I've been watching a lot of transgender documentaries and a few movies lately, mostly transsexual based though. People repeat scenes, a lot.

A lady putting on make-up.
A man body building.
Little girls (or rarely boys) playing with their toys and showing them off.
Girls showing off pictures they've drawn before they transitioned, showing them as their gender.

...
I don't even know that many FtM that body build. I've wanted some dumbbells and I wanna gain a bit of muscle but that's it.
Why do they feel the need to show these stuff every documentary I don't get. Kids like toys, and kids draw, but it just gets so obvious they're connecting it to stuff.

...and let's not even get into the ridiculous number of "transsexual serial killer" films, fer christ's sake.

People don't want originality, they want what they have seen and liked before over and over.

Quote from: tekla on February 28, 2011, 07:29:15 AM
People don't want originality, they want what they have seen and liked before over and over.

Yeah.  That's why Hollywood has been remaking everything under the sun for the last decade.  I mean, a Speed Racer movie?  Was that a joke?  Transformers (which was actually entertaining) followed by an extremely bad sequel which the scriptwriters should have been so ashamed of that it should have never made it into production to begin with?

This lack of originality cannot be serious.  But apparently it is, as the film industry keeps pumping out the same movie with the same formula with a different title and characters.

You can't blame films for that, TV is guilty, as are books, and no where is it truer than the music biz (what's left of it).  Religions too follow that path, same old crap in a new wrapper.

I know that for the people I've worked with who have done the Van's Warped Tour (kiddie band crap) the funniest (saddest) part is that we change out one band for the next and the equipment is a carbon copy of the last one and the next one.  Ampeg bass amp, check.  Marshall for the lead, check.  Orange Amp for the rhythm, check.  Skinny girl jeans, obvious eye shadow and crappy hair cut for the lead singer, check.  Same chords, check, check and check.

I think it might be in our best interest to focus on an individuals  uniqueness. Especially in Documentaries. It seems to me that It would point out that we as trans people are more than a vague notion. It is easy to NOT like an idea, its harder to not like person. We are  people who may share a common path but we don't all wear the same shoes. But no one ever said that movie makers and Trans people share a common interest.   

No one speaks the truth like Tekla.

The only reason they do things like that in documentaries is because its the easiest to understand. Transgender/transsexual people as groups are hard enough to understand for unknowledgable people, let alone the complexity of unique individuals. It'd blow people's minds to see an FTM who desires to appear male, but that has adopted feminine tendencies as a part of that desire. Black and white appeals to almost everyone, not everyone can understand the shades of grey.

One of my golden rules has always been: Never ascribe to malice that which can be easily explained by stupidity.

In other words - go for the easy explanation first.  (Also known as Occam's razor)

(Don't worry, I'll duck after I finish writing this)

So many people in here frequently ask if they always have to explain their 'trans' status, or wonder why everyone is so damn interested in it.  And they reach for an explication like 'perverts' or 'people prying' when the real answer might be much simpler: really, it's not just the most interesting thing about you, it's pretty much the only interesting thing about you. 

That (and I'm assuming that this comes from the Lisa Ling bit on OWN) ex-boy learns how to put on makeup, and ex-girl is boxing at the gym stereotype aside from being a good visual (and since it's TV visuals are pretty much everything) is that other than that, there is not much of any interest at all in any of it.  Yeah, you might be able to get someone like Kate Bornstein to sit down and do in-depth explanations and cultural analysis of the the inner nature of transgenderness and the impact of these changes on society - but you know that has all the sheer excitement of any other episode of Charlie Rose interviewing anyone else.  It's like Amy Goodwin interviewing  Noam Chomsky on Democracy Now! - television that makes for damn good radio and even better reading, but has even less excitement than watching paint dry or grass grow when you put it on the tube.

The true inner nature of all of this, combined with often having subject that are, shall we charitably put it, less than articulate, (How many ways and for how long can you say "I've always felt like this"?) pretty much forces the producers hand into having to put on something - anything - that has some action to it.

Oh look it takes pills is not entertainment, and the very nature of GRS makes it not a subject that TV can cover, so exactly what are you left with?  Boring people living rather mundane lives (which I know is really the goal for a lot of people here) that really have no compelling interest about them at all.  So the producers and directors are stuck with what amount to stock footage of the cliché scenes.

To be honest, when you boil narratives down to their most basic, there's only about 7 distinct narrative themes. Besides, if postmodernism holds any weight, there are no more original ideas now...just endless rehashs.

