Use of adjectives in Billy Porter's Anything's Possible

Billy Porter's latest directorial, Anything's Possible, debuted on Amazon Prime Video on July 22, 2022. The anticipated film lived up to its hype as it beautifully depicted a high school relationship between a cis boy and a trans girl. The relentless drama also brought forward some compelling questions about gender identity and norms, without centering the film all around it.

The premise of the film revolved around Khal (Abubakr Ali), a high school student with a crush on a transgender teen, Kelsa (Eva Reign). The subtle love story was enough to win the hearts of critics and fans, with many comparing it to a John Hughes flick from the late 1980s.

Along with the quirky premise and high school drama, there was a lot more to take away from Anything's Possible, key among them being the use of adjectives.

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How the lead characters in Anything's Possible redefined the use of adjectives

Public discourse often tends to associate certain adjectives with "good" and others with "bad." For instance, adjectives like "brave," "courageous," loyal," "sweet," etc. are often connected to something good, with no consideration for what it means for the person who is associated with it.

One of the many striking things Anything's Possible achieved was to shatter this preconceived notion of associating someone with a term that is predominantly considered good. The protagonists of this film aptly depicted why the so-called "good" adjectives were hurtful to them, much like they can be hurtful to many others.

Kelsa was frequently called "brave" because of her choice to come out as transgender. However, every time someone used that adjective to define her, they inadvertently ended up defining her based only on her gender, and not based on who she was as a person.

In the film, she is seen numerous times trying to rid herself of this "brave" tag, so that her entire identity isn't reduced to her openly accepting her gender. It also served as a constant reminder to Kelsa that she was not like everyone else.

Similarly, Khal did not like being called "nice." This was mainly because his "nice" character also resulted in him losing out on a lot. He could not fight his parents about his future or fight off his homophobic friend before it was too late, all because he was a "nice guy." So, every time Khal was called nice, he associated it with his failure to stand up or enforce his choices.

In a nutshell, both Khal and Kelsa, did not prefer to be addressed by the so-called good adjectives, since that reduced their identity to a single part of their personality while also reminding them of the negative things that they had to go through as a consequence of being "nice" or "brave."

Adjective usage is an issue that has not often been addressed properly on screen.

However, Billy Porter effectively brought it up without deviating from the overall mood or the plot of the story, making it an excellent addition for a debut film. Reign and Ali further helped bring out the negative side of such adjective usage with their compelling performances.

Billy Porter's Anything's Possible is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.