  Boys Don’t Cry
by Robert White
Brandon Teena turned up on the front door of his girlfriend’s home at 6.00 am Christmas morning in 1993, bruised and bloodied. He had been exposed, earlier that morning, as a woman. He had also been raped by his two closest friends, including the man he regarded as a role model, and as a type of father figure. Three days later, at the age of 21, Brandon Teena was shot dead by the men who had raped him, and then he was stabbed, and then shot again. An unspent bullet was found on the floor, between Brandon Teena’s legs, a testament to the small-minded hate that prematurely snuffed out a life. (Read more...)
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Dead Poets Society
by Robert White
Few works of art affect me as profoundly as the Dead Poets Society. It arouses my emotions, inflames my mind and inspires my soul. It carries me to the heights of ecstasy, and reduces me to tears. I have watched the Dead Poets Society many times over the past eleven years, and each time I see it my love for it deepens, as my love for it becomes more conscious. A great work of art is like a great woman - it caresses the soul, stirs the passions, excites the imagination and leaves one feeling alive - where feeling alive means not a grey, undifferentiated weight, but a command to rise - a command to seize the day, and make one's life extraordinary. Dead Poets Society is set at the Welton Academy, an elite preparatory school for boys. The four pillars of the school's philosophy are: tradition, honour, discipline and excellence. John Keating (played by Robin Williams) is an ex-pupil of the school and its new English teacher. He believes that the purpose of education is to teach students to think for themselves. This belief brings him into conflict with the school's administration. (Read more...)
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