MovieChat Forums > Boys Don't Cry (2000) Discussion > Would anyone really believe Hillary Swan...

Would anyone really believe Hillary Swank was a man?


She looked convincing enough, from a distance, but sounded so much like a woman that I never could really suspend disbelief enough. Felt like all the actors were just pretending she was a convincing man. Would anyone have really thought that in real life, if you heard her talk? Not knocking the movie btw, great film.

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Well, the real Brandon kept his actual female voice as well.

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It sounds like a very superficial observation.

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Not the voice, but I've always thought she had masculine features.

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[deleted]

There are some guys who's voices don't drop until later in life. She is passable as a young man, who is a late bloomer.

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In the early 90s and especially in the South, people were too naive on the transgender issues. They would be really oblivious to this.

Now if Brandon was living in San Francisco in 2010s, a lot of people would suspect him of being a biological female for sure.

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

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Now if Brandon was living in San Francisco in 2010s, a lot of people would suspect him of being a biological female for sure


That's a good point. I live in the south and about 20 years ago I knew a male-to-female in Houston, she was 6 foot 3 and built like a linebacker and most people acted like they believed she was a real woman. I thought people were going to go, "What the hell!!!" But strangely no one did. At least not when I was with her but maybe it did happen. People would stare and sometimes gasp or giggle when they would see her, but for the most part they acted like they thought she was a woman. It could be they were just being polite about not being too obvious about what they really thought.

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Actually, to get into character Hillary Swank went out to clubs and bars as a man and people called her sir and no one batted an eye. I think the reason you may be unconvinced is because your brain is telling you it's a woman. If you didn't know she was a woman and saw her out on the street you wouldn't think twice about it.

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