0:00

Trans cinema has come a long way. We're

0:02

kind of having a moment that

0:04

we've never really seen before. That's

0:06

film critic Willow Caitlin Mcleae. We're

0:09

having these directors do

0:11

very different things related

0:14

to their own specific experience with

0:16

queerness, which diversifies the trans image.

0:19

Mcleae is the co-author of the

0:21

upcoming book Corpses, Fools, and Monsters,

0:23

the history and future of transness

0:25

in cinema. She singled out

0:27

this year's critically acclaimed films like A24's

0:29

I Saw the TV Glow. I like

0:31

girls. You know that, right? Totally.

0:34

That's fun. What

0:36

about you? Do you like girls? I

0:39

think that I like TV shows. And

0:42

the indie superhero parody, The People's Joker.

0:46

I'm trans. I'm

0:48

sorry. I'm not sorry. Just

0:51

the latest examples of films by and

0:53

about transgender people that are exploring that

0:56

identity in fresh and exciting ways. So

0:58

we have this influx of trans-authored

1:00

cinema. Not all of these films are

1:02

super mainstream, but like these films are

1:04

getting out and they're being watched. Still,

1:07

Mcleae says this is a recent development.

1:09

This idea of transgender people getting to

1:11

tell their stories in their own way

1:14

and centering trans people in film at

1:16

all still remains a rare occurrence. But

1:19

25 years ago, an independent film

1:21

from a first-time filmmaker broke new

1:23

ground. I don't know what went wrong.

1:25

You are not a boy. That is what went wrong.

1:27

You are not a boy. I tell them that. They

1:29

say I'm the best boyfriend I ever had. Do you want

1:31

your own? Written and directed by Kimberly Pierce,

1:34

Boys Don't Cry told the true story

1:36

of Brandon Tina, a young trans

1:38

man searching for love and connection

1:40

in Nebraska. Boys Don't Cry

1:42

comes out at sort of the

1:44

peak of the new queer cinema,

1:46

but there wasn't a transgender presence

1:49

in the films from that decade.

1:51

Boys Don't Cry was the first

1:53

mainstream film centered around a transgender

1:55

man. At the time, it was considered a

1:58

big moment in queer. cinema and in

2:00

cinema at large. The film garnered critical

2:03

acclaim as well as winning Hillary Swank

2:05

the best actress Oscar for her portrayal

2:07

of Brandon. During her Oscar

2:09

speech, she paid him tribute. His legacy

2:13

lives on through our movie.

2:15

But for many trans viewers like McClay,

2:17

Swank's casting set an unwelcome precedent. For

2:19

the next 15 years, we

2:22

had this kind of presence about

2:24

cisgender actors playing transgender characters

2:27

such as Transamerica, The Danish

2:29

Girl and Dallas Barrs Club.

2:32

McClay also argues the film's subject matter

2:34

and arc also prove troubling since just

2:36

like another influential film about queer people

2:39

from that decade, 1993's

2:41

Philadelphia, Boys Don't Cry ends

2:43

in tragedy. The end result is

2:45

that this character is raped

2:48

and murdered. And you

2:50

kind of take in this notion

2:53

that like, you know, if

2:55

this is the only film about

2:57

transness that is worthy of mainstream

2:59

attention, then you know, you

3:02

kind of internalize that feeling about

3:04

yourself. Stone McClay credits the

3:06

film as the first of its kind

3:09

to ask mainstream audience to empathize with

3:11

a transgender protagonist. We have to keep

3:13

it obviously because it's a

3:16

teaching moment for like

3:18

how transness was perceived

3:20

at the time. It has

3:23

an undue burden in

3:25

representing transmasculinity going forward.

3:27

And I do think that Kimberly

3:29

Pierce would probably do things differently

3:31

if she were making the film

3:34

now compared to then. Consider

3:36

this, Boys Don't Cry was a

3:38

landmark in trans representation. Starting

3:40

off, we'll hear from the film's writer and director about the

3:42

challenges of getting it made and whether she would

3:44

do anything differently if she made it now. 2x

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considered this from NPR. When Boys Don't Cry came

5:01

out 25 years ago, transgender people

5:03

were rarely depicted on screen at all.

