Teena Brandon was 21 years old and was living in Nebraska in 1993. She suddenly didn’t want to be a girl anymore and she went for a haircut and moved to a small city in Nebraska, Fall City. Funny enough, she changed her name to Brandon Teena instead. Brandon portrayed herself as a cowboy and appealed to Lana. Brandon gathered much in a pub and met some friends there and they established pretty good relationships. Lena was infatuated with Brandon and was amazed with Brandon’s ability of knowing how to treat a woman nicely. Even though Lana realized that Brandon could be a woman, Lana still lingered on with this relationship. However, the event lead to a tragedy as Lana’s friends Tom and John could not tolerate such menace and they finally raped and murdered Brandon and therefore lead to a sad ending.
The movie talked about a girl who refused her gender and portrayed as a boy and even had sex with other girls. Unfortunately, some other people in the society as Tom and John could not accept her perceptions of life and they supposed that one’s gender was innate that it was evil to deny it. This was the main argument in the movie that whether one should accept his or her gender naturally from birth or we had a freedom of choice. If we accept that Brandon actually had a freedom of choice for her own gender, there should not have the tragic episode at the final stage. Nevertheless, this should be classified as a social crises when there was no new norm to shelter and safeguard Brandon’s gender-blind or gender-ignorance behaviors.
A positive gender thinker assumes and trades on what it takes to be apprehensible differentiation of human character by sex. On the other hand, critical gender thinkers urge us
to withdraw from this kind of subjection. It moves in a conceptual space in which the relation between humanity or personhood on the one hand, and gender qualities on the other, is contingent, accidental and alterable. Brenda changed her sexuality mentally, but not physically, in order to enjoy love and caring others. There should not be anything immoral for her motives.
However, the males might view that she is not playing her role in the society as a woman who was destined to accept males’ love and caring or to arouse frustrations.
Gender is defined as an external encrustation on humanity like sex-role rather than as qualification of humanity itself. Gender is culturally ascribed as “biological notions about masculinity and femininity”.
Basically, I agree with the viewpoint that we are not aware of our own gender during our childhood. We are not born with the perceptions of gender difference as many naturalists claim.
In the traditional psychoanalytic view, when sexual difference is first seen, it has self-evident value. A girl who perceives her lacking of penis knows instantly she needs one, and subsequently defines herself and her mother as lacking, inadequate and castrated and that implies they are inferior in the society. A boy, on the other hand, instantly knows having a penis is better, and fears the loss of his own. This traditional account violates a fundamental rule of psychoanalytic interpretation. When the analyst finds trauma, strong fears or conflict, it is a signal to look deeply for the roots of such feelings. In the traditional psychoanalytic view, Brandon belongs to a female even though she portrayed to have all the characteristics of a male, e.g. she wore jeans like a boy, she put the fake penis on or used the socks as the sex organ and bounded up her breast. It was also why Tom and John tore her jeans off to expose her sexuality as girl but not boy. It means the two boy were having strong traditional psychoanalytical viewpoint. However, Brandon was quite detached from this traditional psychoanalytic viewpoint but not totally free because she was suffering from the high pressure of this traditional social psychoanalytic viewpoint.
The clinical and theatrical writings since Freud suggested that there could actually be another interpretation of the emergence of perception of gender difference. This view reverses the perception of which gender experiences greater trauma and retains only the claim that gender identity and the sense of masculinity and femininity develop differently for men and women. This account suggests that core gender identity and masculinity are confliction for men, and we bound up with the masculine sense of self in a way that core gender identity and femininity are not for women. “Core gender identity” refers to a cognitive sense of gendered self, the sense that one is male or female. This further implies that men and women actually construct different realities in their everyday lives concerning clothing, families, jobs, behavior and even happiness. So, this is a dual role for two gender and there are not much to be compared between the two.
Gender identity is the private experience of gender role but gender role is a public and social expression of gender identity. Gender role is everything that a person says or does to indicate others or to the self, the degree that one is either male, female or ambivalent. It includes, but is not restricted, to sexual arousal and response. Though gender role are only some norms publicly defined by the society without much restraint, everyone might somehow feel the pressure from the opposite sex. In the movie “Boys Don’t Cry”, Brandon had an experience that once she went to the toilet she actually stood to urinate. She actually need not to stand to urinate in order to be a “male”.
The traditional view from structural functionalist sociological theories which were prevalent in 1950’s defends gender differences in the contemporary society as the “natural outcome of biological difference”. Women and men, in this view, are biological different and this difference determines not only their sexual values and responses, but also sex-linked traits and consequently male and female roles in life. In this model, it is inevitable that men become leaders and gain positions of power and authority in society as they are by nature stronger and more aggressive, responsive and objective. In opposition, women are weaker, more expressive, emotional, caring, dependent and subjective, and tied to their families by their reproductive and lactating capacity. In the movie “Boys Don’t Cry”, Tom and John, as dominant males, supposed they have the authority to judge Brandon’s behavior and they thought Brandon was deviated from her own sex by disguising as a boy. They even thought they have the rights to murder her. This is a sample tragedy from the shadow of traditional social psychoanalytic viewpoint.
