#breakout text

TW: Mentions of violence, murder, rape, transphobia, homophobia and incarceration

The film Boys Don’t Cry, directed by Kimberly Peirce is a dramatization of the tragic real-life story of Brandon Teena who strived to attain acceptance and find love as a transgender man, but sadly was met with hate and violence that ended in his death. The film illustrates Brandon’s struggles with transphobia from its inception, wherein the opening scenes Brandon is kicked out of his cousin’s trailer after a violent, transphobic attack, then relocates to Falls City. Once landing in Falls City, Brandon befriends Candace, John, and Tom after his involvement in a bar fight. Brandon continually associates with the group and eventually becomes romantically interested in another of their friends, Lana. John was always jealous of this relationship and attempts to maintain a controlling relationship over Lana throughout the film, which he excuses as “protection”; however, tensions skyrocket after Brandon is forced to confront legal troubles which land him in a Falls City Jail. Once placed in jail, Lana immediately bails him out and when Brandon is frantically attempting to explain why he was placed in a women’s cell, Lana shuts him down, affirming that her love for Brandon has nothing to do with his gender identity. Unfortunately, while in jail, the rest of the group discovers Brandon’s assigned gender at birth and reacts with anger and violence. This transphobic reaction turns into real violence when John and Tom force Brandon’s pants down to display he is “not a man” to Lana and then force Brandon into a car where he is taken to an isolated area and brutally raped by the men. These events are followed by police ignoring Brandon’s pleas for help, and finally, culminate in a horrific ending to the movie when John and Tom track down Brandon, shoot him, and even stab his lifeless body. While the casting of cisgender actress Hilary Swank as Brandon in Boys Don’t Cry is inherently problematic, these issues are dwarfed by the film’s revolutionary impact as a breakout text for the transgender community through its illustration of the positive masculinity espoused by a transgender man and his struggles for acceptance experienced in daily life.

Breakout texts are comprised of media that offers visibility to a group that has never been witnessed before in the mainstream. In accordance with this fresh visibility, one of the most important facets of breakout texts is clear, “By virtue of being the first, they exert a stronger cultural influence than similar media that come after them… They have staying power and make an imprint that endures over time until challenged” (Cavalcante, 2017, 3). Considering the massive influence of these breakout texts and how subsequent media pieces hold less power in terms of this influence, it is vitally important for breakout texts to consider matters of representation of marginalized groups in the most positive and accurate light possible. Boys Don’t Cry is able to illustrate this representation quite effectively through a demonstration that transgender men can celebrate with Brandon’s positive masculinity and, additionally, in a way that all transgender people can appreciate through the portrayal of his desperate attempts for acceptance.

Brandon’s positive masculinity is illustrated throughout the film by his actions towards women, especially Lana, and a contrasting of Brandon’s masculinity with John’s and Tom’s toxic iterations of masculinity. The above images were taken from Brandon’s first encounter alone with Lana. When he notices she is extremely drunk, he, despite her initial protests, convinces her to allow him to walk her home. The first image displays Brandon helping Lana stay on her feet when she begins stumbling and the second features Brandon’s care in helping Lana get to bed after the pair make it home safe. Brandon engages in this mode of chivalry and care throughout the film and this positive masculinity is highlighted furthermore by the film’s contrast of toxic masculinity espoused by John and Tom. The above clip features the culmination of this toxicity and illustrates the tragic real-life event that was John and Tom murdering Brandon Teena. The emphasized positive masculinity of a transgender man, simultaneously in accordance with the contrasting of the negative masculinity displayed by two cisgender, transphobic men work in a highly impressive manner to illustrate transgender masculinity in terms of a breakout text. By positioning these illustrations in the mainstream, not only is the notion that transgender men are just as much of “a man” as their cisgender counterparts instilled in minds of the public but arguably most importantly, that heteronormative examples of “masculinity” often surface in toxic, violent manners, whereas masculinity in respect to transgender examples is illustrated as kind, caring, and compassionate. Considering that the majority of women can, unfortunately, empathize with violence experienced through toxic masculinity, this contrast works extremely well as a breakout text in gaining empathy and understanding amongst the public towards transgender men. Furthermore, the affirmation that transgender men are men, along with the positioning of transgender masculinity often as superior to cisgender masculinity, works to validate the emotions that transgender men feel towards themselves regarding their transness, and affirms their identity with both themselves and society at large.

