The Brandon Teena Story

"The Brandon Teena Story" (1998): This is the documentary which inspired the film "Boys Don't Cry", about the young woman who cross-dressed as a man, and was eventually beaten, raped, and later shot to death. No, it's not a comedy. Nor will you want to live in a small town, the Midwest, on a farm, or near country-western music… but then you'll come to your senses and realize that this sort of horror can, and does, happen anywhere. Was Brandon a good kid? Not really. She was a check forging thief. Were her friends any better? It's hard to decide by the documentary, but I almost MUST believe SOMEONE was level headed and decent. Were the police effective and professional? I doubt you'll want to rely on them when you're traveling through Nebraska. Was the criminal justice system fair? Well, how do you feel about plea bargains, and rats who rat on other rats? Are there ANY people in this sad story you want to go line dancing with? I'll leave that to you. (It would be a good idea to rent "Boys Don't Cry" and watch it after "The Brandon Teena Story". Hillary Swank stars, and has "Brandon" nailed. It's a top notch film.

Just a note of clarification. Brandon, did not lie about his gender. Brandon lived his short troubled life trying to express his gender the way he saw it and wanted others to see it. What he did however cover up was the truth of his biological sex. I tend to agree that full disclosure of these facts to his sexual partners would have been just. However, people are often not understanding of issues of gender nonconformity. Nor, have many people been equipped with the language, self-understanding, support, safe-space, and confidence to speak about these things without fear of being met with fear, ignorance and hatred.

Our society has a strictly enforced binary gender system that is extraordinarily hard on those who do not conform. This is so entrenched in the sub-conscious of most everyone from such an early age that sometimes it seems that only those of us who do not fit in that system know that it is there and has been constructed by a society built on easy answers and small thinking that limits so many of us in numerous ways. It is so ingrained in people to believe that woman = feminine / man = masculine and all the stereotypes and behaviors that go with these two choices that they think these unwritten (and sometimes written) rules are natural. Therefore those who do not, nay, cannot play by these rules are unnatural, sick, sinful .. etc. So while I was disgusted by the behavior of the local authorities (including the civil court judge) I was not shocked. Serious deep changes need to be made to the way we as the human race see sex and gender or this type of appalling hatred will continue.

I thought the movie was great. I wished that I could have met Brandon. I felt sorry for him and what he went through. THEM (so called men) took a life and for what?? Because of how someone lived his life. BRANDON didn't hurt anyone not by a long shot. He was a kid hanging out and having fun with his friends.

People are always talking about peace and love. To me people don't care about anything, they care about themselves and they don't care who they hurt. But my question to them is.... WHY? What do you get out of it? We all live in the same world. We are all going to die sooner or later. Why cut there life short. And over something that never concerned them in the first place. Brandon's life was taken from him because of someone's stupidity. I don't feel sorry for Tom nor John. I feel sorry for Brandon's mother and family. Because they lost someone they loved for no reason.

I just watched this on video last night, after having seeing "Boys Don't Cry" in the theaters a few weeks ago. This is the perfect companion piece for that movie which, though fictionalized in some aspects, treats the story pretty well. Where "The Brandon Teena" story suffers is in its failure to completely document Teena's pre Fall City lifestyle. We know Teena left Lincoln, Nebraska but we aren't given a more clear picture of his/her life there. For instance, while the mother is interviewed, what about the father? Was there one? Why didn't the mother drive down to Falls City right after she was raped? Why didn't she send her away from that town to a safe shelter, especially when the two perps were given their freedom? Didn't anyone think that John and Tom would try to exact revenge? These questions are never answered. One gets the feeling that Teena, aside from having a "sexual identity crisis" as she puts it, was an incredibly tortured soul, one who couldn't see the forest for the trees, as the saying goes.

This film contains fascinating subject matter which isn't given as thorough attention as it deserves.

I just wanted to acknowledge the fact that if we are going to talk about how people are closed- minded and how society's views must be altered to include transgendered individuals as people of value and importance in our culture, then we must first begin with the little things: If Brandon felt that he identified as a male then we should give him the respect he deserves as someone who served as a lesson for us all. This means referring to him as male. If Brandon saw himself as male then we should refer to him accordingly. I suggest that whoever designed this IMDb movie profile should re-evaluate the way this profile is set up and change the cast description to Brandon Teena...himself (not herself). This is the first step to achieving what I'm sure Brandon would have wanted: to have transgendered people be accepted as how they see themselves- not how someone else sees them.