Like gender, sexuality is seen as being constituted through a number of forces that vary across time and cultures. Individual identities are constructed in relation to such things as masculinity, femininity, homosexuality, heterosexuality and other social factors.
“Sexuality is the erotic arousal and genital responses resulting from following the shared sexual scripts of that society”. Sexual scripts indicate the with whom, where, when, how and why the erotic arousal and genital responses may occur. For instance, our society only encourages sexual behavior ( e.g. sexual intercourse ) within the institution of marriage or another close relationship and in a private place. Moreover, we usually use sexuality generally to refer to sexual behaviors, arousal, response as well as sexual attitudes, desires and communication. In the movie, Brandon had used some sexual behavior to express she loved Lana so much. We are all interdependent with some people in the society – i.e. our parents, friends, siblings children and our romantic partners. For example, Brandon and Lana are romantic couple in the movie. Sexual behaviors and desires do not occur in all these close relationships, nor in a close relationship necessarily to have sex. However, for those who have involved sexual intercourse and experiences implies that they are very close in relationship that they might influence each other’s behaviors, decisions, goals …etc. This interdependence
is also supposed to be a long-term instead of a short-term relationship. The result is that the sexual aspect of the close relationship is intertwined with several other aspects of the relationship, such as communication, love and emotions. Brandon and Lana were found to have the similar assumption that after their close relationship and sexual relationship, they planned to leave the town in order to start a new life in other places.
In operations, love has various behaviors, such as hugging, kissing, sharing feelings. Live is the constellation of behaviors, cognition and emotions associated with a desire to enter or maintain a close relationship with a specific other person. Sexuality is the constellation of sensations, emotion and cognition that an individual associates with physiological sexual arousal and that generally gives rise to sexual desire and behavior. Both love and sexuality help the two to develop and maintain a close relationship. The definition of sexuality here is neutral no matter how sexuality is constructed biologically, developmentally, culturally or whatsoever. In the movie, since Lana and Brandon were loving each other, they of course had behaviors of love and sexuality. They had emotions to express to the opposite side and they also want to develop a closer relationship.
Homosexuality is a trait, state or disposition emanating from the personality and those who define it behaviorally as something that happens between two people with similar sex organs. The mentalists agree that a person can be homosexual, even though his or her only sexual practices are heterosexual, provided the erotic imagery is consistently homosexual.
Homosexual couples also play his and her own roles in the house. One plays the mummy-wife and the other plays the daddy-husband. However, a recurrent theme in the small empirical literature on gay and lesbian relationship is that partners in these relationships eschew traditional male and female roles in favor of an ethic of equality and reciprocity ( Peplau & Gordon, 1983 ). Gay and lesbian relationship develop without institutional support. However, they are striving to gain legalization in homosexuality and also to extend spousal benefits to gay and lesbian partners when such relationships are not legally sanctioned. Homosexual activity is still illegal in some states in America. In the movie, it was revealed that Brandon played the male role and could satisfy Lana sexually. Therfore, even though Lana realized Brandon was not a real man, she was still willing to follow him to move to other town including that she realized she couldn’t procreate the next generation. John loved Lana and he disagreed and disgusted Lana to have homosexuality with Brandon. He deeply believed that Brandon could never give her all the joy and happiness she needed. Hence, he solved the problem with violence. We It stated that sexual jealousy could arouse violence. When tracing back, one would raise a question as : “Do we really have rules and law for love and sexuality?” or “Do we really need rules and law for love and sexuality?”. Brandon and Lana simply valued their feelings and emotions higher than sexuality, gender and reproduction/procreation.
Male violence is defined broadly by feminists to include abuses-rape, wife battering, incest and sexual harassment. However, in the movie, Tom and John raped Brandon not because of sexual needs but to revenge and punish. Rape is therefore can be seen as male’s behavior to reassure themselves of their power and potency over female, especially when the male enjoy the fear and humiliation of the female victim. In the movie, Tom and John wanted to further assure that they have the power to judge Brandon for her homosexuality. Rape is sometimes defined as “an act of sexual terrorism”. Nevertheless, from the movie of “Boys Don’t Cry”, Tom and John raped and murdered Brandon from the motives of jealousy, revenge and masculine superiority.
As a conclusion, the movie “Boys Don’t Cry” revealed us the relationships among love, gender, sexuality and homosexuality. In order to construct a closer relationship, love and sexuality are the two most important elements between the two. Brandon’s trying hard to imitate as a male revealed that there were still pressures for gender, love and sex in the society. Lana agreed to move to other town with Brandon revealed that feelings and emotions can overwhelm sex and procreation. Tom and John raped and murder Brandon revealed that there are still traditional rules and beliefs for gender and sexuality but they are somehow fading.


