Abby Hildebrand

AMST 198
May 6, 2010
Riding in Cars with Girls: Feminism and Sexuality in Boys on the Side

After the release of Thelma & Louise in 1991, controversy surrounding the film and its

messages pervaded the national discussion, with critics saying it was too violent and others

defending it’s clearly feminist twist on the road movie. The film portrays not only an alternative

to living in a male dominated society that continually seeks to oppress women, but also situates

the traditional home as a place that no longer works. The film, which contains the murder of a

rapist and the explosion of a male chauvinist’s truck, was by no means the most violent film of

that year, and yet, many people heralded the film as too graphic because it was two women

acting in these situations. Released four years later, Boys on the Side attempts to follow in the

footsteps of Thelma & Louise. It shows the murder of an abusive man and the three women who

killed him on a cross-country road trip. Boys on the Side expands the identities of the

heterosexual, white, lower/middle class housewife and waitress to include a single

workingwoman with HIV, a black lesbian, and a young, single pregnant woman. In expanding

the identities of women in the film, Boys on the Side successfully creates characters that respond

to the backlash against feminism that occurred in the late 1980s. Yet, in expanding, the film

spreads itself too thin and winds up coming down more on the side of the backlash than it may

have intended.

In her book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, Susan Faludi

argues that in the late 1980s the media helped promote a countermovement against the feminist

movement of the 1970s. The movement for equality had slowed on many fronts, including in the

workplace and in education. Most mainstream media outlets promulgated messages that the

women’s movement was the cause of unhappiness and that women wanted to revert to traditional
gender roles. Through the media fire, the true objectives of the feminist movement had been lost.

In an attempt to recapture its original philosophy, Faludi outlines the goals of feminism: “It asks

that women not be forced to ‘choose’ between public justice and private happiness. It asks that

women be free to define themselves—instead of having their identity defined for them, time and

again, by their culture and their men.”1 If we look at Boys on the Side through this lens, we can

see that it promotes those notions in many respects, but it also limits the behaviors of certain

characters in ways that create a conditional vision of feminism.

It is clear that the film wants to challenge notions of male dominated society and show

alternatives to traditional family life, and it does this first through Jane’s character. She

consistently stands up to other characters in the film that question or demean her. When her

guitarist decides to stay in New York because of his girlfriend, Jane says that “the little girl in

Queens who sets her hair every day” is holding him back. 2 “You stay here and you play daddy,”

she tells him. She challenges the notion that the family should take precedent over his career or

that it is an inevitable progression of their relationship. Furthermore, Jane also represents the

opposite of the norms and stereotypes that Robin has been socialized to desire. As the two

women watch a touching scene at the end of The Way We Were, Jane laughs as Robin cries.

Jane’s reaction works to position her as outside the influence of heteronormative ideas of love as

well as mainstream white culture. Jane’s character works throughout the film to contest the

traditional and show alternative lifestyles as legitimate.

By the middle of the film, Robin and Holly, like Jane, have come to resist traditional

notions of family and home. In an early scene, Robin tells Jane that what she wants: a husband

1
Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, New York: 1991, p.
xxiii.
2
Walter Roos, Boys on the Side. < http://www.awesomefilm.com/script/boysontheside.txt>.
From hereafter, all references to Boys on the Side can be cited to this footnote.
with a job, two kids, and a house, which she says “isn’t very liberated.” However, later in the

film, Robin proclaims to Jane that, “Holly is just as much my responsibility as everyone else's,

and so are you. Because you are my family and I love you.” This acknowledgement not only

marks the shift that Robin has made as a character but also how the notion of mainstream family

is further challenged. Holly too shifts from a naïve young woman that cannot imagine raising her

child without a man to a confident and mature mother to her daughter as well as to Jane when

she directs, “You make sure you call me when you get to LA.”

Like Boys on the Side, Thelma & Louise regards traditional conceptions family and

home as only one formation of a valid or legitimate way of life. The two women leave their

homes and their men behind to take a journey with each other as family moving towards their

new conception of home—Mexico. The film, much like Boys, shows that women do not need

men to be happy. Thelma and Louise rid themselves of the male dominated society, both

physically when they adopt trucker hats and dark colors and emotionally when they refuse to

allow the trucker to continue making crude comments. When they drive off the cliff in the

famous final scene, Thelma and Louise prove that they can leave the stifling male dominated

society and keep going forever.

