Boys On The Side, Girls On The Edge
"There's something that just...goes on between women."
The bold female friendships we see in Boys On The Side are first and foremost marked by a kind of uncommon infallibility that would usually fall victim to the petty backstabbing in film fiction. Bound together by a series of unfortunate circumstances (Robin's struggles with AIDS, the accidental murder of Holly's abusive boyfriend) and "unconventional" situations (single women "shacking up" together without men in the picture), these three women are ultimately unafraid to display this different kind of love to a generally misunderstanding society. It has traveled beyond notions of romance, lust and lesbianism--despite what a number of supporting characters seem to think--and into the realm of family, where even the most difficult of paths always leads back to a comforting sense of companionship. And yet, it's something more than a dependence on one another--I like to think of it as independence with and because of the people you've chosen to surround yourself with.
Unfortunately, Boys On The Side's new family system at the film's end reinscribes a "normal" it seemed so hellbent on combating. Though she starts out as a wild alterna-riot grrrl who does what she must to escape her shitty life, Holly gives birth to her baby and marries her straight-laced dream-man-of-the-moment (whose dedication to the law means he "knows best" and has the right to arrest her), but not without first--and willingly!--paying the price for what was essentially self-defense. Robin is of course exterminated, because she for whatever reason failed to follow society-deemed rules of lifestyle and could not be allowed to live with her disease (another student pointed this out, and though I didn't quite see it that way at first, it now makes a whole lot of sense considering the rest of the happy heteronormative ending). And Jane, who spends most of the film avoiding the morph into a walking stereotype, is still saddled with a crush on a straight girl and denied at least an obviously happy ending. It's as if that accusatory courtroom scene shaped the conclusion, and two women who were "too close" to be in just an extremely intense friendship had to be punished.