<< THE END >> BEN












In 1993 Nebraska, 21-years-old Teena Brandon has decided she does not want to be Teena Brandon anymore, so she gets herself a very short haircut and moves to tiny Falls City, Nebraska. And changes her name to – Brandon Teena. Brandon’s excellent portrayal of a cowboy draws the attentions of lovely Lana. Moreover, Brandon has met a group of friends in the pub and their relationships are quite good. In a gradual way, Lana becomes infatuated with Brandon as Brandon already is with her. Lana is flattered and amazed that Brandon is the only man she’s ever known who “really knows how to treat a woman.” However, like many young people, he (Brandon) made costly mistakes and when he inadvertently trespassed between his loves Lana. Lana seems to know Brandon is a girl, but Lana still keep this relationship. Nevertheless, Lana friends will not tolerate such behaviour. However, her reckless friends, John and Tom cannot stand having been part of his deception, the mystery unraveled into violence. His disguise has taken in the two ex-cons who rape and murder Brandon as well. At the end, it leads to a tragedy.
In this movie, it talks about a girl who pretended to be a boy and have sex with other girls. This makes us understand that she do not want to be a girl, she feel unsatisfactory in her life and her gender. That is why she wants to have a new life in another city. Actually in this movie, we know that gender is innate. We cannot choose or control it even how we disguise our appearances. This is biologically constructed. In addition, in this movie, the people how to define a gender is through the biologically constructed not socially constructed. Such as John and Tom in this movie, even Brandon’s behaviour and appearances looks like a boy, they also think he is not a boy because he/she do not have penis. The people in this movie who think that if the people have penis then he is boy. In opposite, people who have vagina then she is a girl.
Most people do not question their own or other’s established gender identity and role as male and female. They are readily accepted at face value. What is said and done by men and women in different societies varies and overlap, since dimorphic norms of gender role are culturally and historically determined. But once an individual’s identity and role as male or a female become differentiated, they remain stable and are unlikely to be shaken even by major crises in life, physiological, social, or accidental. As I mentioned before, even it said most people do not question their own gender identity. However, in this movie, it shows that Brandon has the question of her own gender identity. She/he
seems do not know she/ he is male or female clearly and occurs the crises in her life.

The two sides of gender
Firstly, in western culture, gender thinking runs in two quite different channels, which are positive and critical. Positive gender thinking both assumes and trades on what it takes to be an apprehensible differentiation of human character by sex. On the other hand, critical gender thinking means to withdraws from this sort of subjection. It moves in a conceptual space in which the relation between humanity or personhood, on the one hand, and gender qualities, on the other, is contingent and alterable, such as in Boys don’t cry, Brandon also change her gender to pretend a boy in front of Lana. Perhaps close examination reveals impurity in most specimens of the critical and positive approaches; would be critics of gender may very well continue to trade unconsciously on their participating in gender, while celebrations of gender may ring hollowly, critical detachment lurking within them or in their implications. Still we recognize the opposed principles. Both of the two kind gender thinking is confusingly and tellingly.



