-
Transgenderism in Film – your comments please
-
Just thought I would try and revitalise an old subject in the Forum.
I really love the movie Connie and Carla, always gives me a laugh, has at least 4 well known stars in it and cheers me up when I’m feeling down.
Pamela!
-
Unknown wrote:Transamerica
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transamerica_(film)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407265/maindetails
Now I know this film has definitely divided people, both within and out of the TG community….Still, if you can get past that, and handle the overall style of the movie, it can be quite a great little film with a strong message.
I have just been introduced to the writings of Julia Serano – and am finding her perspective on the transexual world refreshingly honest.
In ther book Whipping Girl she presents her view on TransAmerica as an illustration of our fascination with Feminisation.
Quote:An excellent example (of the fascination with “Feminisation”) is Transamerica. In the opening five minutes of the film we see Bree practicing along with the instructional video “Finding Your Female Voice”, putting on stockings, padding her bra, donning a pink dress suit, painting her nails (also pink), and putting on lipstick, eyeshadow, powder, and other cosmetics. This scene (not coincidentally) is immediately followed by the first dialog in the movie, where Bree tells a psychiatrist that she’s been on hormone replacement therapy for three years, has undergone electrolysis, feminine facial surgery, a brow-lift, forehead reduction, jaw recontouring, and a tracheal shave.This opening flurry of cosmetic and medical feminization is clearly designed to establish that Bree’s female identity is artificial and imitative, and to reduce her transition to the mere pursuit of feminine finery.
Throughout the rest of the film, feminine apparel and cosmetics are repeatedly used as a device to highlight Bree‘s fakeness. There are excessive scenes in which Bree is shown in the act of dressing and undressing, as though her clothing represented some kind of costume.
We also see her applying and fixing her makeup nearly every chance she gets, and it is difficult not to view the thick layers of foundation she constantly wears as a mask that is hiding the “real” (undoubtedly more masculine) Bree underneath.
While many MTF crossdressers often wear heavy makeup to cover up their beard shadow, a trans woman like Bree—who has already undergone electrolysis and been on hormones for three years; would not need to do this. Indeed, the fact that her foundation begins to develop a sheen from perspiration at several points in the movie, and that she stumbles in her high heels on more than one occasion—faux pas that never seem to aflict cissexual women in Hollywood – makes it clear that the filmmakers purposely used these female accessories as props to portray Bree as “doing female” rather badly. And they certainly succeeded, as Felicity Huffman comes off seeming infinitely more contrived than the several real-life trans women (such as Andrea James and Calpernia Addams) who appear briefly in the film.
-
Cybil wrote:I believe the very first movie to cover the transexual subject was the “Christene Jorgan Story” starring Vanessa Redgrave.
If we are thinking of the same movie, it came out in 1970 but didn’t have Vanessa Redgrave in it.
http://film.famousfix.com/tpx_651592/the-christine-jorgensen-story/
You might be thinking of ‘Second Serve’. the Renee Richards story.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091913/