Both of these films seem to respond to the “New Traditionalist” idea present in the media

during the late 1980s. As Faludi points out, the media began covering the so-called trend of

women returning home to raise children instead of working. However, in many of these cases,

the numbers to support this trend were nowhere to be found. “In 1976, the same proportion of

women as men went to work for large corporations or professional firms, and ten years later

virtually the same proportion of women and men were still working for these employers.”3 The

women in both films seek to escape the constraints of traditional notions of home and family that
3
Faludi, 87.
the antifeminist media covered as the clear choice of women in the late 1980s. “You give up too

much’ and ‘you lose that sense of bonding and family ties’ when you take on a challenging

business job,” said a 1986 Fortune article that led to the traditionalist trend.4 Choosing the

traditional path once again became the way the media influenced women to go back into the

home. In opposition to this trend, Thelma and Louise drive to abandon the law and American

society, as they seek to cross into Mexico. For Holly, Jane, and Robin, Tucson, Arizona becomes

the place where they too can escape the law, but also where they can escape the normative

narratives forced upon women in mainstream society. The three of them are able to live in a

house together and find a welcoming space in Anna’s bar, two notions that do not fit into the

“New Traditionalist” narrative.

However, while Tucson and the three main characters provide alternatives to

conservative conceptions of female identity and conservative notions of family, there are several

instances that contradict or dispute these feminist ideas. Through the characters of the lawyer and

Elaine, Boys on the Side depicts the arguments of the antifeminism movement. The film,

because of its more diverse cast, also touches upon race and sexuality much more in depth than

Thelma & Louise does. These two characters also represent actors who wish to control the love

and sex lives of the three women.

As Michael Warner contends in his book The Trouble with Normal, people are constantly

attempting to control the sex lives of others, which can be seen in various characters in Boys on

the Side. The shame that comes with sex can be used as a political tool to “silence or isolate

others,” and maintain the dominance of heterosexuality.5 With the Clinton impeachment, we can

see the true political power of sexual shame. It is marshaled in a similar fashion in the film
4
Faludi, 86.
5
Michael Warner, The Trouble With Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life,
Cambridge, MA: 1999
during the courtroom scenes, but the sexual politics are further complicated by the fact that one

of the women is HIV positive.

When questioning both Jane and Robin during Holly’s trial, the lawyer tries to force

Holly, Jane, and Robin into specific identity groups. In Jane’s testimony, the lawyer asks her if

she is “one of those gay women we read about,” even though Jane’s sexuality clearly has no

bearing on whether or not Holly murdered Nick. That he has only read about gay women is the

first hint that he represents conservative America. His placement right next to the jury when he

says “us” cements his role as a representation of mainstream America—an America who is just

as uncomfortable with homosexuality and race as the lawyer is. Jane responds in the affirmative,

adding, “I bet a lot of women tell you that. But in my case, it happens to be true.” By insulting

the lawyer, she does all that she can to hold her own against him and effectively stops him from

silencing her voice.

The lawyer, as he badgers and belittles Robin during her testimony, comes off as trying

to force Holly into the traditional notion of a helpless pregnant woman. Robin responds by

defending Holly’s choice and trying to assure the lawyer she did not need Nick. “But it was over

between them. I know you think a girl like her, the most important thing in her life is a man, but

she didn’t need him. She had us.” Robin accepts that a man cannot complete her or any woman’s

life. The lawyer refuses to accept that Holly would just up and leave her “little baby’s daddy.”

By this point in the film, Robin has made the shift from a woman who had wanted a

conventional life to a woman finds happiness with the most unlikely people. “I don’t know what

it is, but, there’s something that goes on between women…Love, or whatever, doesn’t always

keep, so you find out what does, if you’re lucky.” Robin attempts to explain their connection but

the lawyer interprets her statement differently and asks her if she is a lesbian, too. Robin
answers, “No, sir. But at times I understand the inclination,” refusing to feel ashamed or

embarrassed to answer.

