Those of you who have or have had a Children's Literature class will probably understand where I am coming from with this blog pretty quickly.
I was planning an essay I was going to write on Black Beauty the other night and suddenly everything I was thinking about seemed to correlate with the movie Boys Don't Cry.
To me, it suddenly seemed as if the movie had been directed under the influence of the Sentimental Tradition - The era that thrived on misfortunes of the misfortunate, weak and the minorities. Sentimental literature tried to bring to attention the mistreatment of these groups; the sentimental tradition looks for change, but never a change that is too drastic that it completely throws off the social order.
We discussed in class how Boys Don't Cry obviously reaches out to the audience to adopt a transgender gaze and sympathize with Brandon Teena, but then just as it seems there could be progress within the social order, Brandon seems to accept his feminine name Teena, and a lesbian scene occurs to bring the complicated movie back down to a level that society can understand better than they could a transgender relationship. Atleast with the lesbian scene, society is able to specifically label that relation as homosexual, whereas a transgender relation is more confusing.
And then in the end, like all active/unpassive characters within the Sentimental Tradition, because Brandon calls attention (even though it is unintentional) to himself and is threatening to disrupt all the norms that society has built, Brandon has to die (Just like Ginger and Seedy Sam in Black Beauty).
2026 Goals Check-In #2
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Well, here we are in May already! This year seems to be flying by! I wanted
to do another check-in on how things have been going over the last few
months. ...
2 days ago
WOWW what a great connection. I totally see it now too. I actaully love when my classes mix and cross over ideas because it often makes me feel like I'm actually learning something haha. But too, in this case, it also shows that these are norms of our society. Brandon Teena is definatly the Ginger in the childrens book Black Beauty. A rebel, Ginger does not obey social order like Black Beauty, and is therefor punished. Sound famillar? Brandon Teena does not obey society order, therefor is punished. Both active and social destructive characters are ultimately killed off. The real tragedy is that Brandon Teena wasn't a made up horse character, but a real person.
ReplyDeletei have to agree with both of you,but I totally never made that connection. would that mean that Brandon's girlfriend is similar to the Black Beauty role? or is there even one?
ReplyDeleteHmm good question. I think, from my perspective a sort of Black Beauty role would be a hypothetical transgender person who has all the same thought processes and feelings and desires as B.T. but doesn't actually act on them, but then again I'm not sure. That's only me thinking on it for a second.
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