I see the documentaries about trans kids following the same script, two MtFs, 2 FtMs - usually one MtF that makes the viewer think "OMG she's a he?" and one that's built like a tank.  The FtMs are usually older and the only one's I've seen in any stage of HRT (including blockers).  Why is it that no documentaries show older kid MtFs?  Despite a number of documentaries that show MtFs in the 6 - 9 y/o range, no one seems to have documented an MtF teen on HRT, etc.  It almost makes me worry that these kids are on a path to self destruction, otherwise where are they when the producers come calling?

As for the adults, why are FtMs always interviewed at the gym?  And when they show pictures of MtF's pre-transition "dressed" why are they always hyperfeminine?  It just makes me feel like we're all branded a bunch of crossdressers.

/rant

Why is it that no documentaries show older kid MtFs?

Parental consent.  And I would never give mine to any camera crew.

Quote from: tekla on February 28, 2011, 10:10:05 AM
Why is it that no documentaries show older kid MtFs?

Parental consent.  And I would never give mine to any camera crew.

I would agree with that, but there are probably 1/2 dozen relatively out pre-teens.  I have yet to see an article or documentary about an MtF older then say about 9/10.  So what is it about that age that parents suddenly clam up?  And if that's the case, why are older FtMs (>10 y/o) profiled? I would think the logic would be the same.

So many people in here frequently ask if they always have to explain their 'trans' status, or wonder why everyone is so damn interested in it.  And they reach for an explication like 'perverts' or 'people prying' when the real answer might be much simpler: really, it's not just the most interesting thing about you, it's pretty much the only interesting thing about you.  (tekla)


That's gold ! 

If I had a trans child the LAST thing I would want to do is make them a 'trans celebrity' in any way, shape or form.  What an amazing handicap for anyone who wants a 'normal' life to have to carry.

Quote from: tekla on February 28, 2011, 10:33:47 AM
If I had a trans child the LAST thing I would want to do is make them a 'trans celebrity' in any way, shape or form.  What an amazing handicap for anyone who wants a 'normal' life to have to carry.

Its no different then the moms that parade their daughters around the pageant circut.  Anything to put the attention on them.  I would say the majority of these parents are well intentioned, but I'm just as sure they're offered money for their appearances and money changes people.  I know of one child that seems to be making the talk show circuit, and I really question the motives of the mother, including some on camera "day in the life" conversations she's having with her child, including some in depth discussions about GRS with an 8 y/o?  There is other family history that makes me wonder if this is just a confused child doing what they see pleases their mother.  If that's true, I fear for their future.

If you are a Kim Petras and your life depends on coverage that might be one thing (though I'm still inclined not to agree, but I hate all child 'stars' for the most part), but for anyone else it's the kiss of death because you will always be 'that person in that documentary'.  That stuff never goes away.  Kind of like how we were talking at work the other day about being so fortunate to grow up in a time where everyone didn't have a camera and was not constantly taking pictures.

Its no different then the moms that parade their daughters around the pageant circut.
I watch Toddlers & Tiaras and think 'child abuse.' 

As I understand Kim Petras, she gained fame, prior to her singing career, becuase her parents were battling the German legal system and the newsmedia picked up on it.  They didn't go looking for it, it found them.

In every case that I'm aware of, the parents are willing to admit rather then fight the legal system they are side stepping it in allowing their children to live their lives as they choose.  More then one parent has expressed fear that they will have some explaining to do to child services (who still forbids that sort of thing) or the extraordinary measures they've taken in schooling their children.

The media is in their life becuase they invite them in.

Quote from: tekla on February 28, 2011, 10:48:21 AM
I watch Toddlers & Tiaras and think 'child abuse.'

Did you ever watch Little Miss Sunshine?  Children's pageants is one of the themes.  The movie is a satire about a bunch of people who are completely unsuccessful and unremarkable.

I've never been close to that world at all, don't know anyone who has ever gone close to those things, but I have worked on 'adult' (late teenage) pageants, but those girls are old enough to decide that such things are worth what it takes.

However, watching shows like that convince me that it's pretty much the same as what I do have a lot of experience working with, which is kids in theater.  Really I'd rather be shot than ever have to work The King and I, The Sound of Music or Oliver ever again.  The kids are uptight and the parents are pretty much the worst people I've ever met on this planet.

Quote from: tekla on February 28, 2011, 10:48:21 AM
I watch Toddlers & Tiaras and think 'child abuse.'

Oh gods, this.