A second way in which Boys Don’t Cry works well as a breakout text is by garnering support and understanding for the transgender community as a whole through the demonstration of Brandon’s awkward and often desperate attempts for acceptance throughout the film. The imagery above is taken from a scene where Brandon participates in a “truck rodeo”, a makeshift sport in which the driver of a truck attempts to throw an opponent off of the bed of their truck while the latter party hangs onto a rope tied to the truck bed for as long as possible. The first image depicts Brandon lying facedown after a painful fall into hardened mud and the second illustrates Brandon’s quick recovery and excitement to go again despite the likely painful impacts on his small frame. Additionally, throughout the film, Brandon frequently is displayed as trying to fit in with “the guys” and is often unsure and awkward in his attempts to do so. The desperation of continually engaging in an activity such as the truck rodeo to gain acceptance and the awkwardness of Brandon’s demeanor in conversation emphasize to the audience that transgender individuals are not to be feared and simply desire acceptance like most others in society. Accentuations such as these throughout the breakout text provide an incredible impression towards cisgender audiences by displaying relatable circumstances to attain a better understanding of transgender people amongst the audience and furthermore, acts to afford validity to the struggles of transgender individuals who feel self-conscience in these circumstances depicted in the film.

While the aforementioned casting of a cisgender woman as Brandon (pictured above) is problematic, it does not nullify the positive aspects of representation in the film. One problematic aspect of representation does not have to override positive aspects, “Though I have argued here that trans inclusion in fashion often employs a neoliberal logic of individuality and self-empowerment, I must also acknowledge the joy in seeing trans women of color emerge in the pages of fashion magazines not as victims, but as powerful, fashionable, and worthy of attention” (Zhang, 2022, 19). While this article is referring to transgender women of color in fashion magazines, the problematic nature of both this representation and representation in Boys Don’t Cry draw parallels since both instances accompany harmful drawbacks despite positive representation being the nominal goal; however, also occurring in both situations is a real, positive representation of transgender individuals, which should not be discounted solely predicated on negative aspects of this representation. The positive results of better and more extensive mainstream understanding and empathy toward transgender people and the validation that transgender people experience when watching the film position the overall scope of representation in Boys Don’t Cry as overwhelmingly positive.

Additionally, just because a media work utilizes actual transgender people as actors does not mean that the representation is inherently positive. This problematic tendency is clear in Ryan Murphy’s Pose,

There are, sadly, many young LGBT youth who are rejected by their families and are either forcibly removed from the familial home or choose to leave it because of the conditions therein. However, in Murphy’s hands, this trope seems to only play out when there are characters of color involved… These gay and trans actors of color function as a shield for Pose’s problematic representational politics. (Martin, 2018)

Not only is this racist, homophobic, transphobic representation clearly inferior to representation in Boys Don’t Cry, but it is devastating to the community as any criticisms lobbied towards the rich, white, cisgender, producer Ryan Murphy for his harmful portrayals of gay and transgender communities of color are obfuscated and then imposed on the actors themselves. While identity-based representation is certainly important for communities to relate to, the critical factor in evaluating whether representation is beneficial or harmful to a community is the real quality of said representation.

As someone who recently began transitioning from male to female, my own subject position played a heavy hand in my analysis. While consuming the movie, I believe that I maintained a critical lens throughout since I am highly aware of negative representations of the transgender community and, therefore, am confident that the quality of representation was overall positive. That being said, I may have overlooked problematic aspects of representation in the movie due to my own bias. For instance, the casting of a cisgender woman as a transgender man was rendered trivial to me through my joy regarding the positive manifestations of representation during the film; however, it is impossible for me to ascertain exactly how problematic this cisgender appropriation of a transgender person is since I cannot speak for the transgender community as a whole regarding the importance of authentic transgender visibility in film and it is additionally unrealistic to concretely deduce whether this illusory representation harbored negative effects on mainstream audiences and their perception of transgender people.

