Celluloid Marginalization: Pedagogical Strategies for Increasing Students’ Critical Thought Through the Multiple (Re)Readings of Trans* Subjectivities in Film

Abstract

Critically analyzing films allows for the interrogation of how such binaries as normal/abnormal, good/bad, and moral/immoral are culturally (re)inscribed, who sets the boundaries of what is deemed socially legible, and who gets to decide where these boundaries are set. This article utilizes critical discourse analysis to explore the transgender look as it relates to films with negative, conflicted, and positive readings of trans* characters. The study concludes by considering opportunities for increasing student critical analysis and thought in curricular settings and how, through critical pedagogical practices, educators can use critical pedagogy to promote equity for all marginalized populations.

KEYWORDS:

• Cinema
• cisgender
• critical discourse analysis
• critical education
• heteronormativity
• pedagogy
• transgender
• trans*

Notes

1. Killermann (2012) explained the use of the asterisk in the word trans* recognizes “all non-cisgender gender identities, including transgender, transsexual, transvestite, genderqueer, genderfluid, non-binary, genderfuck, genderless, agender, non-gendered, third gender, bigender, and trans man and trans woman.” Commonly used in computer searches to signify searching for a term in addition to any characters after that term (e.g., searching for “trans*” would yield results for the prefix trans and any letters after it, such as transgender and transsexual), the asterisk represents an inclusive turn in discussing all who transgress, trouble, and/or resist gender boundaries.

2. The pronouns ze (pronounced “zee”) and hir (pronounced “here”) are gender-inclusive pronouns and are used by many who identify as transgender. These pronouns replace the he/she and him/her gender binaries, respectively, and are used by some but not all who identify as transgender and gender nonconforming. Throughout this article, I use these pronouns to slow down the reading process, which thereby serves to make transgender identities more visible and legible.

3. One could read this scene another way in that Lana's statement could be understood as her not knowing how to have sex with Brandon, who she still views as a man, but who has a vagina. This reading would further reinforce the transgender look and would implore the viewer to confront their assumptions about the (dis)connections between one's body morphology and gender expression. However, the film does not follow up on this alternative reading by asking the viewer to reconsider how they see, experience, and understand transgender bodies. Moreover, even if some viewers did read the sex scene this way, many viewers came away believing Brandon was an imposter, a view widely shared throughout the media coverage of his murder (e.g., Hale, 1998; Halberstam, 2005). Therefore, despite the possibility of alternative readings, I believe the film, once set into social and historical context, provides a conflicted reading of the transgender look.

4. There have also been scholars who have interrogated the ways media outlets depicted this particular case, including the making of the film Boys Don't Cry. For example, Hale (1998) detailed how using the name Brandon Teena, which was not the only name the individual in question used, or casting Brandon as trans*, an identity to which the individual in question did not use as a personal identifier, could be problematic. As such, these lines of inquiry could also be fruitful ways for educators to engage students in critically thinking about gender, identity, power, privilege, the reach of mass media, and what it means to search for and/or represent a “true” or “accurate” representation of any story.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Z Nicolazzo

Z Nicolazzo, MS, is a doctoral candidate in the Student Affairs in Higher Education program at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.