5:06

If they were, it often wasn't positive. They

5:08

might be deranged killers like in Brian

5:10

De Palma's Dressed Kill. Or

5:15

deceitful con artists like this key plot

5:17

point from Ace Ventura Pet Detective. Einhorn

5:20

is Finkel. Finkel

5:23

is Einhorn. Einhorn

5:26

is a man. It

5:28

was into this climate that Kimberly Pierce

5:30

began researching and working on the screenplay

5:32

for Boys Don't Cry. It's kind of amazing

5:34

for me to go back and rewatch it and

5:37

put myself back in my

5:39

shoes when I was pretty much

5:41

a kid in grad school at

5:43

Columbia grad film. And remember how

5:45

overwhelming it was to read about

5:47

Brandon in the Village Voice. What

5:49

blew me away was his enormous

5:51

power of his imagination, his desire,

5:53

his will to live, how

5:56

he lived as who he was And

5:58

how he wanted to live. Love.

6:00

When so few people do that at that

6:02

point. And. Particularly on the scale that

6:05

he did. So I look back and I'm

6:07

I'm still really move by Brandon. I

6:10

do have one question just about the. The

6:12

nuts and bolts as as of making

6:15

the film itself. because it's hard enough

6:17

for any student film maker to to

6:19

to get to the point of of

6:21

widely distributed feature film. It's probably hard

6:23

enough for us, a woman in in

6:26

the mid to late nineties, you know,

6:28

looking looking at who dominated film industry

6:30

probably even harder to make a thoughtful

6:32

film about a transgender person in in

6:34

that period of time. What was the

6:36

biggest challenge you faced as he tried

6:39

to get the story out there? Well,

6:42

as so many in at that point I was

6:44

thinking I was probably trans and somewhere between a

6:46

butch lesbian, a transverse and I didn't know exactly

6:48

When I summon up with this person I said

6:51

this is the story I want to make It

6:53

just didn't make sense to people. And

6:55

in one of the biggest questions that came back

6:57

was we You must decide. You need to decide.

6:59

Is Brandon want to be a man? orders brain

7:02

and want to sleep with linen? Right?

7:04

Is Brandon? basically a trans person? Or

7:06

his brain? And a homosexual. And

7:08

there was such a divide in in that

7:10

question. So I was told that was my

7:12

idea of making a movie was not a

7:15

movie. So. There was an initial problem

7:17

even of conception that my society and my he

7:19

didn't really understand what I was trying to do

7:21

but eventually we did and then once we got

7:23

past that journey was like okay great brain and

7:26

can be my. Protagonist: So.

7:28

The second thing was I was trying to now

7:30

write a story which was changing so that people

7:32

could could watch it and could form of with

7:34

branded and not not hate him and duplicate what

7:36

had happened to him. But I also the needed

7:38

to get money and I needed to get a

7:40

crew with a sympathetic. Portrayal of a

7:43

trans person and prior. To that we

7:45

didn't have sympathetic portrayal of trans people want

7:47

really our protagonists and they weren't in feature

7:49

length sounds and they weren't and feature like

7:51

psalms that could be released to the mainstream

7:53

so that those were huge challenges in there

7:55

were many more that came. With signing

7:58

an actor that took us. Easily,

8:01

I think it was three years. It

8:03

took five years and it was 300 people that I interviewed. And

8:06

that's an amazing journey. I wanted to cast

8:08

a trans person. And that had its challenges simply

8:10

in terms of who was available and who

8:12

was able to carry out the role.