References:

Cavalvante, A. (2017). Breaking Into Transgender Life: Transgender Audiences’ Experiences With “First of Its Kind” Visibility in Popular Media. Canvas. Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://ucdenver.instructure.com/courses/491234/files/17330839?module_item_id=3730197

IMDb. (1999). Boys Don't Cry. IMDb. Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0171804/.

Martin, A. L. (2018, August 2). Pose(R): Ryan Murphy, Trans and queer of color labor, and the politics of representation. Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/poser-ryan-murphy-trans-queer-color-labor-politics-representation/

Tabberer, J. (2020). Hilary Swank portrayed Brandon Teena in Boys Don’t Cry in 1999 and went on to win an Oscar for the role . Metro. Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/06/hilary-swank-on-disappointing-reaction-to-her-living-as-a-man-for-boys-dont-cry-trans-role-i-was-really-upset-with-the-human-race-13230976/.

YouTube. (2008). Assassinato de Brandon. YouTube. Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHX-NyAAZpg.

YouTube. (2013). Boys Don't Cry. YouTube. Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stFD3UQmCE0.

Every Day is a love story about a person who wakes up in a different body everyday, never too far from the last, never the same person twice. This person names themselves A and they inhabit other people's bodies briefly and try to live that day as well as they can for that person. That is until Rhiannon comes along. A inhabits Rhiannon's boyfriend's body and they skip school to go on a fun date together and A quickly falls for Rhiannon romantically. A then continues to try to find Rhiannon and explain who and what they are and pursue as much of a relationship as A can with her. Throughout this Rhiannon breaks up with her boyfriend and slowly falls for A as well and a romance ensues. What makes this movie particularly interesting from a queer perspective is A’s trans and nonbinary gender identity and its relationship to Rhiannon’s sexuality. Due to its fairly mainstream release and A’s nonbinary identity, Every Day can be read as a trans breakout text which includes good and important representation for non-binary people and those that fall in love with them. However this positive representation can hide many underlying problems such as who is writing and profiting from this queer story. 

Representation in Every Day (2018)

This movie includes a lot of good and important representation for the queer community in general and also specifically for the trans community, starting with A themselves. A is canonically and specifically non-binary and what’s more A’s identity is specifically discussed in the movie. At one point Rhiannon directly asks A if they identify as a boy or a girl and A responds with “yes”.

This firmly and explicitly places A under the non-binary umbrella and is something not often seen in mainstream media. Because of this explicit included identity in a film which received mainstream attention, Every Day can be read as a breakout text. When describing Boys Don’t Cry Cavalcante explains what constitutes a breakout text, “Mainly, it operated as a kind of ‘breakout text.’ The film broke out into the cultural mainstream, offering wide visibility to a marginalized group, and broke away from 20th-century filmic traditions that routinely dehumanized and trivialized transgender characters.” In the same way that Boys Don’t Cry introduced transness to a mainstream audience, Every Day introduces non-binary identities to a mainstream audience. And more importantly it does so directly and explicitly, not allowing audiences to pretend it didn’t happen, A is both a boy and a girl, they say so themselves on screen. 

This also has interesting repercussions on Rhiannon’s sexuality. Rhiannon is in love with A by the end of the movie. This means that Rhiannon is attracted to a non-binary person and can’t really be read as straight. This is also made explicit during the film, one day while A is inhabiting a woman’s body, they ask if they can kiss Rhiannon and she agrees. This queer kiss solidifies that Rhiannon is not simply a straight girl but some kind of queer identity. This queer identity is also foreshadowed earlier in the film when A and Rhiannon discuss “types” before Rhiannon even knows who A is. During this conversation A says “I just know you can be attracted to way more people than you think” and when asked who A is referring to they reply “anyone”. This hints at A’s non essentialist view of gender and attraction, it shows they think that anyone can be capable of loving many different kinds of people and implies that this goes beyond gender categories. It shows that A might think anyone can be pansexual if they meet the right person and that’s what seems to happen with Rhiannon. 

