Character Reflection in “Boy Don’t Cry.”
Gender Identity Disorder in character Brandon Teena in the movie “Boys Don’t Cry.”
The character Brandon Teena in the film “Boy Don’t Cry” is a Caucasian female who lives in Lincoln within Nebraska. Teena is an adolescent living her life in the image of a male. Currently, there are no signs of persistence and stability in terms of employment and means of income. She develops a delinquent behavior, which is stealing due to her low economic and social status as well as a lack of effort to acquire a job. The delinquent behavior that Teena portrays has earned her a juvenile record even before attaining the age of 20. Even though the film does not depict the whereabouts of the mother, it is evident that there is a sharp distinction between Teena and the mother. Teena’s father died prior to her birth, which mirrors the fact that she lacked the father figure since the beginning of her life. Teens stay with the cousin from one time to another within a trailer home. The cousin fails to support her whenever she encounters any problems, especially those that pertain to the locals as well as the law. Teena’s cousin, as well as other family members, do not show acceptance to her choice being transgender; they neither support her choice of acting as a male in a female body. She resides far from her travel bag while she lacks any stability and consistency in terms of a place that she can call home.
Teena does not seem to have any health issues even though she is a hermaphrodite. All her family members seem to have mentally fit with no family mental history. The character’s name, Brandon Teena, has a legal name which is Teena Brandon has the looks of a woman, although there are reports that she has been feeling like a man. She cuts her hair just like any man and wraps her breasts to prevent them from visibility. Teena also wears a fake penis, which has constructed her to resemble an ideal male. While Teena engages in delinquent behaviors, there are no signs that she has a history of alcohol or drug abuse. However, recently, she has been introduced to some drugs such as marijuana during her session with her new peer members who reside in Falls City. The weakness of Teena is more of a female than a man’s. Teena’s primary aim is to secure a surgical procedure that would alter the sex characteristics in her body. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
Description of the Problem
Teena portrays the image of rejection to her identity in terms of being a female in the physical sense. The movie describes her as having emotional symptoms, mostly whenever an individual tries to identify her gender as being a girl and rejects the fact that she is a boy. Teena’s cousin consistently mentions that she is a girl hence should stop seducing girls and instead accept the fact that she is nothing more than a lesbian. While Teena is aware that she is physically a female, she still denies the truth about her state; hence, she feels angry whenever she is labeled as a homosexual or lesbian. She wears socks within her pants and cross-dresses with the intent of portraying her body type in the male sense. Teena does not accept the fact that she possesses female sexual characteristics such as menstruating and, instead, make desperate attempts to hide sexual features from society. Instead of claiming that she is a female, she better calls herself hermaphrodite. The term sexual characteristics refer to the futures which define either a male or a female. Teena has never had any sexual experience with her male counterparts, and she resists any touch that entails her female genitals by all her sexual partners. Viewers can describe Teena as a male due to her male stature, cross-dressing efforts, and short hair cut.
From the characteristics that Teena portrays, she fits the description of individual suffering of Gender Identity Disorder (GID) among adolescents or adults. The disorder is often represented by characteristics that focus on the desire to resemble the opposite sex in terms of behavior and activities. The individuals usually dress like their opposite sex; they like to be treated or live a life of a different sex. Some of them feel at ease with the conviction that she possesses natural feeling as well as reactions that are usually portrayed by their opposite sex. In the movie “Boys Don’t Cry,” Teena typically acted as male and in several occasions, desired everyone to treat him like any man would be treated in the society. She also cross-dressed with the intent of achieving the looks of a normal man who is of her age. Moreover, she was also attractive to the sex that her opposite sex are naturally attracted to, that is, the females.
Typically GID is characterized by persistent discomfort that an individual encounters with the personal sex or sometimes experiences a sense of inappropriateness within the gender roles that their sex determines. Persistent discomfort refers to recurring pain. In adults as well as adolescents, such a form of disturbance comes into play through symptoms like preoccupation with eliminating the secondary and primary sex features such as surgery, alteration of hormones, or securing different procedures to deform the physical characteristics which simulate the opposite sex. Such individuals also hold the belief that they were born as their opposite sex, hence holds on to the wrong sex. The movie, “Boys Don’t Cry” depicts the character, Teena, to have a great desire to transform her sexual features via sexual procedures. She wraps down her breasts with the intent of flattening them. The fact that she wears a counterfeit penis is also a depiction she is not comfortable in a female body.
Individuals with GID possess a disturbance that does not concur with the condition of her physical intersex. Although on several occasions, Teena claimed her hermaphrodite status, she had a full construction of a female, both biologically and physically. Moreover, the GID disturbances prompt an individual to have clinically significant impairment and distress within the occupations, social, and or other important functioning areas. Impairment refers to a state being deformed or impaired, while distress is an extreme form of pain or anxiety. Teena is part of a population with a low social, economic status, although the movie does not portray a means by which she attempted to acquire an occupation even while she stole things from time to time. Viewers can recognize that Teena had a hard time getting in everyone’s shoes except for the partners who are females.
Any average person who watches the movie “Boys Don’t Cry” can see an in-depth sense of Gender Identity Disorder because Teena Brandon consistently attempts to deny his sexual and gender characteristics and even the connotation that she is a homosexual in the entire play. “Boys Don’t Cry” assists in the outlining of GID within a critical framework by the provision of good examples which can be used in describing the symptoms that comes with GID. Since the movie outlines actual events within the life of an individual, most characteristics seem neither exaggerated nor inaccurate. The character, Teena, satisfies the presentation GID dues to the persistent frustration she encounters from her physical and biological nature. One of the viewer assessments of the passed was cross-dressing and abstinence from touch or the fact that she prevented all females from touching the body parts that define her female characteristics.
Some viewers may think that the movie mislabeled the parental relationship of the character while displaying the GID since their presence mentioned earlier and briefly within the film. Others may also cite the mislabeling of the disorder’s course since nothing regarding her childhood came into play within the movie. In case the movie could have identified the childhood of the characters, then there would be the prevalence of gender dysphopia, which could have persistent till her adolescent or adulthood since research has revealed that children suffering from gender dysphoria, which persists in their adulthood often suffer from GID. Gender dysphoria refers to a condition in which an individual psychological and emotional feels to identify as the opposite sex. Teena portrayed a consistent form of discomfort with her biological and sexual features as a woman who is still a characteristic feature of GID, even though the movie does not represent much regarding her childhood.
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