The definition of gender
Gender is defined as an external encrustation on humanity like “sex role”, for instance, rather than as the qualification of humanity itself (as well as of personal character) that people have in mind when they speak appreciatively of femininity and masculinity. Therefore, gender is culturally ascribed as “biological notions about femininity and masculinity.
Basically, we are not born with perceptions of gender differences; these emerge developmentally. In the traditional psychoanalytic view, however, when sexual difference is first seen it has self-evident value. A girl perceives her lack of penis, knows instantly that she wants one, and subsequently defines herself and her mother as lacking, inadequate, castrated; a boy instantly knows having a penis is better, and fears the loss of his own. This traditional account violates a fundamental rule of psychoanalytic interpretation. When the analyst finds trauma, shock, strong fears or conflict, it is a signal to look for the roots of such feelings. Such as Brandon who knows herself is a girl because she lack of penis and contains all of the body’s characteristics of female. So, in the traditional psychoanalytic she is belongs to female even she pretend to have the characteristics of male, e.g. she wear like a boy, she put the fake penis on or use the socks to pretend the sex organ and bound up her breast. Therefore, that is why when Tom and John tear her jeans to prove that she is a boy or girl, because both of them are also contains the concept of traditional psychoanalytic view. However, the clinical and theatrical writings since Freud suggest another interpretation of the emergence of perceptions of gender difference. This view reverses the perception of which gender experiences greater trauma, and retains only the claim that gender identity and the sense of masculinity and femininity develop differently for men and women. These accounts suggest that core gender identity and masculinity are confliction for men, and are bound up with the masculine sense of self in a way that core gender identity and femininity are not for women. “Core gender identity” is refers to a cognitive sense of gendered self, the sense that one is male and female.
Men and women construct different realities in their everyday lives concerning their clothing, their families, their jobs, and their ambitions, even their definitions of happiness. For instance, Brandon who is care about her/his clothing when she want to pretend to be a boy because she knows how should the man wear and she also knows men and women are construct different realities, such as the clothing as what I talk above.

Gender identity
The sameness, unity, and persistence of one’s individuality as male, female or ambivalent in gender or lesser degree, especially as it is experienced in self-awareness and behaviour. Gender identity is the private experience of gender role, and gender role is the public expression of gender identity. Such as Brandon who has the characteristics of female then she will be a girl and Tom/ John who have penis then they will be a boy.

Gender role
What is gender role? Everything that a person says or does to indicate others or to the self, the degree that one is either male, female, or ambivalent. It includes, but is not restricted to sexual arousal and response. Gender role is the public expression of gender identity is the private experience of gender role. E.g., in the movie “Boys Don’t Cry”, Brandon is a girl but pretend to be a boy, so when she go to toilet she will stand to urinate. She want to express it she/he is a boy through this action.

Traditional explanations
The traditional view enshrined in structural functionalist sociological theories prevalent in the 1950s defends gender difference in contemporary society as the natural outcome of biological difference. Women and men, in this view, are biologically different and this difference determines not only their sexual values and responses, but also sex-linked traits and consequently male and female roles in life. In this model it is inevitable that men become leaders and gain positions of power and authority in our society because they are by nature stronger and more aggressive, responsive and more objective. In opposition to the women, is by nature, weaker and more expressive, emotional, caring, dependent and subjective, and tied to the family by their reproductive and lactating capacity. For instance, in this movie “Boys Don’t Cry” Tom and John who are men, as I mentioned before, men have power, become the leader so they think they have the right to judge Brandon, they all think Brandon is wrong because of disguising herself as a boy. Tom and John think they are a man; they though they have the right to judge and publish her, so use the gun to kill her. Why will they do that? It is because both of them contain of the traditional thinking in their society, they recognize that they are men and they have power to become leader to do what they want, they know what is the difference of gender. They think men are objective women need to hear and follow what they say. Beside of that, when Lana know that she also cannot do anything because she have the same traditional thinking as Tom and John. She is weakness and subjective. She cannot control all the things even she does not want Tom and John murdered Brandon. In addition, this is what traditional explanations are.

