I'd be interested in peoples views on the portrayal of transvestites and transexuals in the movies.?

Question

More often than not they are portrayed as comic or tragi-comic characters, and often played by women (Trnasamerica for example). I peronally would prefer to see TV's and TS's portrayed in a more positive/realistic light. What do you think?

Answer 1

I think I would rather not see them at all...

Answer 2

The most common roles for transgendered people are as sex workers, psychotics, murder victims, and as the target of ridicule. You'll seldom see, say, engineers or computer hardware people, even though a lot of transwomen end up in tech professions. The role where things work differently is refreshing, but rare.

Movies like Transamerica (pretty good) Normal (well meaning, but very badly executed) Soldier's Girl (very well done) are a step in the right direction, showing transwomen as people, but they're still a few steps short of where we need to be. The problem is that in such movies, being transsexual is the characters defining characteristic, sometimes to the point that nothing else about them is developed. This doesn't make these bad movies so much as a step in the right direction that doesn't quite get us all the way there.

I like to see transgendered characters where the focus isn't on the character's transsexuality. Better than Chocolate is a good one here, and Different for Girls works well as a love story even without the transsexual element, which is a big part of why I like it.

It's getting better, but were a long, long way away for now.

Answer 3

I think transvestites and transsexuals have had a very different and in many ways separate journey in the movies, which in a way is quite neatly illustrated by 'Priscilla Queen of the Desert' Where you have the flamboyant youngster with a point to prove, a 30 something man trying to balance family responsibilities, his own insecurities and who he is as a man and then you have the older 'woman' who is trying to move on from a past that won't let her go to become more of a woman and less of a man. Often movies will use transvestites as a figure of fun, a caricature. True transsexuals very rarely make it into mainstream movies as people are still afraid of how to really handle transsexuals. Are they something to be repulsed by or pitied.? As you and I know neither one is a solution or an accurate representation. You then are left with underground movies that all too often can go for the tragically unfulfilled transsexual route, which again gets people interested, but can sometimes fall short of the mark.

I think one of the problems with movies is the tendency to try and accommodate the common factor that will get the most bums on seats and make the most money rather than really trying to give a representation that is anyway realistic. let's face it movies can be blase enough about things with more of a 'common' factor let alone anything else!

Answer 4

Well if you would like to see them in the movies portrayed in a more positive/realistic light come up with a story line and take it to HOLLYWOOD dear. I personally loved Transamerica and thought it was very positive also loved Priscilla Queen of the dessert, Bad Education, Boys don't cry, Brokeback Mountain and Monster. Although all these movies cant be included in the TVs and TSs categories they were all remarkable for there portrayal of the Gay lesbian, TSs and TVs community. I think we should be grateful that the world has moved forward so much in the last forty years rather than being upset that that we as a community aren't portrayed in the way that we see ourselves. At least the world can have a glimpse of it is to be gay etc. and how life can go all wrong for us if they do not respect our needs and beliefs. Please don't take this response personal just go sit down a minute and think how life would be 100 years ago for yourself my god they are still killing people in Jamaica for being gay for god-sake.

Answer 5

I agree with you. I don't know why they don't make films & TV more realistic & true to life. Usually it all ends badly giving the incorrect message that everyone with an alternative lifestyle has a tragic life that can only end in misery. I think this gives a very out dated, & inacurate message to society. As a lesbian I am fed up with the way we are portrayed, the negative stereotypes etc, so I guess this is similar. My sister in law's Dad is a transvestite although I have never spoken to him about it as I don't really know him. I don't know much about the subject but I would like to know more & TV would be a good way of educating people. Why don't you become a film director?

Answer 6

I agree they are often portrayed as very camp comic characters or as sexual fetishist's.
Yes i would love to see more positive and realistic characters and i'm sure that as society evolves this will happen as TV's and TS's become accepted in much the same way as most people are now tolerant of gay couples etc.

Answer 7

I almost never see anything about transsexual/vestites in movies, on tv, or anywhere else! And when I do most of the time it isn't very positive. It is disgusting, and horribly disappointing.

Drama precedes realism in media. It's a way to catch people attentions, I personally hate it. As catching as it may be, it doesn't actually show the reality, the wholeness. It's empty and near to fake.

I'd like to see more transsexuals/vestites, and for that matter the rest of GLTB, in media and all that. Documentaries on it would be wondrous for their ability to help people Understand that transsexuals aren't bad people, they're nymphos, druggies or whatever. They're People. As characters in movies/shows they would be more common (obviously), more real. I think it would make others more comfortable about them. After all, all that happened to other races, racism is now seen as bad and not good.

I live in hope. ^_^

Answer 8

I would certainly agree for Transsexuals, since there is this to common place misconception that they are OTT crazy people, who dress really eccentrically, or have very excentric life's, none of which is true, they are just normal people, living normal life's. The media precept ion is a very powerful tool and leads to a lot of negativity directly or indirectly, in reality this is far from the case It is about time we had a more accurate representation and an inddication of the stuggles these people have to endure everyday just to be themselves, may be this will go some way to improving there lives and educating the rest of the population.

Answer 9

I would also like to see them protrayed in a positive light and more importantly played either by male to female actresses or women, having men do the part leads people to thinking that we are nothing more than men, which we aren't! There are a few good movies about transgendered people, but since most people don't want to watch those kinds of movies they don't get made often.

Answer 10

both you've been misinformed, or you attempt to make human beings offended. A minority of people say 'transvestite' even as they ought to assert 'transsexual' because they try to be offensive, yet maximum folk only do not understand the distinction. 'Transvestite' is absolutely everyone, male or lady (yet usually male), who wears the garments of their opposite gender, for sexual or emotional causes. Transvestites all have their own causes for doing what they do; it truly is incorrect to generalise all of them as "oversexed adult males with a gown and perverts". For some, it truly is a sexual fetish; for others, it truly is only a fashion of expressing themselves. 'Transsexual' refers to someone, male or lady, who became born with a congenital neurological intersex condition. it isn't depending on, nor defined by technique of, genital or the different surgical treatment; a transsexual man or woman is transsexual from beginning. Transsexual human beings usually marry, and characteristic babies, before in search of remedy; maximum transpeople spend many many years attempting (finally in ineffective) to deny their condition and stay a 'frequent' existence, and marriage/sex/babies is area of that.

Answer 11

I'm with you. But, I also think that it depends on the tone of the script. In a movie like Transamerica, the moral wasn't that transsexuals are people too; it was that there are other ways of defining ourselves other than our private parts. Bree was a parent first, and a transsexual second. I would like to see a more positive take, but no more positive than reality. Sometimes, life ain't all that positive, know what I'm sayin'?