I was having trouble sleeping the other night and watched Valentine Road, an HBO documentary about the murder of a cross-dressing boy named Larry King. The documentary is sad and infuriating. It raises painful issues about LGBT intolerance and reminded me of Boys Don't Cry.
I won't give too much away, but the documentary tells the story of Larry King. King, an orphaned biracial boy, had a crush on a white classmate named Brandon McInerney. On Valentine's day, King approached McInerney and gave him a Valentine's card. This was humiliating to McInerney, who lost face in front of his peers. McInerney later brought a loaded revolver with him to school and shot King twice in the back of the head. King would later die on life support.
The documentary isn't stylish, but the filmmakers portray both sides of this traumatic event. They interviewed Larry King's friends, teachers who later testified on his behalf, and the prosecutor in the McInerney trial. The filmmakers also included interviews with McInerney's family and his defense team (who, in their own right, are an interesting duo for many reasons).
In different ways, the documentary reminded me of lessons from David Lynch's Twin Peaks. Like Lynch's offbeat cult classic, Valentine Road really shows how murder unearths a community's darkest and most painful secrets.
For instance, we see how McInerney's trial opens up deep fault lines in Oxnard (a working-class southern California town). On one hand, you see people's LGBT intolerance in full display. Different people in the documentary reflect on King's murder and talk about how his cross-dressing essentially provoked the murder. This is the same kind of perverse logic that people use when they talk about women getting raped. Instead of focusing on the heinous acts of a predator, we slide into victim blaming.
It's absolutely maddening to watch and hear jurors talk about how McInerney was the "real" victim in this tragedy. I kept squirming while people rationalized the murder of a small boy. I wanted to scream, "Did everyone forget that a little boy was killed in cold blood? Why do we put victims on trial?"
Similarly, you see how race becomes an increasingly important fault line in the community. In one scene, you see three jurors (all white women) talk about how McInerney was the real victim in this event. They talk about how they could see McInerney as their own child and felt bad for him. They kept talking about how he would have to spend so much of his life behind bars. McInerney later accepted a plea and received 21 years in prison. These same jurors talk about how they felt that 21 years was way too long. Again, what does this say about how we collectively value the life of an LGBT/non-white boy?
Lastly, you also learn that McInerney seemed interested in (if not sympathetic to) the Neo-Nazis. Police obtained one of his sketchbooks, which was filled with Neo-Nazi doodles. Others talk about how McInerney was mentored by a member of a local white supremacist group. Some of the jurors and a teacher disavow these doodles and social ties, claiming that the prosecutor and others were making a big deal out of child's simple interest in "history."
In the end, I walked away from this documentary thinking about different things. I guess this is what a great documentary can do. If you have a spare hour or so, check out Valentine Road. If nothing else, it will make you reflect on your own biases and will challenge you to think about how we can collectively stamp out hate crimes.
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| Larry King was brutally murdered for being "different." |
The documentary isn't stylish, but the filmmakers portray both sides of this traumatic event. They interviewed Larry King's friends, teachers who later testified on his behalf, and the prosecutor in the McInerney trial. The filmmakers also included interviews with McInerney's family and his defense team (who, in their own right, are an interesting duo for many reasons).
In different ways, the documentary reminded me of lessons from David Lynch's Twin Peaks. Like Lynch's offbeat cult classic, Valentine Road really shows how murder unearths a community's darkest and most painful secrets.
For instance, we see how McInerney's trial opens up deep fault lines in Oxnard (a working-class southern California town). On one hand, you see people's LGBT intolerance in full display. Different people in the documentary reflect on King's murder and talk about how his cross-dressing essentially provoked the murder. This is the same kind of perverse logic that people use when they talk about women getting raped. Instead of focusing on the heinous acts of a predator, we slide into victim blaming.
It's absolutely maddening to watch and hear jurors talk about how McInerney was the "real" victim in this tragedy. I kept squirming while people rationalized the murder of a small boy. I wanted to scream, "Did everyone forget that a little boy was killed in cold blood? Why do we put victims on trial?"
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| McInerney's doodles |
Lastly, you also learn that McInerney seemed interested in (if not sympathetic to) the Neo-Nazis. Police obtained one of his sketchbooks, which was filled with Neo-Nazi doodles. Others talk about how McInerney was mentored by a member of a local white supremacist group. Some of the jurors and a teacher disavow these doodles and social ties, claiming that the prosecutor and others were making a big deal out of child's simple interest in "history."
In the end, I walked away from this documentary thinking about different things. I guess this is what a great documentary can do. If you have a spare hour or so, check out Valentine Road. If nothing else, it will make you reflect on your own biases and will challenge you to think about how we can collectively stamp out hate crimes.
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