Transgender movies everyone should see

[Natasha]

Transgender movies everyone should see

http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/lgbt/Transgender-movies-everyone-should-see/40477.html
11/21/12
by David-Elijah Nahmod

Since 1998, Nov. 20 has been set aside as the Transgender Day of Remembrance. It's primary purpose is to remember and honor the many transgender people who died as a result of anti-trans violence. Although Nov. 20 is the official date, transgender people and their allies have events scheduled throughout the month.

For decades, trans people largely invisible in popular culture. As with gay men before them, on the rare occasions when they were seen, it was usually in a negative light. Though transgender characters are slowly moving into the light, it's still an uphill battle.

[UCBerkeleyPostop]

Funny, I was just thinking of renting Transamerica to see if I still think it was as off the mark, really a caricature, as the first time I saw it when it premiered at The Castro Theater.

[big kim]

Different for Girls is a good one.Always wanted to see I want what I want but it's vanished without trace.It was a good book

[Sandy]

Myra Breckenridge?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Are they out of their effing minds?!

I read the book and saw the movie.  Neither of them have any clue to what being transsexual is about.

It is nothing but Gore Vidal's descent into literary masturbation.  The only trans people he knew were drag queens and thought all trans people were like that.

He described Myra as a sex crazed maniac bent on using her sex as a tool for revenge.  He could have just as easily made the character a male ax murderer and achieved the same effect.  He used transsexuality as a literary crutch to explain her desperate need for revenge.  The same way being gay as used was an explanation, at the time, for pedophilia.  It was stupid and thoughtless.  I lost all respect for Vidal as a result.

And the movie was so bad, Rex Reed, who played Myron, and famous movie critic, panned the movie.  It rightfully drove the studio, 20th Century Fox, into bankruptcy.

It's bad literature, bad film making, and not even good enough to serve as a negative example.

It tries to show the transsexual experience with the same authority as a KKK'r could explain being black.

Run away from this movie, run away from this book.

-Sandy

[big kim]

I had the misfortune to read Myra Breckinridge,I decided to give the film a miss as a result.Utter rubbish

[eli77]

I despise Transamerica. The thing was just a bad movie. I wouldn't even dignify the thing with a criticism of its portrayal of trans women.

And, ya, Boys Don't Cry is kind of amazing. But isn't it great that the ONE good movie about a trans person is about them getting raped and murdered. Joy.

[Sandy]

Although not a trans movie per se, "Better Than Chocolate" is probably one of my all time favorite movies, period.

It is an ensemble piece whose main focus is the lesbian couple.  However there is a trans character, Judy, played by Peter Outerbridge, with such accuracy and tenderness that I was truly surprised to find out that he wasn't trans. 

A lovely romantic movie and no one gets killed or raped, though you are introduced to transphobia from a female point of view.

And it has a couple of really really steamy scenes that bring a whole new meaning to the term "finger painting". 

Hmmm...  I think it's time to bring it out again. 

-Sandy