I watched it once, still have the DVD but i'll never watch it again. It's very hard to watch.

I thought the rape scene was unnecessary. Those kinds of things are better left to the imagination. I couldn't watch that part either, but it was because I think being blatant gives power to the wrong characters.

That said, the film distressed me quite a bit.

I've seen parts of it.  I'll probably never actually watch it.

Though being trans certainly influences my decision, its the type of movie that I'd probably never watch otherwise.  In fact, being trans makes me more likely to watch it, I guess.
I'm very picky when it comes to movies, and what I can stand to sit through. 

Quote from: LordKAT on January 23, 2011, 09:33:31 PM
There is a documentary called The Brandon Teena Story. Watching it will put a bit of a different spin on the movie.

edited due to having the name reversed. I blame...dyslexia whoever she is.

I actually found that harder to watch than Boys Don't Cry.  Couldn't even finish it... I guess it was harder because it's not fictionalized.  These are real people saying real things, and a lot of the things they say are really transphobic.

Like, something to the effect of "It's crazy how someone can lie to you like that, make you think they're something they're not, manipulate you..."  I couldn't watch far past that.

I had the movie on my Netflix instant que for a while and decided to watch it after seeing this thread. More than making me scared of being caught out as female-bodied, it made me scared for my fiance. She's FROM a small midwestern town and so is her entire family, and while (after a year of 'deal with who my partner is or get out of my life') they're accepting, they have threatened to 'mention' it to the other people in town and instigate something like what went down in the film.
I've been through that ->-bleeped-<-, and it'd shatter me, but having something happen to her because of who I am would break me in a far worse way...

Regardless of the Hollywood ability to tell stories, without letting facts get in the way, you're pretty much safe unless you choose to buddy up with a couple of two-time felony losers, and then start engaging in criminal activity on your own.  And meth, stay away from meth too.  But funny, the meth deal was not in the movie.  Odd.

Quote from: tekla on January 25, 2011, 07:20:01 PM
Regardless of the Hollywood ability to tell stories, without letting facts get in the way, you're pretty much safe unless you choose to buddy up with a couple of two-time felony losers, and then start engaging in criminal activity on your own.  And meth, stay away from meth too.  But funny, the meth deal was not in the movie.  Odd.

What about meth?  Just curious because I've watched the documentary and read the book about Brandon Teena...(I think it's called "All She Wanted"...Besides the obviously offensive title with the incorrect pronoun, I didn't care for the book at all, but that's a whole other issue) and I don't remember anything about drugs.

I had the oppurtunity to watch the movie not too long ago.. Needless to say, I will never watch it again. It was a great movie, but it was very hard to watch and I often found myself covering up my eyes for quite a few scenes.

You have to go back to the original set of stories in the Village Voice and New Yorker to find that stuff out.  Suffice it to say that you don't take shotguns to three people in close quarters without being a little bit high.

And the meth deal happened in the midwest long before anyone noticed it happening anywhere else.  It's white trash, trailer park stuff, and that's what we're dealing with in Falls City.  Really, had they been sober don't you think they would have at least dumped the bodies?

Yeeeaaaah. I watched this film for the first time quite recently, and... wow. It was amazing, but so incredibly difficult to watch. Some of the scenes made me feel physically ill, and I was crying by the end. The one really awesome plus was how very very well Hilary Swank passed - gives me hope...

Quote from: jmaxley on January 24, 2011, 10:48:29 PM
I've not watched it and don't plan to.  It'd be way too triggering.

This.

I saw it back when it first came out - it freaked my mom out more than me. I don't hang out with scum, and although I live in the Midwest, people like those ignorant fools in that movie, don't get taken seriously around here. If they do, they're taken care of.
If they weren't behind bars now for what they did to Brandon, they would of been locked up anyway for something else, most definitely. I agree with Telka. Say no to drugs.

I can't believe you all think that movie is so hard to watch or worth crying over. I watched it twice and still don't find it so emotional.

I didn't find it hard to watch and I didn't cry over it, in fact I watched it twice idk why though. It just left me with a weird feeling and a lot of thoughts and questions, not about transitioning, but about being trans in general.

I'm pressing play for the first time right now.

I live in the Midwest, people like those ignorant fools in that movie, don't get taken seriously around here. If they do, they're taken care of.

Well first of all I never said 'say no to drugs' never have, never will.  I said meth makes people so some real messed up ->-bleeped-<-.  But hey, the Midwest is just the South with snow, look at the stats.  South Dakota, number one in Rape.  Nebraska, number on in violence against females, Wisconsin, that's the binge drinking capitol of the USA.   And that's M/St.P?  The number one source for underage prostitution in the US.  I don't think that people like that are 'taken care of' anywhere by the way, because they are psychopathic stone cold killers and you need heavily armed and well trained cops to go up against them.   

But you know who does walk that walk?  Hispanic-Americans.  They have a very low rate of violence against women, in part because Latina women fight back, and if you beat up Lupe Ramirez you just picked a fight with the entire Ramirez clan, and do you know how many Ramirez's there are?  Her dad, her brothers, her cousins are all going to be coming after you, and that never ends well.

Quote from: LordKAT on January 23, 2011, 09:33:31 PM
There is a documentary called The Brandon Teena Story. Watching it will put a bit of a different spin on the movie.

edited due to having the name reversed. I blame...dyslexia whoever she is.

I watched that. It was intense.
I could not believe some of the questions the police officer asked him. And when they showed what those people did to him... It was just awful. I can't believe people do that kind of thing to somebody who wasn't hurting anybody.

who wasn't hurting anybody

Writing checks and getting money for them under false pretenses does hurt people.

Not to say that wasn't wrong, but it wasn't as if he could get a job pre-transition without the whole town knowing he was trans either.   I didn't know Brandon, he could have been the shady sort anyways, but the midwest isn't exactly trans-friendly, and the area Brandon lived in was bumfrick nowhere; he'd have been hard pressed to do much about his situation, especially since his own mother was far from supportive.  In the documentary all she does is say 'my daughter' every chance she gets and Brandon's memorial makes me want to leave flaming dog doo on her porch.

All the factual reports pretty much indicate that Brandon was a small time grifter.  Yeah, Falls City is about as far from trans-friendly as you can get, yet he moved there from Lincoln, perhaps the most liberal place - if not the only liberal place - in the entire state.  All indications are that the whole deal was a scam.