The lawyer also tries to control the identities of Jane and Robin by saying they are

“hardly a replacement for a father.” In his disbelief, the lawyer not only says that women are not

capable of raising children without a father, but also that two women do not equal one man. The

lawyer attempts to place Jane and Robin outside of Holly’s family, even though these three

women have become an unconventional family. Furthermore, he thinks that Nick is the father of

Holly’s baby. Would he be so intent on her returning to an abusive man who “has a temper” if

Nick weren’t the father?

For Elaine, Robin’s mother, it does not matter whether Nick or Abe is the father. When

Robin tells her mother that Abe is not the father, Elaine replies:

So what? She still should grab him. Believe me, I know what she’s going to have to go
through. You know, I’m a feminist, too…But you can’t fight nature. God knows you girls
keep trying. Treating your men like side dishes. Stick a fork in when needed. Just like
men used to treat us.

Elaine, like the lawyer, represents an antifeminist position. As she claims to be a feminist, Eliane

also tries to tell Robin that the only possible positive way of life is one in which a woman makes

a man her main course instead of her side dish. Again we get the notion that fatherhood is vital to

a wife and child’s happiness. Raising a daughter without a husband and growing up as girl

without her father has scarred both Robin and Elaine. Robin never got over the death of her

brother or her father abandoning her and her mother, has a serious illness, and claims she does

not understand men.

In a continuation of her antifeminist stance, Elaine also tries to control her daughter’s sex

life, as does Jane. When Robin says that there is not a man around, her mother responds by

saying that she “think[s] it’s a problem.” She tries to force her daughter to change in order to
meet the society’s expectations for what is an acceptable way of life. Jane also attempts to

control Robin’s sex life when she sets her up with Alex. She tells Alex about Robin’s disease and

Robin then refuses to sleep with Alex. When Robin confronts Jane, we see how ashamed of her

disease she really is. “Alex and you and Holly and her baby. Every single living thing I see

reminds me [that I’m HIV positive],” Robin tells Jane in an effort to make her understand. Robin

sees herself as an AIDS patient who cannot have sex for fear of what a partner might think or

say, or that if they already know, they are only with her out of pity. Jane tries to force Robin into

the role of a single woman by setting her up with Alex. Both Elaine and Jane attempt to push

Robin into the role of a single woman looking to settle down with a man.

Unlike the lawyer, however, Elaine eventually sides with her self-proclaimed feminist

tendencies. Later in the film, Elaine does not pretend that it was any better with Elaine’s father

there. “Nobody was happy in these pictures,” she tells Robin as she looks through an old photo

album. Elaine also has perhaps the most perceptive advice for her daughter in this scene: “But

that's what you get in life, you know? You get whoever you end up with. Whoever is willing to

stick by you and fight for you when everyone else is gone. And it ain't always who you expect.

But you just have to make do.” Elaine’s wisdom propels her daughter to find Jane at the

courthouse, but more importantly, it makes a nice point. That is, it should not matter if Robin

ends up with another woman, a black man, or alone, as long as she is happy.

While this line is on the one hand a nod to alternatives to heterosexual love, it also seems

to place these alternatives as second to a more conservative lifestyle. The way that Elaine

characterizes people as passive in their fate seems to tell the audience that luck will determine

what you get and then you can decide if you will become happy. It is almost as if the alternative

lifestyles are valid only when traditional love does not work—“you just have to make do.”
Robin, and to a certain extent Holly, try for a customary marriage and family before ending up

with what works for them. Although she meets an untimely death and ultimately rejects

normative concepts of happiness, Robin does have a house and people who love her

unconditionally. It is almost as if the film, instead of promoting acceptance of these options from

the start, says that the world is not over if you do not fit into traditional norms at first because

there are always alternatives or at least variations on the traditional notion of family. This

message, even if it is a bit conservative, is better than the idea that women should only be at

home and no other options are viable.

The film regulates the sexual behavior of its characters in other ways as well. The

heterosexual sex scenes between Alex and Robin, and Holly and Abe are much more intense and

visible than any of the moments of homosexual love between Robin and Jane (or Jane and any

woman for that matter). Moreover, the sex scene between Alex and Robin is one that ends

unconsummated. Robin, as a woman with HIV, is denied the pleasure of physical love from both

hetero and homosexual partners. Holly, as the straight uninfected woman, does not really have

her sexuality controlled. Jane does try to tell her what to do in regard to returning to Nick, but

even as a pregnant woman, she is able to engage in sexual behaviors without repercussions or

constraint.

