Connect the Dots: Transgender Narratives in Pop Culture
By Matt Mazur 9 September 2011
PopMatters Contributing Editor
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/column/145222-connect-the-dots-transgender-narratives-in-pop-culture/What queen in America, or the world for that matter, myself included, doesn't live for the Academy Awards? Especially this past year, when our new Liza/Judy/Barbra brand of old school queer-friendly gamine/diva/idol Anne Hathaway co-hosted with queer-friendly, sexy actor James Franco?
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While Hathaway's simultaneous cheesecake suave appearance in a slinky tuxedo was meant to emblemize the gender-tweaking soft butch sexiness of Marlene Dietrich's Josef von Sternberg days, Franco's grotesque drag appearance was widely (I think, rightly) viewed as an embarrassment. Here was yet another Hollywood straight guy appropriating transgender culture for the express purpose of making it the object of ridicule, the big joke to be laughed at. Perhaps, as a sight gag, this act might have been culturally acceptable 20 years ago (probably even ten), so the swift, condemning response to the actor's schtick was pleasantly surprising. People widely called the telecast the worst Oscars in years, Franco's limp, desperate misappropriation of trans culture one of many sore spots.
