I want in this paper to focus on the two most important elements of my critical perspective on transgender representation in film: film analysis and gender. While other elements including discourse, social identity and transgender studies may play important roles, I feel it is most important to clearly develop my positions on film and gender before moving on to other aspects of this project.
Film Analysis
Raymond Bellour points out that one of the challenges facing the film analyst is the difficulty in translating into written text a medium that incorporates sound, text and moving images. Even the frequently used stills cannot fully capture the experience of viewing a film because they fail to capture the sound and motion that are necessary traits of most modern films.
Bellour’s comments speak to the difficulty in capturing the experience of viewing film. My perspective on film analysis focuses on the reception of films by different audiences instead of on the production of particular films and is guided by the work of film theorists including Leo Braudy, Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell.
In The World in a Frame: What We See in Films, Leo Braudy develops a theory of film focused on reception, not creation. He argues that because seeing in films is easy, it is often seen as indicating an absence of art. Viewers do not recognize that reality in film is constructed in a particular way. “Movies interrogate reality not be recording objects, but by establishing a frame in time within which objects achieve momentary meaning” (35, emphasis mine). The frame becomes the metaphor through which Braudy structures his theory of film.
Through the focus of the frame, objects gain significance in film. Only certain objects can be focused on within the frame of the film, giving them added significance. As an example, consider the way Alfred Hitchcock frames certain scenes in Psycho to focus the attention of the viewer on the newspaper containing the money stolen by Marion (played by Janet Leigh) even though this is a MacGuffin.
Braudy argues that films frame the world in two ways: open and closed. In open films, the frame is a momentary frame around an ongoing reality. In closed films, the film world is all that exists; there is nothing beyond the frame. For contemporary examples, consider the films Inception and Toy Story 3. I argue that Inception is a closed film while Toy Story 3 is an open film. In Inception, there are multiple layers of reality but everything in each layer exists solely to further the plot and fulfill the needs of the characters. In Toy Story 3, on the other hand, every new character and location that Woody, Buzz and the rest of Andy’s toys encounter reveals more of a larger world of which the audience is only ever seeing a small slice. Arguing that a film is open or closed is not a criticism in itself; one is not inherently better than the other. Determining if a film is open or closed helps the critic better understand the way the world is framed in the film.
Braudy’s frame theory agrees in many ways with Richard Allen’s concept of projective illusion. Allen argues that audiences view film through a projective illusion, a view of the world of the film as a fully realized fictional world, in contrast to a reproductive illusion, film captures reality. In a projective illusion, the audience does not have to believe that what is happening on the screen could actually happen, just that it could happen in the world of the film. To use an earlier example, an audience watching Inception would not need to believe that people could actually travel into other people’s dreams, just that traveling into dreams is possible in the world of the film. Allen also argues that projective illusion helps to explain the residue of the film world lingers for audiences after the film has ended; audience members do not truly believe that they can fly like Superman or drive a car as skillfully as James Bond, but they have just been two hours focused on a world in which these things are possible so it’s hard to immediately leave that world and return to mundane reality.
Understanding these approaches to audience reception of film will help guide answers to questions in my study of transgender film. How is the world framed in transgender films? Are the actions of the characters part of a larger, open world or are they part of a closed world created solely for the film? Is the audience viewing the actions of the transgender characters as a projective illusion, something that happens in the world of the film but has as much impact on their reality as a sci-fi epic like Star Wars?
Methodologically, my analysis will be guided by the principles of neoformalism. Thompson argues that neoformalism is not a method but an approach to analyzing film that offers a series of broad assumptions to be applied to particular problems raised in individual films. She continues the focus on reception by distinguishing between everyday perception and the specifically aesthetic, non-practical perception engaged in by audiences when viewing artwork and film. The film-watching process is an experience completely separate from everyday experience, as argued by Braudy and Allen; it is connected to and impacted by the real world, but it is a distinct realm.
The key concept in neoformalist analysis is defamiliarization. Thompson argues that when viewing a film, audience members see things differently from how they see them in reality; these objects, people, locations, etc., seem strange in this new context.
