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Syndicate
And yeah, nothing problematic about a cis woman treating a man as though his experience totally reflects that of butch women. Nothing problematic about talking about trans men, "passing as" men... nope.
So yeah, if that's sensitivity, I think I would've preferred outright transphobia.
Also, theres this man, you know, who is actually a man, also trans, instead of the lone token trans woman on this board being tangentially pissed off (because she knows that anyone who treats trans men as though they are or were or are permeated with the essence of, women is not going to be very accepting of actual women), who can better articulate what's so horrible about this film http://averydame.net/?p=94
You're ignoring that, after being attracted to the idea of the film because she felt it reflected the experiences of people she knew, she then spent 5 and a half years working on learning about transgender issues and Brandon Teena's life in particular.
The essentialist argument that a filmmaker can't make films outside her own experience is the same argument that is used to keep action film, for example, exclusive to male directors. Filmmakers make films on subjects outside their own experience all the time. Sometimes having an inside perspective is a good thing, sometimes it isn't and sometimes it's utterly neutral. Should Ang Lee, who is straight, not have made Brokeback Mountain? What about the original author of the story the screenplay was based on, Annie Proulx? Should that story only ever have been told by gay men? Was the story not good enough?
Should I never write a character that isn't a straight white female? Is my friend, a kickass female Metis director, only ever tell Metis stories?
I think my question to you was based less in the definition of the director's identity and more in line with the work itself. Where did it fall down? What, specifically, was the failing in the telling of this particular story?
Timebandit, for one read the article I linked. He has some far more detailed reasons for finding this film problematic.
For two, let me break this down for you. She's making a film about a man because she felt it reflected the experiences of those who were CAFAB but presented male, but that she called women. So were these women? Were they men she degenders to this day? I don't know, all I have is the subjective report of a cis person. Either one is problematic. Either she thinks this man is compelling because he reminds her of the stories of butch women, making trans men just some subspecies of supermegahyperbutch, which, by the way, completely erases a lot of awesome butch trans women, or she doesn't respect trans men as men at all.
A cis person can make a decent film about a trans person. This isn't one of them. This is appropriation. And she retains a stunning amount of cissexism for someone who is supposed to be such an expert on trans issues.
PS: If your friend, who is Metis, told you that another film was appropriating her experiences, would you be quite so quick to dismiss her concerns as you are dismissing mine? Check yourself, just a teensy bit. Sometimes your friends do something that sucks and defending them because you like them makes you less cool.
Whoa on the accusations. #1 - I don't defend filmmakers because I like them. I know filmmakers who've made problematic films and have debated them on the merits of the work. I don't think I should have to defend that to you, especially since I did not intimate doing anything of the sort, so kindly dial it back a bit.
#2 - I understand appropriation. It's something that I take seriously and take great pains to avoid. However, some people feel that appropriation occurs whenever someone outside a certain identity even touches an issue or character, and this is something I heartily disagree with.
I read the article you linked. I take issue with both the papers he's used as reference/support material in terms of reading and conclusions. You're latching onto one thing the director said, and as I pointed out in my previous post, seem to be ignoring everything else about the work Pierce did. Also, the article seems to want Pierce to have told a different story, regardless of having certain restrictions in basing the film on a true story and going with events that actually happened. As happens often in film studies, no one reading and deconstruction is the single true reading. I saw more of a critique of the sexism and hate of the people around BT than I did sexism directed toward BT. This is not a dismissal of your opinion, btw - I just don't 100% agree with you. I don't think there is one uniformly correct reading of any film.
And I am, and remain, unspeakably cool. ;-)
Calling men 'women who pass as men' because they are CAFAB is not a small detail or an off-handed comment. This is serious stuff, and no, it's not cool that you're dismissing this shit in a morass of moral relativism. Cissexism this naked from the presenter and not the piece itself, in addition to some seriously problematic choices Peirce made in the production of the film, do not allow for uncomplicated praise of this work.
And there's another thing. Why is cissexism in a work only worthy of a footnote of eh-maybeism, whereas cismisogny damns the work entirely? I've seen this time and again, when Daly and Rich died, the defense was the same: "Well, it's bad that she hated women like you and helped produce works that contributed to the deaths of your sisters and probably prolonged your personal hell, but she really spoke to me!"
Fuck. That. Noise.
I am not dismissing anything. I am disagreeing with you on the basis of the information that is available.
Pierce said that this is what *initially* attracted her to the subject matter and in interviews has pointed out that this was a shallow understanding of BT's experience. She has also said that she grew into a much greater understanding and that she made the effort to learn from others as she went through the next 5 and a half years developing the film. So you're looking at a very thin slice of the information at hand and declaring "case closed". I happen to disagree with that assessment.
I also haven't suggested that there should be "uncomplicated praise" of the film. Complicate away. But if you hinge your criticism on one statement about the initial appeal of the idea and not the work itself, expect to be challenged.
I've also never claimed that sexism condemns any work entirely. Nor does racism or any other ism, necessarily. Smith mentioned Leni Riefenstahl in a post above - yes, her propaganda films were horrifying in their ethos, but she was a damn good filmmaker. She knew how to work the medium, her films were shot beautifully, which makes them even a little more horrifying when you look at them in their historical context. There are films that are sexist at their base that are still well-made films, works of art, even. Art in general is a difficult thing that way.
I also don't think that Pierce's work was hateful to trans men. She had a character based on a real person whose thoughts and motives were ambiguous. She tried to be sensitive to the issues that character was dealing with and to be as true to life in regard to BT as she could. Did she do it perfectly? Probably not. But I did not get in any sense that any of it came from a place of hatred or disapproval, so I don't see how the comparison to Rich or Daly works at all.
I think the film was darkly critical of the environment that BT was struggling to live in and to be true to himself in and that ultimately destroyed him. It was not the director of the film that attempted to push BT into one gender or the other, it was the ignorance and fear and xenophobia of the people who surrounded him. That's my reading of the film, in overly simplified terms. So I simply disagree with your assessment of the work itself. Beyond the work, I'm only marginally interested in the identity of the director and what she may have said or not said in any case.
Re female directors, here are a couple more....
Doris Wishman, Ida Lupino.
Wow. I did not know that about her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Lupino
Here are some of the "obvious" names that came to mind that haven't been mentioned in this thread:
Claire Denis ("Beau travail", "L'intrus", "35 rhums", "US Go Home", etc.)
Chantal Akerman ("Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles", etc.)
Kelly Reichardt ("Old Joy", "Wendy and Lucy", "Meek's Cutoff")
Lina Wertmüller ("Seven Beauties")
Maren Ade ("The Forest for the Trees", "Everyone Else")
Julia Loktev ("Day Night Day Night", "The Loneliest Planet")
Marguerite Duras ("Le camion", "India Song")
Debra Granik ("Winter's Bone")
Mia Hansen-Løve ("Le père de mes enfants")
Lucrecia Martel ("La ciénaga", "La niña santa", "La mujer sin cabeza")
Catherine Breillat ("À ma soeur", "Romance")
Barbara Kopple ("Harlan County, USA")
Lucile Hadžihalilović ("Innocence")
Marjane Satrapi ("Persepolis")
Great list Bärlüer!
My pleasure.
I just realized something intriguing: there is an unusually high proportion of French female directors (seven just in my list!). I wonder what this may be attributable to...
I mean, sure, this is the land of Simone de Beauvoir... but culturally, it's still a deeply patriarchal country.
Just look at the Cahiers du cinéma crowd, for example: it's clearly a boys' club.