SOURCE: "Bending Phallic Patriarchy in The Crying Game," in Journal of Popular Film and Television, Vol. 22, No. 4, Winter, 1995, pp. 172-79.

In the following essay, Boozer, Jr. analyzes how in The Crying Game, "Jordan emphasizes the construction of sexual difference in the context of political ideology and race, and the role of all three in cultural representation generally."

Irish writer-director Neil Jordan has set off a firestorm of serious critical response with his contemporary fable The Crying Game. Most of the film's tableaux are constructed around incendiary sexual seductions that deceive his positive characters and the unwary spectator into misreadings of the objects of desire. In particular, Jordan emphasizes the construction of sexual difference in the context of political ideology and race, and the role of all three in cultural representation generally.

The question for some observers has been whether The Crying Game's challenge to gender conventions goes...