A Movie and it’s legacy

The intention of a film and what it actually does is important, which is why I started with Silence of the Lambs. Because it had no intention of causing any harm to the Trans community, but in the wake of its success, it inspired several films about cross-dressing serial killers, creating the idea of a crazed man using the guise of being a woman to kill. Indirectly or not, it did inspire the hit comedy Ace Ventura Pet Detective and its trans killer. The film follows the titular Ace Ventura, a man who lives his life solving animal-based crimes. Hijinks ensue when he is put on the case of the kidnapping of a Dolphin mascot for the Mamie Dolphins football team. At the start, we are introduced to the police chief, an aggressive woman who takes shit from no one and can play just as rough as any man. Ace, during his detective work, learns of a crazed football player who has a grudge against the team, but he can’t find the man anywhere. Then he makes the deduction that Einhorn, the police chief, is the missing football player after a sex change. When we get to a frankly disgusting scene where Ace has an overly drawn-out breakdown because he kissed a man, this is hugely disgusting because it telegraphs to the audience that this character, who can be considered trans, is so horrid that even the image of her is disgusting and should be cleaned off. Throughout the rest of the movie, Einhorn is shown as overly aggressive and sexual, and then at the end, their clothes are ripped off, and she is made a joke of and viewed as a visage of abhorrent disgust. It is later stated that the football player abducted and murdered the real Einhorn and got the surgery to disguise as her. This movie perpetuates dangerous and harmful ideas about trans women, that they are overly aggressive and sexual, that they are mentally deranged, that they are a danger to other women, and that they deserve the collective disgust of everyone. We can see this same rhetoric in TERF and other anti-trans movements. Not to mention that it is wildly sexist. With the description of Einhorn as a confident woman who knows what she wants and is strong on her own. All other female characters are depicted as reliant on the men in their lives. They are not strong career women and allow the men to dictate their sexual whims.

               The ripples from this film can be seen in the infamous Family Guy episode where a similar gross-out scene, but this time it’s a dog that is disgusted that they had sex with a trans woman. I do not want to give that episode any more space in my mind, so I want to wrap it up. That episode says it is grosser to have sex with a transwoman than it is to fuck a dog. This is abhorrent messaging, and I will not stand for it. There is nothing disgusting about transwomen and their bodies. They are human beings, and they are courageous people who are beautiful and brave.

               For the next two weeks, I will discuss sub-textually trans films, starting with the most famous one of all time, The Matrix.