Transphobia in movies

[DeeW]

It's not them being cis that is being made fun of it can be anything: they're skinny, they're fat, they're short, they're tall, they have glasses, they have an overbite, they have an underbite, they have braces, they have pimples, they have BO, they're poor, they're rich, and the list goes on.  Just because they are a majority (straight/white/cis) doesn't mean they don't have feelings and that being made fun of doesn't hurt them.

No one is saying straight/white/cis don't have feelings jeez where that come from? But simply being cis isn't being joked about, while being trans is. A trans person can be all those things as well. Any race/orientation/identity/neurotype can be made fun of that way, it's not a strictly straight/white/cis joek. It is hard to justify trans jokes on the basis of 'everyone is done equally' when the equivalent is not joked about. Furthermore we're talking about it in a wide scope as it pertains to groups, not specific people like it sounds like you're talking about.
If you have a band of comedians, and they're all making jokes at the expense of black people, but don't make any about any other race, does that make it equal? Even if they're making fun of specific people of different races for their attributes, like a Taylor Swift dumb blonde joke, are we really comparing the same thing?

[MaxAloysius]

A very interesting topic. I love Ace Ventura, and while it does bother me a little the way they react to the trans character, I can still find it funny. Most of the comedy in the Ace Ventura movies is purposely offensive, so I don't get too offended by it, plus I think the real comedy of the moment is the implication that she's been kissing everyone on the force, not that she was born male. -shrug-

I also don't have an issue with She's The Man; I feel like that movie actually did a great job of showing some of the challenges faced by either gender, including scenes where the guys were stuggling with being less 'macho', and with a main female character who was more masculine in a lot of ways.

[big kim]

Dressed to kill featured a trans slasher,thankfully this POS sunk without trace a long time ago

[Andy]

What about "Dog Day Afternoon"?

Nygeel, I know "Some Like it Hot" really well--I don't think them crossdressing is made fun of in the same spirit as it is in movies like "Ace Ventura"--it's more like "Is my slip showing?" type of jokes. Not mean-spirited, no one is "grossed out." I'm sure others might find it offensive, but  it IS  a very funny movie, and the premise of boys dressing as girls as fodder for humor goes all the way back to Shakespeare, you know? Just sayin'. The line of where stuff gets non-PC for us is very fine, don't you think?


EDIT: I just looked up "Dog Day Afternoon" on Netflix--the plot summary says "...To get money for his gay lover's sex-change operation..."  What's wrong with this picture???!!

[eVan24]

I find the Buffalo Bill debate rather interesting as it is a fictional character that people have disected his personality and background to figure out more on his mental stability or lack there of. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, we are curious by nature. It just shows how genius the author was to be able to put together a character so complex that people sit around the table and debate his way of thinking. It's interesting to me.

Anyways, on the opposite side of things, Grey's Anatomy had a transguy and girl on there who were dating, the guy was having top surgery. The father found out and was pissed and kept calling him she and what not. It was pretty emotional and by the end the father checked on his son to make sure he was okay, gave him some money and then left.
Also on Glee, they have a character "Unique" who at one point was crying because she got kicked out of the women's bathroom (she hasn't transitioned but often comes to school dressed as a woman) and talked about how she doesn't belong in the mens and not allowed in the womens. I teared up.

[Shodan]

Going to step in here and say that the scene in Ace Ventura is actually parodying the big reveal in The Crying Game, taking Stephen Rea's character's reaction when he realized that he was attracted to somebody who was transgender (I'm pretty sure she was just  a crossdresser, but it's been ages since I've seen the movie.) One could make the argument that they're making fun of that character's rather over the top reaction to the reveal, and that by exaggerating it, they're pointing out exactly how ridiculous it is.

But this is Ace Ventura we're talking about and, frankly, would be giving that movie way too much credit.


*Edited to get the right actor in The Crying Game. Told you it's been a while.

[Contravene]

It think that's a bit of an overreaction to Ace Ventura. The football player (Ray Finkle, I think was his name) wasn't actually transgender or transexual, he was just pretending to be a woman to hide his identity for a brief period of time to get revenge on one of his old team mates, hence the over the top reactions when Ace found out. I'm sure there are movies out there that portray transphobia but I wouldn't really count this as one of them.

[spacerace]

I was probably 10 when I saw Ace Ventura.   That is just the right age group to find it hilarious .  However, the nuances of 'she wasn't really trans etc etc"  did not have lasting effect.

