Boys on the Slide
Herbert Ross's Boys on the Side while at points poignant and touching seems to feel dated even for a 1995 film. Amidst the intertextual references to Thelma & Louise, as Jane says cattily "I ain't going over any cliffs with y'all"; the film reinscribes the social normal in similar ways to some other queer films we have watched, The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert comes to mind for me.
This films challenges the social norms, in a profundity of ways that almost echo Priscilla, as much as that the use of three primary characters, immediately destroys a binary, by introducing a trilogy of different social circumstances from which the characters are indoctrinated with.
Holly's description of Jane's sexuality to Robin seemed comically dated, and stereotypical, but Jane's attempt to "normalize" Robin's sexuality by arranging a sexual liaison for her with Alex created the most interesting friction of social norms, particularly strengthened by Robin's disease. Although HIV has been mentioned in films before (Philadelphia , anyone?) to see it placed in a film affecting an upper middle class heterosexual white woman, certainly adds some depth to its dangers, and is a noble effort to not only humanize the disease's effects, but to demonstrate that it is dangerous to all humans. Robin in a lot of ways as the catalyst for reinscribing normality in the film, as she not only saves Holly from her abusive lover, and acts as an almost surrogate mother to her, but bridges the gap of understanding between her "feminist" mother, and Jane. But sadly Robin's suffering, and death could be read to follow such misogynistic tropes as women need to suffer to maintain their families.
But then again, maybe they do.
;)