Art defamiliarizes our habitual perceptions of the everyday world, of ideology (“the fear of war”), of other artworks, and so on by taking material from these sources and transforming them. The transformation takes place through their placement in a new context and their participation in unaccustomed formal patterns. (11)
Because we are used to seeing the world in a particular way, film seeks to make the familiar seem less familiar. Any number of romantic comedies are built around making falling in love seem new and exciting. Going back to reception, film remains interesting to audiences because it presents the world(s) in a way that differs from ordinary perception. Life is not a series of events building to a climax so even the most mundane, slice of life drama can contain defamiliarizing elements.
Even defamiliarizing elements can become familiar, though, if used too much. As Thompson argues,
if a series of artworks uses the same means over and over, the demilitarizing capability of those means diminishes; the strangeness ebbs away over time. By that point, the defamiliarized has become familiar, and the artistic approach is largely automatized. (11)
I will argue that the transgender character in film remains a defamiliarizing element. While featured in a number of films, the transgender character remains uncommon enough that her or his presence is still surprising to most audiences.
Thompson also argues that the devices used in a particular film, whether related to form or content, perform particular functions. These functions can differ depending on the film; films can use the same device in different ways. There are four motivations guiding the inclusion of a particular device: compositional (necessary for the construction of narrative causality, space or time), realistic (appeals to notions from the real world to justify presence of the device), transtextual (appeals to conventions of other artworks) and artistic (when a device is used but other three motivations are withheld, i.e. the orchestra in the desert in Blazing Saddles). Part of the neoformalist analysis I will be attempting in this project will be to determine the devices used in transgender films and look for any consistency across films or groups of films. An example of a potential device is the makeover scene; how often do films feature scenes of transgender characters being made over to look like a member of the opposite sex? Does this occur frequently enough to be considered a device?
In terms of context, Thompson argues that films cannot be taken as abstract objects outside of history. The functions or motivations of particular devices can only be understood in historical context. Context for Thompson not only includes the time in which a film is made but also the context in which new audiences experience a film; the way functions and motivations will be interpreted will differ depending on the context.
Finally, Thompson identifies two assumptions behind neoformalist analysis.
First, films are constructs that have no natural qualities . . . (This assumption simply states in another way the idea that art works respond to historical pressures rather than to eternal verites.) . . . Beyond the idea that films are arbitrary rather than natural constructs, neoformalist analysis makes a second broad assumption derived from the notion of defamiliarization . . . Films seek to defamiliarize conventional devices of narrative, ideology, style, and genre. Since everyday perception is efficient and easy, the aesthetic film seeks to prolong and roughen our experience. (35-36)
These assumptions will impact any neoformalist analysis of film, and any film critic choosing to use a neoformalist approach must be aware of how this will affect her analysis. How does viewing films as constructed change my analysis of transgender characters? What roles do transgender characters play in film beyond just defamiliarization?
My critical perspective on film will lastly be guided by David Bordwell’s cognitive perspective on viewing film. Bordwell argues that there are three levels in the reception of a film: perception, comprehension and appropriation. Perception is the sensory input the viewer receives while watching a film. Comprehension is the sense the viewer makes of the film. “The viewer applies a wide range of knowledge to make sense of film, segment by segment or as a whole, and to give it some literal meaning” (47). Appropriation is any personal perspectives or uses the viewer brings to the film. For Bordwell, this can include using films for everything from mood management, individuals “watching Die Hard to pump themselves up or Sleepless in Seattle to have a good cry” (48), to cultural studies projects that use film as examples of representations of particular ethnic or racial groups.
This cognitive perspective is a useful addition to neoformalist analysis because neoformalism tends to highly value the Derridean notion of “fidelity to the text,” the method of analysis should come from the problems in a particular text, and would be opposed to concepts like Laura Mulvey’s gaze, which I will be using in this project, because it does not come from the film. Thompson sums up her feelings on using preexisting methods to analyze film thusly, “Such homogeneity in the treatment of films suggests that, by choosing a single method and pressing it down, like a cookie cutter, on each film in the same way, we risk losing any sense of challenge in analysis” (4). The level of appropriation would allow for the use of preexisting methods, as just one of the many personal perspectives that could be brought to a film. Appropriation can reveal things about a film that may have gone unnoticed otherwise without fundamentally altering the perception or comprehension of a film. Appropriation has its limits as pointed out by Bordwell: “Wishing that Thelma and Louise don’t die won’t make it so” (46).