Human sexuality in four perspectives:
· Development perspective, which is the sexual characteristics of adult men and women, developed from infancy or even from the prenatal beginnings.
· Sociological perspective, which is on human sexuality, is achieved through several variants of the cross-sectional approach. One is to compare and contrast the sexual aspects of different human societies, and another is to study differences in the sexual characteristics of members of the same society.
· Physiological perspective, which is achieved by analyzing the ways in which separate parts of the organism.
· Evolutionary perspective, which is the basic concepts pertaining to evolution and behavior.


Like gender, sexuality is seen as being constituted through a number of forces that vary across time and across cultures. Individual identities are constructed in relation to such things as masculinity and femininity, homosexuality and heterosexuality and social factors.

The definitions of sexuality
“Sexuality as the erotic arousal and genital responses resulting from following the shared sexual scripts of that society” sexual scripts indicate the with whom, where, when, how and why the erotic arousal and genital responses may occur. For example, our society encourages sexual behavior (e.g. sexual intercourse) within the institution of marriage or another close relationship and in a private location. Moreover, we use sexuality very generally to refer to sexual behaviours, arousal, and responses, as well as to sexual attitudes, desires, and communication. Such as in this movie, Brandon use a sexual behavior to express she/he love Lana so much.
Most of us are independent with several people--- parents, friends, siblings, children, and a romantic partner. Of course in this movie, Lana and Brandon are belongs to romantic partner. Sexual behaviour and sexual desire do not occur in all close relationships, nor is a close relationship necessary for having sex. Most people in the society, however, experience most of their erotic arousal and orgasms in relationships that have varying degrees of closeness. That is, while two people are involved sexually, they usually interact frequently, engage in several activities together (and not just sex), and influence each other’s behaviours, decisions, goals, and so forth. This interdependence is long term rather than short-term duration. The result is that the sexual aspect of the close relationships is intertwined with several other aspects of the relationship, such as communication, love and emotions. For instance, in “Boys Don’t Cry”, Brandon and Lana start from friend and then they found that they fall in love with each other. In addition, they have close relationship and become have sex after that their relationship become deeper and closer. Therefore, they have the second time sexual behaviour and plan to achieve their goals to leave the town and want to start their new life. It has proved what I described sexuality and close relationship is.

Love and sexuality
What do we mean by love? Operationalizations have variously behaviours, such as hugging and kissing or sharing ; cognitions, such as the pattern of characteristics people attribute to love ; emotions ; or cultural scenarios, such as love at first sight. Love is the constellation of behaviors, cognition, and emotions associated with a desire to enter or maintain a close relationship with a specific other person. Therefore, if combined love and sexuality together, sxuality is the constellation of sensations, emotions, and cognitions that an individual associates with physiological sexual arousal and that generally gives rise to sexual desire and behaviour. Moreover, this definition is neutral with regard to how sexuality is constructed by biologically, developmentally, culturally, or whatever. Such as in this movie, we all know that Lana and Brandon are love each other so much, so they have kissing and hugging (this is the behavior of love) and after that they have sexual-intercourse. All because they have emotions, they want to let the relationship become closer and use the behaviors to express the emotions. Thus, their behaviors let us understand that if people love each other and the relationships get closer then they will move to the deeper development---sexual. Therefore, we understand that love and sexuality contains deep relationship.

