Boys on the Side
“The bond they form is based not on the personal intimacy and the
emotional intimacy that characterizes sentimental female friendships, but
rather on mutual recognition of shared oppression,” (Hollinger, 108.) In
this film Boys on the Side, the three main characters are quite a diverse
group of friends and that right there is a threat to the white patriarchy
in the U.S. Firstly, Jane is a black woman who is a lesbian and lives with
Robin, a white supposedly straight woman. Robin’s mother quickly points out
the how this is not normal and unacceptable in society. Robin is also a
woman who has contracted AIDS and this is something that for many years and
around the time of this film was a gay man’s disease. The third character
Holly is into drugs and seems to find herself in many different sexual
relationships with men. When these three women decide to leave Pittsburg
they are leaving their friends, families, and intimate relationships behind
as if to suggest they don’t need the partners in their lives nor their
families. Our society firmly believes that family and spouses are the most
import things. Another huge thing that doesn’t mesh well with the social
structure is that fact that all three of them worked together to help Holly
escape her abusive boyfriend and even worse he ended up dying. This
suggests that these women are violent and murders (GASP!!!)
The end of the film reinscribes “the normal” especially in Holly’s
case because she gives birth to her bastard baby and marries Abe who is a
cop. Before this Holly had to spend time in jail because her boyfriend ABE
thought it was the right thing to do even though he didn’t know Holly as
well as Robin or Jane did he is a man so therefore he knows what is best.
Also, this shows that if a woman uses violence than she must be punished
even when she is defending her own life and the life of her unborn child.
The death of Robin in a figurative sense reiterates the outcome that women
who do not follow societal norms will have-death. Jane also, illustrates
the lesbian woman who will never be happy and will never have her happy
ending.