Instead, I have to say, I associated that "Ugggh!!!!" gross out scene and the revealing of what was in the back of her pants made a far more lasting impact. Anytime I heard the word transsexual for years I thought of that scene.

All sorts of people are made fun of in movies, yes. But there are an equal number of positive depictions for many of those groups of people - even blondes fall under the generic cisgender white person umbrella.  What I fear is that movies like Ace Ventura are most people's *only* impression of the notion of being transsexual.   It's such a hard thing for people to understand, and when stuff like this what we have to work with, it is such an uphill battle.

I think that Kate Bornstein book touched on this if I remember correctly - something about the clown role of the transgender woman. It it totally true and perpetuated.

I don't think this is the fault of the people who make the movies, and I would never ever advocate that anything should be censored in the slightest. So then what is the solution?  Only time, I think. 

More and more acceptance will accumulate, and people will be exposed to the fact we're normal people. Trans people in movies will stop being comedy acts, and people who never say anything homophobic or racist will stop feeling like it is okay to say the word '->-bleeped-<-' on national television, etc.  Those other shows people mentioned - Glee, and Degrassi are starting to show signs of mainstream cultural improvements, so I think once another generation reaches adulthood things will be better.

[Joanna Dark]

I remember seeing the first Ace Ventura in the mid-90s when i was like 10 or 12 or so and while I did find it funny, when the reveal is shown and the characters react in the way they do and the trans woman is shown to be evil, it did effect me. I know that and other depictions of trans women set my transition back years. And when I started having tons of problems and had like multiple psychologists and psychiatrists, I certainly never told them I was trans. If society didn't feature trans characters that way I guess I can't say if it would be any different.

I do think we are progressing as a society. In the show "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" Mac dates a trans woman and in both episodes she is in (one pre-op; the other post-op) she is shown as the moral center of each show while the gang is shown as degenerates. They never really go to far though. So I actually think that is one of the better depictions. The trans woman is also quite beautiful so it throws of the whole "man in a dress" plot. Though it was the same in Ace Ventura. I kinda think the director of Ace Ventura chose Sean Young to portray the trans woman because in real life she is off-kilter and it was well-known in Hollywood by that time. That was one of her last major roles. But that is pure conjecture.

[brainiac]

I have Whipping Girl by Julia Serano elsewhere so I can't look up specific examples now, but it totally talks about two archetypes of trans women presented in the media, including movies. The first is the "man in a dress", someone who doesn't pass at all. This is mocked for comedic effect because "a man wanting to be feminine" (which is how it's presented) is a man lowering himself in status because feminine = inferior in many ways in our society. This character is viewed as pathetic. The second is "the predator", a.k.a. "trap" or a trans woman who passes so well that it's not until "too late" that a cis male partner discovers that she is "really a man". She is treated as dangerous since she's "tricking men into believing she's a woman" and that triggers homophobic fears. Either way, their identities are not considered legitimate.

I haven't seen as many negative depictions of trans men, and I think as Julia Serano points out, it's more acceptable for a female to look/act masculine in our society than it is for a male to look/act feminine. And as we all know, ignorant people tend to treat sex assigned at birth as the be all and end all of "true" gender determination.

That's not to say that trans men aren't discriminated against or depicted in awful ways in media, but I do think there is a difference.

[Nygeel]

It think that's a bit of an overreaction to Ace Ventura. The football player (Ray Finkle, I think was his name) wasn't actually transgender or transexual, he was just pretending to be a woman to hide his identity for a brief period of time to get revenge on one of his old team mates, hence the over the top reactions when Ace found out. I'm sure there are movies out there that portray transphobia but I wouldn't really count this as one of them.

The over the top "gross" factor when people realized they kissed somebody they didn't see as a woman any more, the pointing out genitals.

[Contravene]

The over the top "gross" factor when people realized they kissed somebody they didn't see as a woman any more, the pointing out genitals.

I would say that's homophobic rather than transphobic since he wasn't even trans, just a male disguising himself as a woman temporarily. I'm not saying homophobia is right either since it's just as bad but you can't really label something as being transphobic when the person being made fun of isn't transgender.

[~RoadToTrista~]

I do think we are progressing as a society. In the show "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" Mac dates a trans woman and in both episodes she is in (one pre-op; the other post-op) she is shown as the moral center of each show while the gang is shown as degenerates. They never really go to far though. So I actually think that is one of the better depictions. The trans woman is also quite beautiful so it throws of the whole "man in a dress" plot. Though it was the same in Ace Ventura. I kinda think the director of Ace Ventura chose Sean Young to portray the trans woman because in real life she is off-kilter and it was well-known in Hollywood by that time. That was one of her last major roles. But that is pure conjecture.

