Boys Beware

A short "educational" film, Boys Beware may have set out with good intentions- to warn children about sexual predators. That's a subject we're actually more sensitive about today than when the film was made, so modern audiences can relate to that. Where Boys Beware emerges as a relic of an old-fashioned prejudice is in its insistence on treating child molesters and homosexuals interchangeably. Homosexual is the word used to describe the predators in the film. It's called "sick" and not "normal." And "homosexual" is defined as someone who seeks a sexual relationship with one's own sex. So it's all homosexuals painted with one brush- never mind that most have adult relationships, all homosexuals are potential molesters.

To me, going out of your way to describe molesters who attack boys as gay is like referring to molesters who attack girls as straight. Child molestation just isn't a healthy orientation either way, and to associate it with one is dangerous. Conveniently, this film overlooks that some predators prey on girls. Maybe its intentions weren't so noble after all. At the end of the day, this is something people today can look back at with wonder, similar to Birth of a Nation's treatment of blacks. Thank God we've (mostly) moved passed this.

Recently a teacher got brought up on charges for showing this film in his class. Ironically enough it was not as part of some public health concern, but it was to show how attitudes have changed since 1961. In some places though they haven't.

Someone called this the Reefer Madness of gay films and I couldn't put it better myself. Anyone watching this film would think that gays were all predatory beasts just looking for young boys as sexual prey. Ironically enough no one seemed concerned about teen girls.

They got part of it right. Public bathrooms, called 'tea rooms' by those who frequented them, were part of the scene. But it was usually where adults hooked up as they really could not do it more openly. Those pesky sodomy laws you know. It was the love that dare not speak its name.

Looking at Boys Beware one wonders how could we have been so dumb?

"Boys Beware" would be comic if it wasn't painfully tragic. I'd like to think this was one of those community projects directed to schools that were watched by a bunch of students that later grow up bigoted, full of prejudice and whatever they learned from the film was spread to many others, and by that standard I'd like to think only 500 people have seen it and forgot it. And the problem in saying "that was then, this is now" and we have evolved a hell of a lot doesn't change because we still have cultures and people who spread the pedophilia and homosexuality are a common link. And that's why "Boys Beware" hits a nerve and is a tragic piece because lots of people saw it and reinforced the notions of homophobia, prejudice and violence. The movie calls the attention of viewers by whenever a similar situation happening (of a man offering a ride home to a teenager or a kid) to call the cops; but the movie makes a full generalization saying all homosexuals are alike, always going for boys and what the paranoia develops on "frightened" folks: let us be violent and kill them. Too bad I'm not allowed to say what I think about this movie in pure and simple words.

This ridiculous waste of celluloid is one of those projects destined to warn children of the dangers of meeting strangers who want to have sex with boys. But the film keeps saying ad nauseam that those kinds are homosexuals, big emphasis throughout the film, and that they're ill. Comes a colorful and happy presentation of the life back in the 1960's, jolly music and it was all hilarious until the narrator goes by saying that homosexuality was an illness of the mind and you already have an idea on how far behind humanity were (still is, I'm afraid). The clueless creators don't know how to make the distinction between pedophiles and men who feel sexual attraction for other men. The failure of providing a distinction when already there was one available is what kills this dreadful and horrid film. And if there's the goal of saving lives, the movie only hits 10% right: if you're young don't go out with friendly strangers. If someday some guy say they watched this thing in high school and the recommendation was helpful because they escaped from a certain fella named Jeffrey Dahmer, or someone similar then I'll say a word of praise to this - but doing the math correctly, this kid would be too old to have met Dahmer but you get the point.

And it's so strange that a film like this came out at the same time when "The Children's Hour" was released, a movie that portrayed a gay character in a great humanistic light (despite the low outcome of the story, blame it on that era), and many other great films of the decade that were allowing more and more decent presentation of gay characters on the screen - far from the heaven of flicks and series we have these days but a good ladder up to go. But comes this wreck to ruin everything. It's not a total disaster because the so-called production values and presentation are strangely well-made. The voice-over works, the acting is relevant and it's nicely put together. What makes this unbearable and lame is the ideas conceived, the lack of discernment and the total disregard of truth, an incoherent and damaging short film. Careless and harmful project at its worst. 2/10

Western societies have come a long way in their tolerance and understanding of gay people. This film, which one poster disturbingly tells us is STILL shown in schools in some backward parts of the country, is the REEFER MADNESS of homosexuality.

What might have been a harmless, even helpful warning to kids about pedophiles becomes ridiculous and ugly by its pretense of revealing what all *homosexuals* are like. The despicable smear that gay men tend towards pedophilia (about as factual as the ancient anti-Semitic lie that Jews kill Christian infants and drink their blood) is what this "educational" cheapie is all about.

That one poster actually commends this absurd gay-bashing propaganda as a worthy film that should be remastered and shown to kids today suggests how much ignorance and unexamined bigotry is still out there.

Reactions to the recent Tom Foley scandal showed how easily some on the political left as well as the right can fall back into the old know-nothing equation of homosexuality with pedophilia. Every educated person knows homosexuals are no more likely to be drawn to children than heterosexuals are.

This 10-minute short is worth viewing to remember how recently this kind of ignorant calumny was considered "conventional wisdom".

Boys Beware is a look back at a past when jobs were plentiful, neighbors were caring and trusting, and crime was low. As a result it helps bring out the knowledge of dangers to our young men in our community: The constant threat of pedophiles or other strangers who could potentially end their life. The short, produced on a frugal budget of $1000 dollars has excellent acting and provided a very important message to the community. This video was so well made it is still used to this day to help inform young ones about the dangers lurking in their community. I highly recommend showing your children this video so they know the consequences of trusting strangers without asking their parents if it is a wise choice to trust them.