Jane is also marshaled in her desire and sexual conduct. She continually attempts to date

women who are straight, and we get little hints of this pattern from Holly as well as from brief

snips of conversation. Jane begins to hit on a woman who is on a date, flirts with the hotel

receptionist, and was in love with Holly. By portraying Jane as a lesbian only interested in

straight women, it exposes Jane as being ashamed of her sexuality. For, if Jane were comfortable

with herself, she would express interest in women with whom she would have a better chance of
creating a stable relationship. However, as Warner contends, “it seldom occurs to anyone that the

dominant culture and its family environment should be held accountable for creating this sense

of shame in the first place.” So, perhaps the shame that Jane feels is a purposeful choice on the

part of the film. Perhaps it is a characteristic of Jane so that the viewers can better understand the

psychological affects of homosexuality in a society dominated by heterosexuality. With that said,

there is still a certain conservative logic at work when Jane loves straight women and the one

who loves her back has HIV and dies. Moreover, Alex says he thinks that “heterosexuality is

making a comeback,” as if it went somewhere. There is no lack of heterosexual dominance in

this film, or in society in general. Robin’s death functions to show that the most normative

relationship, between Holly and Abe, is the most successful and valid. It also has major

implications for people living with HIV. Plenty of people were living with HIV and AIDS, as we

saw Robin doing throughout the film, but she died in order to fulfill the narrative of HIV/AIDS

as a punishment for sex.

On the surface, the film constantly makes heteronormative family roles invaluable. From

Jane’s comment about playing daddy to Robin’s father abandoning her family, the patriarch is

consistently depicted as a failed and harmful position. However, the only successful relationship

in the film is the most heteronormative of them all, Holly and Abe. That the film’s major

characters are separated by the end of the film—one dead, one in LA, and one in Tucson—

speaks to the fleeting time for an alternative way of life to survive. The same logic applies to

Thelma & Louise. They can only exist in for so long before the male dominated society attempts

to corner them. However, Thelma and Louise hit the gas and go without looking back. Boys on

the Side makes it clear that it’s ending will not be so freeing when Jane tells Robin and Holly, “I

am not going over a cliff for you two, so just forget it.” The film, while promoting a feminist
agenda throughout, ends with the two remaining characters giving up the fight against normative

forces. Holly is now a mature mother and Jane on her way to start a new life in Los Angeles.

Jane will continue to break the mold as a black lesbian but Holly, with her straight hair and more

grown up clothes in the last scene, has matured and conformed.

Through its displays of various feminine identities, Boys on the Side, in the vein of

Thelma & Louise, is a feminist film responding to the antifeminist backlash of the late 1980s.

However, while its major theme is acceptance of alternative definitions of family, love, and

home, there are several instances where the film falls short of its goals. In a fairly typical

development, the HIV positive character dies as a consequence of her sexual behavior. The

couple that stays together at the end is heterosexual and fairly traditional. In comparison to

Thelma & Louise, Boys on the Side seems to have attempted to do too much. Thelma was so

successful because it came out strongly on the side of feminism and did not complicate itself

with issues of sexuality and race, though the three area always related. While this is problematic,

it also allowed the film to focus on responding to the backlash. Boys did allow for the portrayal

of an alternative family of women in a believable and nuanced fashion but the desperate use of

diversity as a means to reach a wider audience or to tackle a greater number of issues takes away

from the overall film. As a feminist response against the backlash, Boys on the Side works. But

as a film about HIV, it does not do enough to promote the idea that people with HIV can lead

fairly normal and lengthy lives. Additionally, the main character is a lesbian, yet we do not get a

full experience of homosexuality besides the comment that “they like uniforms” and are “very

sensitive.” Characters within the film also marshal each other’s sexual lives in ways that

constrain (“anti-lesbian”), attempt to shame (“are you a lesbian?”), or attempt to help but actually

hurt. For all its imperfections, Boys on the Side captures the bond between women and shows
their strength in making choices about who they are, who they want to be, and where they want

to go—with or without men—and there is hardly a more feminist message than that.