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Sunday, December 5, 2010

A Chilling Soldier's Girl

This is Sophie

I found the most chilling aspect of the movie Soldier's Girl to be the fact that it was based on real events.  This film portrays a very obviously passionate relationship between Barry, a solider in the Airborne division and Calpernia, a transgender veteran of the army.  The love scenes in this film portray a relationship that is just as authentic as a relationship between two heterosexual people.

Barry is murdered by a fellow soldier in his sleep after suffering multiple occasions in which he was called cruel names because of his sexual orientation, some becoming violent.  Throughout these incidents, Barry remained level-headed, and although he defended himself when they became violent, he kept in mind the army's "dont ask, don't tell" policy for fear of being kicked out of the army.

This film, and the fact that it is based on real life occurrences for which two soldiers were sentenced to jail time, emphasizes the stigma our society continues to attach to "other" people with "other" desires that do not uphold mainstream American values.  The fact that a person was brutally murdered with a baseball bat, defenselessly in his sleep and a woman had her partner stolen from her because of homophobic ideology is incredulous and is something that I simply cannot wrap my mind around.

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