Watching this film, I had a lot of complaints. I knew I would be upset that Ron was so strongly depicted as straight, I knew that Jared Leto playing a trans woman was not going to be my favorite thing about the movie, and I definitely knew that the movie was going to make me sad.

Before watching the movie, I had talked with some queer family friends who had lived through the AIDS crisis, and it really made me go into watching it with a different mindset. I knew there were plenty of reasons to dislike the portrayal of the real people in this film, but after talking with them, and genuinely getting to hear their experiences as queer people who lived through the AIDS crisis, and lived through the fears of being gay in the 80’s. Going into the movie, which I had been prepared to hate, with that perspective definitely made me see something different in the film.

Rayon… the best character in the entire movie. Without a doubt.

Having a cis-male method actor play a beautifully iconic trans woman through this movie was definitely an interesting decision, and as much as I don’t like Jared Leto, regularly, it was impossible not to adore Rayon.

She (because I will be using she/her when talking about her) is such a beautiful soul. The minute we meet her on the screen, she is only looking to help Ron. The way she cares for him throughout the movie, as well as her sense of humor and style, was a beautiful depiction of the history of the AIDS crisis, as well as the strength and kindness that trans women showed while fighting for LGBTQ+ rights.

Rayon’s death deserved more. Seeing her partner folding her clothes did undoubtedly make me cry, but I felt that her character deserved a better ending. While I think it was realistic to have her pass before the end of the film, she did so much throughout the entire movie that I just felt like she deserved so much better.

While Rayon was not based on Ron’s real life’s story, and was solely added to advance the plot of the movie, she depicted real queer people, which was beyond necessary when completely erasing the possible queer identity of Ron.

Ron, along with everyone else, never called Rayon a woman or use she/her pronouns anytime in the film, but I kept finding moments that I couldn’t say that Ron was not acting as an ally. Forcing Tucker to shake her hand and making sexist jokes about women towards her, like telling her to put on an apron and clean up are just two examples of this. Especially when he would make sexist jokes, I did end up laughing, because if he was going to be a bit of an ass, at least he was a gender affirming ass?

“Fuck all y’all”

Ron and Eve do in fact slay, and I knew that every single time they walked out of the room saying this (because they both did, at least once in the film), they meant business.

I loved seeing Eve move through the movie as a rule follower, and getting to the point where she genuinely cared more about her patients’ lives than her job. She became a doctor because she was good at science, but she stayed a doctor because she wanted to help people, and if the hospital didn’t want to let her do that, then she didn’t need their help to save people’s lives.

The clowns…? Rodeo… and the ending.

What an odd motif. I think that with the film being so heartbreaking, and seeing a rodeo clown in Ron’s darkest moments in the film, just seems so contradictory.

The clowns first showed up when Ron was first at the rodeo, at the beginning of the movie. They were around during that first sex scene, when Ron was initially starting to feel sick.

After he was diagnosed with HIV and started to abuse the AZT that he was buying illegally, he sees a clown hiding in a barrel, as he sits in the arena’s stadium having an awful realization that he was going to die from his disease.

The last time that we see the clowns in a moment like this in the film is when Rayon dies. He gets back from Mexico, only to learn that Rayon is in the hospital. One creepy clown statue later, and we know that not only is Rayon dead, but Ron is having a horrible time. His best friend at this point has died, and there is nothing that he feels like he can do.

After losing his court case to continue getting the drugs from Mexico, he comes home to a surprise of people celebrating him. What seems like a perfect ending isn’t actually the ending of the film, however, and the real ending is at the rodeo. It felt like an odd way to end the film, but it was very full circle. The freeze screen of his bull riding was very on brand for 2013, but it turned the focus away from all of the good things he did to save people’s lives.

In a way, the ending turned the focus back to the fact that he was just a man with AIDS, who just wanted to be able to live his life again. He fought to live his life, and he fought so that others could live theirs.

A link to the movie Dallas Buyers Club on Amazon Prime Video

A link to AIDS resources through Planned Parenthood