8:14

I mean, a movie role is a complicated thing. Not

8:17

to say that a trans person can't play it. It's

8:19

just when you're making a movie, you are looking at

8:22

who you can get in the moment in history that you

8:24

are trying to make that piece of art. And

8:26

given that and given how hard you thought about that

8:28

and how much you wanted to make that work and

8:31

the fact that Hilary Swank, of course, goes on to

8:33

win an Oscar for this role, I'm wondering how you

8:35

have processed the criticism over the years that has come

8:37

around the casting choices. I

8:40

have a humility around art making,

8:42

which is, I know that my

8:45

job is to serve the story and to serve

8:47

the characters and to serve history. And I mean,

8:50

I've devoted my life to that. So I

8:53

feel at peace with the fact that I, you know, overturned

8:56

every stone possible to find a trans person who

8:58

could play the role. You know,

9:00

in the mix of hundreds and hundreds of people

9:02

who auditioned, this person, Hilary Swank,

9:04

does an audition where we

9:07

saw the ingredients that we needed. And

9:09

Hilary did a fantastic job. I always will

9:11

credit her with that. And there's a reason

9:14

she won that Oscar. Now, the

9:16

question of could I have cast a trans

9:19

person? If they had existed

9:21

and appeared before us with all

9:23

my digging, I would have been the first to do

9:25

it. So I accept

9:27

any criticism, but I would like people to

9:29

understand, Brandon had not had

9:32

any surgery. Brandon had not had any

9:34

hormones. Brandon was, we'd be

9:36

very careful here, Brandon felt that

9:38

Brandon was a man. Brandon was

9:40

a man. And yet, if

9:43

you had gone too far down the

9:45

journey of any kind of surgery or hormones,

9:49

that might've been challenging in the filming. So

9:52

I'm not saying that we couldn't. I'm just saying to

9:54

everybody out there, I did so

9:56

much to try to make this authentic because I'm

9:58

trans. as we

10:00

thought about this segment and we watched the

10:02

movie, a lot of conversations just about how

10:04

wildly different the world is in

10:07

mostly very good ways between 1999 and 2024 when it comes to people

10:13

understanding trans people, people

10:15

knowing trans people in their lives, people

10:17

understanding, not forcing people

10:19

into categories in the way that happens in the

10:22

movie because that is what was happening in real

10:24

life. And there was this one scene that we

10:26

kept coming back to where Brandon is

10:29

talking to Chloe about Brandon's

10:31

past. I

10:52

feel like even Brandon is struggling to find

10:54

the right words to describe his situation. I

10:56

mean, does that feel accurate

10:59

to that moment and how people kind of

11:01

struggle to think things through just based on

11:03

general understanding being much different? Well,

11:06

look, you probably could have found somebody who

11:09

was in Brandon's body and said, I was

11:11

always a man. You might have found that.

11:14

So I'm not going to say that's impossible.

11:16

But to my research, Brandon had

11:18

a journal entry. We had read Brandon's

11:20

dating history, looking at all that stuff.

11:22

It made sense to me at the

11:25

time to say that Brandon was struggling

11:27

with where he was going to

11:29

end up because he didn't have a culture that gave him

11:32

the language on the topic of then versus

11:34

now. Are there big things or small things

11:36

you would do differently if you were making

11:38

this movie in 2024? You know,

11:41

I'm humble. If there's things that I could do better,

11:43

I'd certainly do them. It's it's not a thing I

11:45

think about because the movie, you

11:47

know, very much what you're trying to do with anything

11:49

you write or direct, you're trying to make it work.

11:52

And we got the movie to work. I

11:55

mean, certainly with casting, I would I

11:57

would try to honor trans people and try

11:59

to to cast a trans person and but

12:02

again that's what I tried back then so I would

12:04

always have to see what the world delivered me and

12:06

how I could tell the story in a way that

12:08

was you know my main goal was to capture Brandon

12:11

help you fall in love with him we're

12:13

having this conversation as part of a series of segments

12:15

we're doing looking back at the the movies of 1999

12:17

and there are so many big

12:21

bold movies like The Matrix and Fight

12:23

Club movies like the Blair Witch Project

12:25

how do you think your

12:27

film fits in to that mix of

12:29

movies I

12:32

think I found my tribe I'm proud

12:34

that boys exist in that moment I think

12:36

boys came out of an explosion of all

12:39

of us looking at the mainstream and saying hey we

12:41

want to have the power to tell

12:43

our stories you know in this medium but what

12:45

it's conveying to us is restricted in a way

12:47

that we don't believe in let's go back to

12:49

our own personal stories and I

12:51

think that's why those movies are all

12:53

really great and unique and they launched the careers

12:56

really of the next generation of film directors

12:58

Kimberly Paris is the writer and director of Boys

13:00

Don't Cry thank you so much for talking to

13:02

us about it alright it's really

13:05

fun thanks this episode was

13:07

produced by Mark Rivers it was edited by

13:09

Adam Rainey our executive producer is Sammy Ennegan

13:12

and one more thing before you go you can

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