I keep reading posts about the "twist" making people sick. Mostly men, that is.
However, I was not caught off guard by the twist. When I first heard/saw Dil in her initial beauty parlor scene, I immediately said, "That's a man." Although I think Jaye Davidson made a lovely woman, I still recognized his masculinity.
I was wondering if any of the other female viewers found it obvious as well.
It fooled me the first time, but Jordan could have cast a manish woman and used a fake penis to tell his story.
I kinda figured when Dil was singing at the Metro, I was like, "Damn she's got some big hands!... Wait a minute...."
"The unopened package was a waterproof, solar-powered, satelite phone"- Robert Zemeckis, Cast Away
I think those responses are pretty sad and it nearly broke my heart when Fergus' response was to go throw up. How cruel.
That being said, I also pegged Dil as male/transgender very early on. In fact, as soon as she appears, I was thinking the eye makeup seemed very over-the-top and then as soon as she spoke I knew something was off, but thought that maybe I was overanalyzing. Honestly, for most of the movie I was trying to fight that initial reaction and convince myself that Dil was a plain ol' girl. But then of course, the scene where the hairdressers clap and of course the scene where she pulls away when Fergus/Jimmy tries to touch her basically convinced me that my initial reaction had some real weight.
I think men can make themselves into beautiful women. I think the actor did an amazing job of being a convincing woman, and was drop dead sexy, but by the time the robe came off, I was...less than shocked. I think it was a combination of the voice and the subtle clues left by the director that tipped me off.
Yeah, I JUST started watching this on netflix, and the voice gave it away immediately. I've actually just paused after the hair cut scene, and I'll go watch the rest later. I couldn't keep watching the movie without confirming my suspicion.
When did you guys watch this movie?
I watched it when I was around 11-12 years old, back in 93 when it was released in VHS, watched it with my mother.
Obviously I was too naive to get the twist, but neither my mother did it.
I watched this movie many years later with my now wife, and when Dil appears on-screen for the first time, she said "That's a man!" I went "WTF?". I tried to play it like "What? Of course not, are you crazy?", but when her hands shows up my wife said "Those are man's hands!", and when she spoke, my wife again said "Jesus, of course that's a man! Hear this voice! It may be a woman in the movie, but this actor is obviously a man!"
I thought that people at 92 was maybe more naive than we are today, and would have a harder time guessing.
For a random reason I just watched the trailer of this movie, and when Dil shows up, I thought "How the hell we didn't figured it out within the last 3 minutes Dil is on screen?"
[deleted]
I thought it was obvious it was a man right from the start
shareyeah i had the same feeling....and it made me quite sick too. Ugghhh....Had to watch 5 hardcore straight porn flicks to get over it.....
shareI don't know if it is the fact that people watched it back then, that they did not figure it out. Being a female, I think I can pick up on who else is a female....The voice, the big hands. I don't know of any other female with hands that big. If that didn't confirm it, yes, the bartender. He said, "she is..." I think that confirmed my suspicions, then I looked around the bar and noticed she was not the only transgender there. If those clues didn't knock me over the head, the make out scene where she took his hands away from her private area.
I was just hoping this was not the twist. Any other twist, is usually close to impossible for me to figure. I am one of those people who never gets the twist until it is revealed. I, however, know a man when I see one.
It's not supposed to be a complete shock - there's clues up to that point.
In her book about the film, Jane Giles says this:
"Contrary to the film's American press campaign, the narrative success of The Crying Game does not rely on its audience believing from the outset that Jaye Davidson is a woman. This film is about the redemption of Fergus, from whose point of view the story is told. Fergus assumes that Dil is a woman until the moment he sees she is not. Jaye Davidson's Dil, therefore, had to be convincing or the audience would not believe that Fergus could mistake a he for a she. But Dil is not so convincing that the viewer reels in disbelief at the film's sleight of hand, and on a second viewing one can see that Jordan has 'played fairly' by giving plenty of hints and double entendres among a whole shoal of red herrings."
But yeah, some people were very much taken by surprise, especially back then when there was even less knowledge of trans people than what there is now. I remember watching this on VHS with my mother almost 20 years ago and she was shocked (I'd sneaked into see it at the cinema and knew beforehand what the 'twist' was).
[deleted]
This film is on the THIS TV Network tonight.
To mostly echo another post in this thread, no, there is no way that ANY heterosexual male didn't realize immediately that the character was a male impersonating a female. It just couldn't happen. A woman could have been fooled but no truly normal male could have been.
Remember When Movies Didn't Have To Be Politically Correct?