Queer writer-director Kimberly Peirce has only made one feature since her startling, groundbreaking 1999 debut, Boys Don’t Cry—but even if she never makes another film, she will forever be assured a place in queer cinematic history. The movie relates the true story of transgender male Brandon Teena (Hilary Swank) living in Nebraska; his romantic relationship with Lana Tisdel (Chloe Sevigny); and his subsequent rape and murder at the hands of his intolerant “friends” when they learned he wasn’t anatomically male. Peirce worked on the film for years (and co-wrote the script with Andy Bienen) before it was brought to the screen, winning critical acclaim from critics and audiences upon its release.
Boys Don’t Cry was a “first” for many reasons. It made an instant star of Swank (who, for her tremendous, heart-wrenching performance, received the first of her two Best Actress Oscars), and brought first time acclaim to many of the other actors (Sevigny was also Oscar nominated in the supporting category). The movie also launched the career of out producer Christine Vachon and, certainly, it put Peirce herself on the filmmaking map. However, aside from being an intensely moving romantic drama, gorgeously shot and assembled and enacted by its fearless cast, the importance of the subject matter—the horrible consequences that Tenna suffered as a result of attempting to be true to his own gender identity—is perhaps the movie’s greatest legacy. Both mainstream and LGBT communities saw vivid, heartbreaking proof of the terrible price transgender people have often had to pay.
Boys Don’t Cry helped open the door nationally with regard to this previously hidden subject. Here we are over a decade later and America is weekly watching transgender male Chaz Bono dance his heart out on Dancing with the Stars, one of the country’s most popular television programs, without a hint of controversy. Peirce’s film helped pave the way for mainstream acceptance.
The movie will have a rare theatrical screening Sunday, Oct. 16, at 8 p.m. at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave., and Peirce will be present for a post-screening Q&A. At 3 p.m., Peirce will also attend a screening of 1972’s The Godfather and talk with Robert K. Elder, author of Movies that Changed My Life, about the impact director Francis Ford Coppola’s gangster classic has had on her creative life. Separate tickets are required for each screening event. www.musicboxtheatre.com