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Excited Film Review
Film Review
Rebel without a Cause
Director: Nicholas Ray
Release year: 1955
Runtime: 1h51m
"THE BAD BOY FROM A GOOD FAMILY.
After moving to a new town, troublemaking teen Jim Stark is supposed to have a clean slate, although being the new kid in town brings its own problems. While searching for some stability, Stark forms a bond with a disturbed classmate, Plato, and falls for local girl Judy. However, Judy is the girlfriend of neighborhood tough, Buzz. When Buzz violently confronts Jim and challenges him to a drag race, the new kid’s real troubles begin." --Letterboxd description
"Jim, do you think the end of the world will come at night time?"
this is less a review and more a very elaborate yap about an interpretation of this films message so unbelievably subjective I don't really expect anyone to get it the way I do; so don't worry too much if it gets too WOKE !!! for you. if u don't give a gaf about delving into how I view being trans all u gotta know is I liked tha movie 2 billion out of 2 billion, jimmy dean the bisexual king you were, you wouldve loved wreaking havoc in the hollywood gossip sphere
this film was incredible for so many reasons; the colours, I obviously loved. the vividness of early films will always have my heart. the script, although as stilted as most come to expect from a film from the 50s, has many incredibly well written lines that have stuck with me since my first watch. the themes however were what meant the most to me in the end.
as I sit here writing this I cant help but reflect on what films i've seen that have had an impact on me as a trans man, and I feel a sort of light sorrow at not really being able to name a single one. that is, until now.
sure, I can trace various cornerstone parts of how I view the world, interact with my peers, and process my surroundings back to quite a few different films that I have watched throughout different periods of my life. I wouldn't say I watch many films, but when I watch one that hits me it hits me hard; but I must admit - something I couldn't have known until now as I did not know what I had been missing - no film has really reached me like rebel without a cause has.
jim stark, the poster boy of the film played by the late james dean, struggles with his own perception of what it means to be a man. the men around him in public, at school, at the police station, are sort of exactly what you'd expect from a man (especially as depicted in the 50s). loud, confident, brash, argumentative. powerful. strong.
at home, his father is kind, soft spoken and a caregiver, a contrast to his mother who is strong-willed, loud, and impatient. I don't think I need to point out to you just how much this characterisation would have stood out in the 50s.
this dichotomy causes him to lash out, to try and prove himself to the bullies in his year, to take unnecessary risks, all to appease the side of him that wants to be brash and bold and dangerous; a rebel. however, amongst the waves of anger and teenage-angst, his connections to judy and plato allow him to be kind and forgiving, bringing out a patience in him that would otherwise be drowned out.
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if we decide to overthink the film by a mile, which i am going to do for the next 2 william or so words, jim exists in a sort of state of limbo, acting as an unreliable narrator as we watch him try and figure out how to shift and mould his own definition of what kind of man he wants to be.
he lashes out, gets pulled into fights he won't start but won't hesitate to try and finish. he offers his jacket to a shivering figure, he returns a compact mirror forgotten in the police station.
he falls apart and builds himself anew, his parents (if we want to view the film through the lens of an exploration of gender presentation) acting as manifestations of two distinct parts of him who are at war.
his father is what he's scared to be, outright stating he never wants to be like him. his mother is what he is afraid he is seen as. they are, as he exclaims himself, "tearing [him] apart", going on to lament that "[she says] one thing and he says another and then everybody changes back--". this kind of back-and-forth is one i'm very familiar with: not knowing what you are, thinking you know what you're not, all the while not even being sure of what you don't want to be and at the same time afraid of knowing what others think you are. it sort of feels like being on the cusp of being spaghetti-fied by what you think is a black hole with no way of checking, and only finding out the black hole never existed only after the fact, if you ever manage to survive it at all.