Gender
The two concepts that guide my critical perspective on gender are performativity and positionality. Judith Butler argues that gender reality “is real only to the extent that it is performed” and, therefore, “there are no true or false, real or distorted acts of gender” (426-427). Even though gender is constituted only through the repeated acts of individuals, “gender is made to comply with a model of truth and falsity which not only contradicts its own performative fluidity, but serves a social policy of gender regulation and control” (427). Individuals face social constraints on their performance of gender; these constraints do not take the form of governmental edicts but of everyday conversation. A mother telling her daughter that girls do not get dirty roughhousing outside or a young man being laughed at by his friends for suggesting going to see a romantic comedy instead of an action movie are examples of the types of constraints that individuals face.
John Sloop argues in his analysis of the John/Joan case that “gender is seen as being successfully or unsuccessfully behaved/expressed through particular uses of clothing, hair style, body orientation (notably during urination), and physical activities” (132). Whether a person believes gender is socially constructed or biologically essential, the evidence for that position is generally found in gender performance. For Butler, no performance of gender is any more “real” than any other. Even in a case like John/Joan, there is no true gender that is revealed in the performance; gender is the performance.
If gender performance is fluid and constantly shifting, while still constrained by social norms, how can we understand an individual’s performance of gender at any particular moment? Positionality offers a way of understanding gender identity without essentializing a particular performance as revealing an individual’s “true” gender. Positionality “makes identity relative to a constantly shifting context, to a situation that includes a network of elements involving others, the objective economic conditions, cultural and political institutions and ideologies, and so on” (Alcoff 349). In terms of gender, “we can say at one and the same time that gender is not natural, biological, universal, ahistorical, or essential and yet still claim that gender is relevant because we are taking gender as a position from which to act politically” (249). The gender of an individual “is defined not by a particular set of attributes but by a particular position” so “the internal characteristics of the person thus identified are not denoted so much as the external context within which the person is situated” (249).
Elements of my current position include my identity as a transgender woman, as a graduate student and teacher, and as an anime fan. Individual elements will connect me to different people and groups based on our shared position. I am connected to trans men through our shared position as transgender, to other women through our shared experiences living as women in a patriarchal society and to other grad students through our shared experiences writing our dissertation and teaching introductory courses. Ten years from now many aspects of my position may have changed significantly. I may identify as a transsexual woman or just as a woman. I hope to be a tenure-track professor so my identity as a graduate student will no longer apply. Other positions, such as wife or mother, may become more important. Understanding an individual’s gender identity requires understanding their position at a particular moment.
Darling-Wolf reminds us that “we all embody multiple selves and multiple positions” (40). I hope to bring this approach to my own study of transgender representation in film. I seek to avoid essentializing notions of uncovering a character’s true gender while not downplaying the importance of transgender identity to her or his current position and performance of gender.
Works Cited
Alcoff, Linda. “Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory.” The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory. Ed. Linda Nicholson. New York: Routledge, 1997. 330-355.
Allen, Richard. “Representation, Illusion, and the Cinema.” Projecting Illusion: Film Spectatorship and the Impression of Reality. Richard Allen. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 81-119.
Bellour, Raymond. “The Unattainable Text.” The Analysis of Film. Raymond Bellour. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2000. 21-27.
Bordwell, David. Poetics of Cinema. New York: Routledge, 2008.
Braudy, Leo. The World in a Frame: What We See in Films. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, 1976.
Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2010. 419-430.
Darling-Wolf, Fabienne. “On the Possibility of Communicating: Feminism and Social Position.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 28.1 (2004): 29-46.
Sloop, John M. “‘A Van with a Bar and a Bed’: Ritualized Gender Norms in the John/Joan Case.” Text and Performance Quarterly 20.2 (2000): 130-149.
Thompson, Kristin. Breaking the Glass Armor: Neoformalist Film Analysis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.
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