The film also includes solid representation in the form of all the people that A inhabits throughout the story. A shows up as people from many different races, abilities, genders, and more. First off their race changes frequently throughout the film, A is sometimes a black man, a Hawaiian man, an asian woman, and more. This isn’t a significant thing in the film which has it’s own merits and drawbacks. Race is never really inspected in the film but the fact that it is diverse without drawing attention to itself is an important kind of inclusion as well, something I’ll examine more closely in a bit. A also inhabits people of different abilities, specifically a physically disabled person in the form of a blind man, and a mentally disabled person in the form a depressed and suicidal girl. Lastly A also appears as a trans man, who is notably acted by a trans man. This, like with race, is a very minor point (though it is made explicit in the film). 

Mediocrity vs. Unimportance

One of this movie’s greatest assets can also be seen as one of its greatest flaws, and that is the nonchalance with which it shows these queer and marginalized identities. Things are never inspected thoroughly, never given that much time to exist, and never given room to grow into full and complicated identities. The only discussion of A’s gender is the short conversation at the lake. The only inspection of Rhiannon’s queerness is the one kiss with a woman’s body. A’s concept of race is never discussed. And Vic’s transness is barely mentioned. This can be read as a good thing. It’s important that marginalized identities sometimes need to be treated with nonchalance to prevent things like what Arrand mentions, “My suspicion is that, however unintentionally, the people writing, producing, and casting television are ignorant of the fact that most trans people don’t live the sort of lives they can win Emmy awards on the back of, and that most of us, in our incredibly marginal existences, are simply too exhausted to provide cis people with a lesson about living authentically or treating others with a minimum of respect.” Not every marginalized person lives the sort of lives that can win Emmy awards, some of us are just regular people so we need to see ourselves as regular people in media. 

However I can’t help but miss the story that could have been told about A’s unique view of gender as someone who has been gendered by society multiple ways, or about Rhiannon’s struggle with figuring out what her identity truly is as someone who has fallen in love with a non-binary person. There’s a depth of learning that is missing from this short film that I can’t help but wish was there.

Representation as a Cover Up

As good and important as all this representation is it can also be a bit of a cover up for other problems, especially for money. At the end of the day Every Day is a film directed by a cishet white man, with a screenplay written by a cishet white man, based off of a book written by a cis gay white man. When you track down who is getting to tell this story, and who is getting to profit off of this story, queer people are almost completely absent, and non-binary people are completely absent. So while the representation might feel very nice to a queer audience, its production begs the question, Are queer people simply being used for profit? This question doesn’t have a simple answer, there wasn’t really any queer baiting with the release of this film, it doesn’t seem like it was targeted towards a queer audience at all, but it’s still a queer story being told by non queer people. As Martin points out, “Discussing representation can be tricky. Within a number of identity categories, mediated representation – literally the image we see on screens – is a central framework for examining the ways television portrays individuals who do not identify as white, cis-gendered and heterosexual.” However this film seems to aim at a “quality” audience still. In this examination it’s nonchalance can be seen as a way to make cishet audiences more comfortable instead of as revolutionary mediocrity shown on screen.

Conclusion

Every Day isn’t a perfect film form a queer media studies perspective. But it is still an important breakout text in non-binary representation. It shows a vast array of marginalized characters but never in too much detail, and ultimately a largely cishet white and male group of people profits off of it’s storytelling. At the end of the day it’s a movie I love that I felt seen by despite it’s problems. 

References

Andre Cavalcante, Breaking into Transgender Life: Transgender Audiences' Experiences with “First of Its Kind” Visibility in Popular Media, Communication, Culture and Critique, Volume 10, Issue 3, 1 September 2017, Pages 538–555, https://doi.org/10.1111/cccr.12165

Martin, Alfred. “Los Angeles Review of Books.” Los Angeles Review of Books, 2 Aug. 2018, lareviewofbooks.org/article/poser-ryan-murphy-trans-queer-color-labor-politics-representation/.