Girls on top
_Boys on the Side_ challenged many social structures and was an empowering film for women crossing racial and sexual boundaries. Jane and Robin were in a situation where they were dependant on someone else because they both needed to get out of New York. Jane was an African American, lesbian, singer and Robin was a straight, white middle-class, retired real estate broker. The perfect recipe for everlasting friendship, right? Their opposite social identities set them up to be enemies and if not for their being confined in a mini-van and traveling across the United States, they might never have gotten along. Spending so much time together however, and with the addition of young, naive Holly, Jane and Robin broke many binary-centrisms. They both had different race, class, gender and sexuality backgrounds, and overcame them with the love they shared for each other in creating a new "family." Because they spent so much time together, especially when dealing with Robin's terminal illness, they formed an everlasting bond that gave them a love associated with family.