Last Wednesday I attended Kingston’s Reelout Film Festival to see a movie titled Boy Meets Girl, written and directed by Eric Schaeffer. This film is about the story of two life-long best friends, Robby, and Ricky, a transgender When Ricky meets the young and beautiful Francesca, fiancée to a boy from Ricky’s past, the two have an immediate connection. The film follows the whirlwind of emotions exposed as Ricky and Francesca start to become something more. Robby is forced to face his feelings for Ricky as he starts to realize she may be in danger of losing faith in herself.
I chose to see this film because the society in which Robby and Ricky lived in was seemingly very similar to mine. There were all different spectrums of understanding and acceptance and the director perfectly captured the reactions from each. There is commonly a whole range of those who reject, those who accept, and those who cannot understand. I felt that as a cisgender female, I know very little about transgender culture and I think it is important to educate myself. It is not enough to be accepting, and I wanted to get a better understanding of this kind of situation. The definition of transgender is a person whose choice of gender identity and sexuality does not correspond to the norms or to that of their biological gender. In many societies, the difficulty that people have understanding or accepting this gender identification is a result of the social construction of gender norms that they are taught to agree with. They are accustomed to believing that there are certain ways for certain biological genders to behave and anything beyond these guidelines are to be considered unnatural. Although societies are evolving and becoming more accepting, there is a difference, as I said before, between being accepting and being educated.
The scene that most definitely caused the most responsive reaction is one that occurred very close to the end of the film. Robby finds Ricky swimming naked in the lake and finally professes how he feels and has always felt about her. At his confession, Ricky walks out of the water, and reveals her transgendered body. By the choice of the director, Ricky’s full frontal body is shown and this disclosure caused a symphony of gasps within the audience. I myself, was quite surprised at the director’s choice to do this, and I do not think anyone was expecting the nudity. However, I think it was really important not to have the audience rely on their assumptions or their imagination for this scene. At one point in the movie, Ricky mentions her dreams of medicalization, but comments at the reality of how expensive that dream really is. From this we know that Ricky desires to be fully transformed into the opposite sex as she was biologically born, but it does not stop her from having confidence in herself. Although this scene may come across as being rather explicit, it is important not only in shaping the character of Ricky within the film as a bold and fearless adolescent, but also for the audience to become privy to the simple difference between her sexual gender and the one she identifies with. They are able to see how Ricky’s given sex is completely and solely biological and physical, and have nothing to do with who she is emotionally and mentally.
This however, was not the scene that held the most importance to me. The scene that I felt was the most significant was that when which Francesca and Ricky start to engage in sexual intercourse. The girls have gotten closer and closer as the film progressed, and led up to the point where they were both ready and longing to explore their desires and feelings for one another. A very common belief and stereotype towards transgender people is the idea that they want to change or go against their biologically given gender because they are attracted to the similar sex and long to be with them in the way that society has deemed natural. To be quite honest, for a long time I believed that this was the case also. This scene within the film helps to educate people like myself to realizing that the position of being transgender does not necessarily mean that that person wishes to be with the same sex gender as they were biologically born. The sexual orientation of a person has nothing to do with whether they wish to be transgender or not, and this scene helps to prove the disparity.
Overall Boy Meets Girl had a beautiful message and a wonderful love story, and I very much enjoyed attending the Reelout Film Festival. It really opened my eyes to the realities of a transgender individual, how they are affected, as well as the people they love, and the people who love them. It is not only an educational film, but also positive and inspiring. I would recommend Boy Meets Girl to anyone. ~ MMG
enjme125 
I believe this review of the film “Boy Meets Girl” was strong and thoughtful especially when reflecting on the importance of sharing this film in the Kingston Queer Film Festival. I found your thoughts about the importance of understanding the privilege coming with being cisgender in our current society to be a strong point in your review. Writing about how the education of understanding the transgender culture this film is central around is something I also believe is important, and I appreciate your desire to understand the film in its entirety. Your point about the importance of understanding transgender culture to overcome present social norms is strong and well written. The scene you focused on including the full front, nude view of Ricky was interesting to read about, and i found your interpretation of how this scene was important intriguing. From your review I also learnt that wanting to be transgender has nothing to do with sexual orientation, which I had found confusing before reading. This is a common misconception in our society.
– NH
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I really enjoyed how you made an effort to relate this film to your life, because as a reader it makes your blog post that much more interesting. I also liked that you talked about broadening your understanding and improving society’s understanding of what it really means to be transgender. I enjoyed your views about sexual orientation and the social construction of gender norms, as these things are often misunderstood. Overall I think you made some excellent points and observations in your review and I enjoyed reading it.
– ECW
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This is a very thoughtful and profound review. Not having seen “Boy Meets Girl”, this review allowed me to gather information on the film, understand your perspective, on it and continue to reflect upon and extend my own knowledge of sexual orientation and transgender individuals.I really enjoyed how you provided a brief summary of the film but started off the analysis by relating the film to your own life. By acknowledging your interest in attending this film specifically, it showed the ability to be personal in your critique, which I think is really cool. By applying the plot line of Ricky and Robby’s relationship to those of transgenders in today’s world, you identified the big picture of the film and showed a very broad perspective. Your perspective on the nudity scene you mentioned was delicately thoughtful and not only contributed to the emphasis of characterization that seems to be relevant in the film but, expressed your thought-provoking interpretation of “Boy Meets Girl”. Well done.
– JEC
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You did a really good job summarizing this and setting up an atmosphere for which it is placed by explaining the context of the film in our society and connecting it to your own life. I feel that it is very important that you explained your understanding of the topics touched on in the film as a cisgender person and how your knowledge and perspective was altered after watching. I also found it interesting how you chose two scenes to discuss, one of high importance that shocked the audience and one of equal if not more importance that was more subtle and might have been overlooked. You made a point of explaining how there is no correlation between gender and sexuality which I feel like is super important to point out as many people still do not understand this. I appreciated your analysis of these two scenes and will keep these points in mind when I watch the film myself.
– EMW
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