It is that time of year again.
The time when television sales spike, party lists are composed, pizzas are ordered at astonishing
rates, and millions flock to their living rooms to watch who will take home the ultimate trophy.
Yes, Super Bowl season is upon us. As a sports and movie enthusiast, I am one of those rare breeds who is equally giddy about the Super Bowl as I am about what has been coined the
“Gay Super Bowl” — the Oscars.
I remember when Hilary Swank won Best Actress for her role in Boys Don’t Cry in 2000.
I saw the movie in Northampton, Mass. — the “Lesbian capital of the USA” — at a small, independent movie theater. I was in college and attended the movie with my two gay friends (my first gay friends). Although I had grown more at-ease with my gay identity, I was going through a pathetic phase where, I suppose, in an attempt to lessen my shame about being gay and to deal with my own, internalized homophobia, I played a game I liked to call the “At Least Game.” I would attempt to make myself feel better by thinking, “At least nobody can tell I am gay,” (which, by the way, was patently false, but denial is powerful). Or, “At least I’m not one
of those butch dykes, with short spiky hair.” Or, “At least I don’t have rainbow tattoos and march topless in gay parades.” Or, “At least I haven’t had a sex change.” Or, “At least I don’t look like a boy.”
Clearly, a psychologist would have had a field day with my “at least” game.
While sitting in that movie theater, I was surrounded by people prime for my game. Yes, I was in a sea of boys who looked like girls, girls who looked like boys, individuals whose gender was too elusive to identify, spiky hair, flannel shirts, and mullets.
Then, Boys Don’t Cry happened. It was one of the most powerfully moving performances I have ever seen. Hilary Swank portrayed the real-life transgender Brandon Teena. Teena was born a woman, but spent his entire life feeling as though he were in the wrong body and that, in actuality, he was a man. Teena ultimately lived his life as a man.
In the end, Teena’s anatomical identity was exposed, and he was brutally raped and killed solely because of who he was, or perhaps, more accurately, because of who he was not. When the movie ended, the audience was stunned. Nobody moved. Nobody left. Nobody spoke. I looked straight ahead as I did not want my friends to see how forcefully I was crying. It occurred to me that in that moment we were crying not only for the Brandon Teena on the screen, but also for the Brandon Teena among us and within us.
I never played the “at least” game again.
During Swank’s acceptance speech at the Oscars when she said, “And last, but certainly not least, I want to thank Brandon Teena for being such an inspiration to us all. His legacy lives on through our movie to remind us to always be ourselves, to follow our hearts, to not conform. I pray for the day when we not only accept our differences, but we actually celebrate our diversity.”