it is true that my personal interpretation of this film, which I have tried my hardest to make sense in this blog post, is steeped in and tainted by my gender identity and whatever unique and "stereotypical" points of view come with it. it is also true that at the start of and throughout my transition I didn't really have any friends like me; I didn't go out of my way to make friends who were also trans men, and I didn't go out of my way to look for any kind of internet communities to find solace in. I've always been pretty okay with this as it was just a fact of my reality and life.
my transition was very uneventful and incredibly streamlined and easy, my parents are loving and accepting of who i am; I know I hit the Transgender Jackpot, if that ever was a thing. but other than my government-mandated psychiatrist (who was pretty unhelpful at best) and my wonderful therapist (who meant well and was a good listener) I kinda did it all on my own. I've only recently started reading biographical works by trans men, and I still don't really engage with the community much in real life or online.
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all this yammering on about details about my life that no one cares about but me is to say that the way I view my identity is wholly my own; and, as I've concluded, incredibly "intangible". if that makes any sense.
I've never really given much thought to what i think being a man is; unlike how it has with jim, its not a thought thats been simmering inside of me, bubbling over, a toxic concoction of poison words and soft actions. it isn't something thats led me to rebel, to act out, to try and find a definition in watching my peers to then rip myself open to make it fit.
i knew what i wasn't. i knew what i didn't want to be. i didn't - and still don't - know what i am. this is something i am okay with.
though admittedly, it's easy to just say that and expect it to be a constant truth; things would be much nicer that way. however, i do find myself quite lost sometimes. as jim puts it, upon trying to explain his own inner misery, « only if i had one day when i didn't have to be all confused, and i didn't have to feel that i was ashamed of everything… if i felt that i belonged someplace, you know, then… ».
well. then indeed.
i like that quote a lot, not just because it felt like a kick to the chest when i first heard it, but because it really feels like every stage of trying to figure out who you are when you're transitioning and even after the fact.
you start with the confusion; i thought i was one thing but now i'm not so sure. this, at least for me, is followed by shame; i'm not what i thought i was, but I don't know what i am, and that makes me different. then comes the wish for belonging; not even a wish for someone like you necessarily, but just somewhere where being different changes nothing.
but, and allow me to reach just that little stretch longer, my favourite part is how the sentence dies without a conclusion.
jim can't say what would come then. he doesn't know what he would have gained if he, for one day, wasn't in the state of limbo he constantly finds himself trapped in; i certainly don't know what would I would gain either.
the trap of it all is that "then" doesn't exist. it isn't possible to get rid of the confusion, the shame, the longing, not even just for a day; something jim subconsciously knows but can't articulate. its only possible to learn to live alongside it, carrying it with you. you learn to shift the weight of it elsewhere when you tire but you can never put it down.
you'll always be different, and that will always make you stand out; often, even when you pass completely, you still will only have convinced everyone but yourself.
despite how horrifically tragic and miserable i realise i've just made my inner thinking seem, (whoops), just because "then" doesn't exist doesn't mean you'll be lost in limbo forever; you will find your footing eventually with the added weight you only just realised you're carrying, and so jim does eventually learn to start bridging the gap between those two parts of him. upon finally falling apart following more than one tragedy within the same day, barely hours apart, his father comes to his side to help him stand up on his own two feet again; and, in what i like to think is symbolic of jim accepting not who he isn't but who he no longer is afraid to be, promises to "try and be as strong as you want me to be".
this film doesn't really have a traditional end. no one wins; two boys are dead and the world has ended at dawn. but such an open ending i think is fitting, at least for how I've come to understand the film and how it relates to my own complexes about who i am. no matter how many times you think you have it figured out, no matter how many times you go through this cycle of crisis, there will always be a time where you will have to find yourself again. the trick is just to remember that no matter how long it takes, find yourself you will. 
of course a lot of (if not everything) I've said is a maaaassive reach at best and complete bullshit at worst, and this film is most likely absolutely not that deep, but i think its fun to explore it as if it was :)
and just as a side note, i might update this with like a part 2 section bc i have soooo much more to say just about how masculinity itself is depicted and all that and UGH i just love this film and honestly subtext is really a lost art at this point (fuck you netflix)
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