emasculation. As long as men are driving a car, using a seat bell means that they are afraid of injure or death. Beside those, it also represents this man cannot completely control his car; on the other hand, he is not masculine. Moreover, men have proclivity to violence. In “From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos” by Joan Morgan, she specifically argus machismo behaviors among Africa Americans. She wrote that “When brothers can talk so cavalierly about killing each other and then reveal that they have no expectation to see their twenty-first birthday, that is straight-up depression masquerading as machismo”(Morgan 456). As a consequence of overflowing reckless and brutal actions, black men are more easily motivated to perform their machismo by murdering each other. It obviously states a situation that due to the suggestion and guidance from man box, the concept of intrepidity and brave has been distorted. Masculinity in these men’s mind represents a willing to die as long as they have manifested no
The knowledge of the dress code makes transgender people to wear boy or girl clothes. Parents in some cases may allow a certain behavior from their kids as a prize for achievement of high grades. The use of the knowledge may come with many rewards. In the article Why transgender teen Jazz Jennings is everywhere
1. In Riseman and Seale’s chapter Betwixt and Be Tween, they focus on how sexual identity can be used to police a male’s masculinity. It can start with something as innocent as a shy, quiet boy who starts to be picked on because he is no assertive or aggressive like the other males. The way he is picked on can be the other boy’s called him a: faggot, gay, homo, or boy lover. This means at a young age boys start to think they have to be a certain way to seem manly: assertive, enjoy sports, and be better than girls in all aspects; these are just a few ways boys try to prove their masculinity. One example that proves this was discussed in this chapter. Some students, both male and female, are given a hypothetical situation about a boy, Marcus,
In our modern world, sociology has a tremendous impact on our culture, mainly through the processes and decisions we make everyday. For movies and television shows especially, sociological references are incorporated throughout the storyline. A movie which includes many sociological examples is Mean Girls. Mean Girls is a movie based on the life of home-schooled teenage girl, Cady Heron, who moves to the United States from Africa and is placed in a public school for the first time. Cady finds herself in many uncomfortable scenarios and has to deal with the trials and tribulations pertaining to everyday high school issues. Her experiences involve interacting with high school cliques, such as ‘the plastics’, weird high school teachers, relationships,
Gender roles have been the one of the longest conflicts since the creation of man. Females have been struggling to gain way in the country since the foundation of the United States. For most of our country’s life up until the 1940’s women predominantly were supposed to stay at the house and do all the house work. For a fictional unnamed female child in the short story “Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro, the life of the average woman is not the life she wants to live. She wants to work the hard labor with her father who sells fox pelts but, she is constantly getting “harassed” by her mother to do lady like work. The women’s struggle for rights can be divided up into centuries starting with the 19th and continuing to present day. At the end of the story the girl finally accepts her role as a female because she messes up and her father says, “She’s only a girl.” Men on the other hand, have had always had any opportunity they wanted but, generally their role is the
Transgender is defined by Wikipedia as, “the state of one's gender identity (self-identification as woman, man, neither or both) or gender expression not matching one's assigned sex.” The article explains how a transgender individual may define themselves as having the characteristics that are normally associated with a particular gender but will choose to identify elsewhere on the gender continuum. It use’s the love story of Rhys Ernst and Zackary Drucker as an example. It took five years for Zackary to transition from male to female and Rhys from female to male. But both truly believe that they were born the wrong gender, and choose to correct this wrong with hormone treatments, surgery and personality changes that to the more tradition eye may seem absurd and abnormal. This is one of the main reason such transgender couples are talking about their transformations. To beach this gap between transgender’s and the rest of the population. It is believed that by educating society, we are more likely to accept something than if we do not fully understand the parameters that surround such an issue.
William Pollack, in his article “Inside the World of Boys: Behind the Mask of Masculinity”, discusses on how boy tries to hide behind the mask and the stereotypical of masculinity. He demonstrates how boy hide their deepest though and feelings and real self. Pollack open the essay with “a fourteen-year-old boy, he is doing badly in school and he might fail algebra, but when teacher or his parent ask about it, he said everything is just fine. He hide his true identity behind the mask, and let no one see his true self.” After read the story, I think the story is really useful source to write an essay about how boy become men and they are emotionless.
An article entitled “How Boys Become Men,” written by Jon Katz was originally published in January, 1993 in Glamour, a magazine for young women. This article details the process of a boy growing into a man and mainly focus on the lesson boys learn that effect their adult lives. These lessons are about how to hold back emotions and never appeared sensitive. The author includes examples of his own experiences as a boy to convey to the reader the challenges of growing into a man. Through the various stories of young boys, the author is trying to prove that the men are insensitive because they had to learn to hide their feelings during the stage of growing up with other boys. The purpose of the author is to explain the women of the world, why men appear to be emotionalist and “macho.” The author’s main idea of this article is to explain why men are insensitive and to help women understand why men sometimes seem “remote” and “uncommunicative.”
The documentary is mainly about the perception of what the definition of masculinity really is. Our society has developed schemas as to how men should express their emotions, which is practically not at all. Since we as a society have set these schemas for men, they have to constantly try to prove their masculinity over other men. Likewise, boys in this society also have to hide their softer feelings and
He grows up being taught to act and talk in certain ways and play certain sports that meet the social expectations about gender role. He seems to tick all the boxes of his parents’ expectation on their eldest son, except beside cycling and body building, he also likes makeup and he is homosexual. He was first introduced to cosmetics and makeup through his close female cousins. They certainly have an influence on him, but he was the one that found makeup interesting and kept coming back to it. Given he was assigned male at birth, the way he acts gender conforms and contests the expected gender identity at the same time. Though he does not conform to the normative culture, he has broad shoulders and a deep voice, and he does not “feel feminine” enough to consider himself effeminate. He also had a female partner in the past but he came to the realisation that that kind of relationship would not work out for him. It is his historical and lived experiences that progressively and continually shape him into doing what he does. There was definitely a shift in his gender identity though he as the subject is not entirely in
Gender is seen as a spectrum, and one can fall anywhere on this spectrum. Again, according to Sam Killerman, being transgendered means living "as a member of a gender other than that expected based on sex assigned at birth." Just because a person is born with male genitalia does not mean they have to be male.