Boys Don't Cry 1999

 

This film talks about ‘’LESBIAN ’’ issue, which means homosexual women. Boys Don’t Cry is directed by a female director, Kimberly Peirce. Feminist films often are directed by females and they convey some certain issues that are related to women.

 The main character, Brandon, dressed like a boy and regarded herself as a boy. She changed her original name ‘’Teena’’ to ‘’Brandon, ’because that would show her gender. She loved to chase after beautiful girls. In the film; she fell in love with Lana, who accepted John (a criminal) to live with her and her mother. At first, Brandon, John, Tom (John’s friend) Lana and Candace had a good time drinking and smoking together. Unfortunately, John was very angry about Brandon’s relationship with Lana. Later, John was told by Candace that Brandon is actually a girl since she found her real name on fax. John has an unstable personality and he cannot even control his anger. He punched and raped Brandon. Then she ran away from them and was sent to the hospital by Lana. Lana loved Brandon and was ready to elope with her. Unluckily, they were too late to escape, Brandon was ended up killing by crazy John.     

  Both John and Lana’s mother show biases to Brandon. John kills her. Lana’s mom said ‘’I don’t want to let IT in the house’’ instead of ‘’he or ‘’she. ’Certainly, she views Brandon as a strange monster, not a human being at all!!

 Why did John rape Brandon? Because he wants to show his power and threaten her. By raping her, John proves that Brandon is a liar (not a boy) and is inferior to him.   

Brandon suffered from the rape, both mentally and physically. She never had sex before, so she must experience a painful intercourse, especially a force one!!When she was asked by the police about the rape, she was humiliated once again. I remember a word said by the police’’How can he(John) do nothing to you if he knows you are a girl? ‘This word seems very sarcastic for Bradon kept saying John did not rape her.

What about the title? The Title Boys Don’t Cry shows a social stereotype. The reason is because people always ask boys do not cry in front of others. Boys should be strong. If they cry, they are just like girls being weak!!I think the special meaning for the title is that Brandon is actually a girl, but she did not cry or run away. This demonstrates that girls are not always inferior to boys or are defeated easily!!

This film is based on the real events that happened in 1993.Brandon Teena was raped and murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska. She was 21 when she died. Nissen and Lotter (John and Tom in the film) were both involved in the murder. Teena had never commenced sex reassignment surgery (SRS), so she has sometimes been identified as LESBIAN by media reporters.

    

   

    

    

   

Heading West 2010

This is the film I watched in Tunghai's woman film festival in November 2011.The film is talking about ''SINGLE MOTHER'' issue and it’s directed by FEMALE DIRECTOR, which are the reason why it fits into the feminist film category!!The main character, Claire, had experienced sweetness and bitterness with her ex-husband, lover and her son.  

Claire had a fight with her ex-husband. He calls her a stupid cow because of buying a wrong peanut butter. Then he says that she is frigid, yet she actually did sleeps with Thomas afterwards. She was pushed to a table by her ex-husband. Claire has to endure his VERBAL VIOLENCE and PHYSICAL VIOLENCE. Also, she has to take care of her son, Milan, on her own. Her ex-husband starts new life with Angela and she is going to have a baby. This makes Claire feel extremely sad because she did not get along with her lover and she had an abortion, which means Milan will not have a brother whom he wants to play soccer with. When she heard Milan regard Angela’s unborn baby as his sister, Claire feels devastated and desperately regretted having painful abortion. Her ex-husband is an irresponsible man who thinks everything is Claire’s faults. He even doesn’t know how to communicate with Claire or deal with problems peacefully. All he knows is to scold and hit her without listening to her reason. He is just having an easy life with Angela and only has to give Claire living expenses; he of course would not know how tiring it is to bring up Milan.

Thomas locks his bike with Claires’ and this is how they meet each other. Thomas prepares breakfast with Milan and sets a back seat for him on his bicycle. However, later he is late for Claire’s party and keeps flirting with her friend. When Claire wants him to stay, he rejects and said" I’m not falling in love with you and do not expect me to do anything. " Previously, how nice he is to cook for them and to say he wants a child with Claire. These are all illusions. When Claire wants to know exactly what their relationship is, Thomas simply blames her for nagging again. Obviously, he does not want to marry Claire and he only wants to have sex with her. He keeps coming and going and this makes Claire hard to forget him. On February third, he visits her again and he wants to be with her and Milan. He even shows his jealousy because Claire had a dinner with another man.If he really loves Claire, he would not want her to have an abortion. He does not care how hurt Claire is, both mentally and physically. Claire really wants a family with Thomas, but he is a libertine and has no responsibility at all. His lame excuses for not loving Claire are that he does not open his heart and it is a chaos in his head.

Milan is Claire’s sweet responsibilities. He saw her mother being pushed to a table by his father and he also saw her mother having sex with Thomas. However, he still gets along with both of them. He is looking forward to playing with the unborn sister. He has a good time cooking with Thomas. Milan seems to be unaffected by adults’ complicated world. Despite of the fact that he breaks into Claires’ room when she is making love with Thomas, she lets him in and sleeps beside her instead of kicking him out of the door. This demonstrates how much Claire loves Milan. The last scene is Claire riding a bike with Milan on the back. Her life goes on and she needs to move on and be strong for her son.

I think Claire is a woman who knows clearly what she wants and is resolute. She wants to start a new life with Thomas, but she later realizes that she should make a final decision, that is, never see Thomas any more. She also shows her resolute by throwing Thomas’ stuffs away. Thomas is uncertain of what he is doing and cannot give any promises. He only knows he gets along with her and he does not even regard her as a girlfriend. Even though Clarie met two men who are not good at communicating with her and hate explaining or listening to what she said, she uses wisdom to find the way out of suffering. They just want to dominate her and ask her to deal with all the troubles. In the epilogue, she opens the window and hears the noise. At the same time, she lets the fresh air in and it represents a new life. The family she overlooks gives her strength to keep moving on in despite of trauma and hot and cold relationships. Her painful feelings are released. As she closes the window, everything is silent and she comes back to reality again-lonely but not alone. I admire her, being a single mother, overcomes ebb and flow of life and being so courageous to never submit to men!