That is the only show in the world where a transsexual has a baby through sperm banking and everyone tells her she'll make a great mother.

[GQBookworm]

Someone mentioned 1985's "Just One of the Guys" -- I was nine when that came out, and when it showed up on HBO six months later I watched it over and over again.  The ending really pissed me off, where they show the protagonist showing her chest and looking feminine, but the first part of the movie completely fascinated me.  I imagined myself dressing up and being a boy at school, and seeing that movie made me so damn happy... Granted, I was nine and didn't get that the protagonist was being laughed at.  I just thought it was this incredible fantasy for people like me.  I loved that movie.  I'd be afraid to watch it now, though.  It would probably just piss me off.  Sigh.

[Arch]

If he really was then it would have come across to the doctors and he would have been treated for it (in the same way we go through this ourselves) He was not diagnosed with GID so of course would not be given treatment.

Things are better now, but back in the day, clinics and doctors routinely denied services to people who really were trans but who didn't fit the narrow profile that was accepted at the time. A lot of people were turned away, for no really good reason. If I had tried to transition back when I first came out to myself, I would likely have been turned away for a number of reasons but mainly because I am gay, and there was no such thing as a gay trans man. So they said.

The Silence of the Lambs gives me a few problems but inhabits a gray area because (as has been said here) the villain is identified as not being a real transsexual. But that doesn't necessarily mean that he (or she, depending on how that character identified) wasn't trans*. And, as has also been pointed out, most of the audience wouldn't really get the distinction.

I ran across a British series a little while back that starred Robson Green, one of my new favourites (just had to throw in the "u"). It's called Wire in the Blood. But I almost didn't get past the first episode because its villain was a "killer ->-bleeped-<-" type, a caricature of most of the trans women I know IRL. She was portrayed sort of as a crazed man-in-a-dress who had actually had bottom surgery. I think the show went out of its way to make her very masculine-looking and -acting; for example, she clearly hadn't had FFS. And then I thought, well, it's the NHS. What are its regulations about FFS? How hard is it to get?

Anyway, I was so offended about the character that I completely missed that the hero was shirtless for a good portion of the episode...nice fuzzy chest, as I later discovered in other episodes...it takes a lot to distract me from a cute nerdy guy with no shirt on, but the transphobic content surely did distract me.

[luna]

Nip/Tuck did a great job of making transsexuality look like an outright choice. One of the top recurring characters (Ava Moore) was depicted as only having a sex change because she was in love with a straight man. She was also a sexual predator who preyed on adolescent boys. Sigh.

[Padma]

The NHS in the UK doesn't provide trans women with any FFS or electrolysis, and since the funding changes that kicked in this month, no laser treatment either. It's a bit of a contradictory set-up, demanding that people live full-time and then making that only accessible to those who can afford to pay for their own beard removal (though it's definitely much better than nothing). Most trans women in the UK don't have FFS, but then in general we don't have the culture of cosmetic surgery that they do in the US, for example.

On the subject of transphobia in films, there's Kung Fu Panda 2, a subtle reinforcement of the "trap" myth. Po mistakes the she-goat soothsayer for a he-goat, and then says "The beard is misleading - kind of false advertising."

[Cassandra Hyacinth]

The NHS in the UK doesn't provide trans women with any FFS or electrolysis, and since the funding changes that kicked in this month, no laser treatment either. It's a bit of a contradictory set-up, demanding that people live full-time and then making that only accessible to those who can afford to pay for their own beard removal (though it's definitely much better than nothing). Most trans women in the UK don't have FFS, but then in general we don't have the culture of cosmetic surgery that they do in the US, for example.

When you say 'demanding that people live full-time'... you don't mean for HRT, do you? 

[Padma]

Actually, yes. Though depending on where you are in the country, the interpretation is more or less progressive. I'm fortunate to live near the most progressive GIC in the UK (or so I believe), in Exeter. The one in London has the worst reputation for out-of-date ideas about what constitutes a woman, for example, and rigid binary expectations about gender identity.

[Cassandra Hyacinth]

Well, during term-time I live in Exeter, so that's good. But the thought of having to go full-time before HRT is more than slightly terrifying. :/