Sexuality in homosexual and heterosexual
Homosexuality mentalistically as a trait, state, or disposition emanating from the personality, and those who define it behaviorally as something that happens between two people with similar sex organs. The mentalists says that a persons can be homosexual, even though his or her only sexual practices have been heterosexual, provided the erotic imagery is consistently homosexual.
Homosexual couples exist in the absence of socialized role models. When children play house, the roles are almost assigned based on gender. One person plays the mommy-wife, and other person plays the daddy-husbands. However, a recurrent theme in the small empirical literature on gay and lesbian relationship is that partners in these relationships eschew traditional male and female roles in favor of an ethic of equality and reciprocity (Peplau & Gordon, 1983).
Gay and lesbian relationship develop without institution support. Although there are current movements to legalize homosexual relationships and to extend spousal benefits to gay and lesbian partners, gay and lesbian relationships are not legally sanctioned. On the other hand, sexual activity in these relationships is illegal in some states.
Sexual activity in gay and lesbian relationships occurs without procreative intent. Thus, sexual activity in these relationships viewed almost exclusively as an end in itself rather than as a mean to reproduction.
Certainly, in “Boys Don’t Cry”, Lana and Brandon must be the homosexuality couples because both of them are women even Brandon pretend to be a man. Although Brandon is not a real man, he still can let Lana have the sexual satisfaction because she/ he uses the fake sex organ to make Lana feel satisfy (but Lana doesn’t know he/ she is a woman). At the end, Lana know that Brandon is not a real man but she still want to follow him to leave the town, that means Lana also know she can’t procreate the next generation because their relationships is homosexual couples. However, she is willing to keep this relationship. In addition, Tom and John was disagree they are heterosexual couple because they know Brandon is not a man. They said she is a lesbian because the similar sex organs as Lana. Moreover, they are rejected this relationships and cannot accept it because John love Lana. He thinks that Brandon cannot give her all the things and happiness. Therefore, he uses violence to solve this problem. And the violence is come from the sexual jealousy. It is because in sexuality, it will contain the part of sexual jealousy and it state that if the sexual jealousy occurs it may be turn to violence.
Actually, the people in this movie are disagreeing homosexuality. They all think this is impossible because of the socially constructed. Obviously, they have the bias of lesbian/ gay. Nevertheless, if stand on the side of Lana and Brandon, they just feel they love each other and there are emotions between them that is enough. In addition, they also think they can have the sexual satisfaction no matter what gender Brandon is. Feelings and emotions for them are more important than the sexuality and gender.

Rape and murder
Male violence against women is defined broadly by feminists to include not just the most obvious abuses-rape, wife battering and incest for instance. First, they all enact very similar assumptions about male sexuality and women’s relation to it. They said that men need, and feel entitled to have, understand sexual access to women, even sometimes especially-against women will. Nevertheless, in here, this is just talk about rape because it was occurred in “Boys Don’t Cry”. Actually, in this movie, the reason for Tom and John raped Brandon is not base on the men need it. It is because they want to use this action to prove their curious and that is a punitive action for them not because men need it.
Rape are acts which men do in order to reassure themselves of their power and potency; and this is include, as a very important factor in that reassurance, the fear and humiliation of the female victims. Such as Brandon was raped by Tom and John. They do this because Tom and John wanted to show their power to Brandon or everyone. They want to prove they have the power to judge Brandon’s crime. In addition, they want to let Brandon understand what is a man and how a “real man” has the normal sex with woman. The phrase that is often used specially about rape: “ an act of sexual terrorism” and certainly, sex murder is a form of sexual terrorism.
Moreover, homosexual murder is a special problem. Certainly, it does not challenge the generalization that sex-killers are male who like other women; lesbians have killed for motives of jealousy and revenge. And homosexual sex murder is directed against a woman. And the common murder denominator is not misogamy; it is a shared construction of masculine sexuality, or even more broadly, masculinity in general. It is under the banner of masculinity that all the main themes of sexual killing come together: misogyny, transcendence, sadist sexuality, the basic intergradient of the lurk to kill. Obviously, in the movie “Boys Don’t Cry”, the reasons of Brandon was raped and murdered by Tom and John are come from jealousy and revenge. Firstly, John love Lana is the truth, and because of Brandon’s appear and become fall in love with Lana. It causes John’s jealousy. Secondly, after he know Brandon is not a “real man” then become more angry with his disguise and John think Brandon cheated all the people especially Lana his lover. He feels so angry with that. Thus, he use the cruel action—rape and murder to publish Brandon and revenge. These prove that John exist the concept of sex-killers’ motive. He has the jealousy and revenge and because he think he is a man who have power and need to assure that.
To sum up, this movie, “Boys Don’t Cry”, makes us understand there are linkages between gender and sexuality, sex and gender to human action and have close relationships. As gender is about biological notions about femininity and masculinity, ones cannot change the fact of being a male or female even though they intend to be another gender. Brandon had been trying his best to prove and persuade others as well as herself that she is not a female but her gender still cannot be changed and no one agrees that. Moreover, sexual identities and sexual itself can provide powerful motive for human actions, and it has been shown in this movie of John and Tom’s violence and the reasons of Brandon disguising herself to be a boy in the movie. To conclude all the theory and thinking of the gender and sexuality, it show that all of their actions and motives come from the problems of gender and sexuality.

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