The Trans/Romance Dilemma in <i>Transamerica</i> and Other Films

Abbott, Traci B.

doi:10.1111/jacc.12011

Cited by 19 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Transgender women, in particular, have been noted as being heavily sexualized and fetishized in popular culture, particularly in pornography (Abbott, 2013). They are often projected as keepers of secrets and the salacious details of their lives are exploited for ratings and attention.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Historically, transgender individuals have not been featured heavily in mainstream media, and when they have been featured, depictions have been overwhelmingly negative and stereotypical. Transgender women, in particular, have been noted as being heavily sexualized and fetishized in popular culture, particularly in pornography (Abbott, 2013). They are often projected as keepers of secrets and the salacious details of their lives are exploited for ratings and attention.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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YouTube as Educator: A Content Analysis of Issues, Themes, and the Educational Value of Transgender-Created Online Videos

Miller

2017

Social Media + Society

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The current study explores the videos of eight popular transgender YouTubers. A content analysis was conducted to examine the themes present in videos, the specific issues discussed, and the educational value for viewers. In particular, the present research was interested in the amount of videos that contain transgender-specific content, and in the types of issues—both general and in terms of gender transition—about which transgender YouTubers converse. Videos were also analyzed in relation to self-identified type of transgender individual (e.g. male-to-female [MTF] or female-to-male [FTM]), and significant differences were found in both the amount of transgender-specific content as well as the educational value of videos. This article positions transgender YouTube content as an educational tool that can both help serve as guidance for transgender viewers, as well as increase mainstream audiences’ understanding of transgender persons, subjects, and struggles.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

YouTube as Educator: A Content Analysis of Issues, Themes, and the Educational Value of Transgender-Created Online Videos

Miller

2017

Social Media + Society

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“…Transgenders nemen een meer marginale plaats in op televisie, volgens Abbott (2013), omdat transgenderisme traditioneel gezien wordt als een seksuele afwijking en een legitieme genderidentiteit afhankelijk blijft van biologisch geslacht. Omdat transgenders de eerder vernoemde binaire indeling van gender en seksualiteit ondermijnen, wordt hun bestaan als een bedreiging gezien.…”

Section: Theoretisch Kaderunclassified

“…Dit is transfobie en vormt in film en televisie vaak een bron van humor of een aanzet tot geweld. Transseksualiteit in films wordt nochtans vaak gerepresenteerd via romantiek, wat een mainstream publiek aantrekt en dominante waarden zoals monogamie en het familieleven bevestigt (Abbott, 2013). De acteurs die gecast worden om een transpersonage te spelen zijn meestal van hetzelfde geslacht als dat waarmee het personage geboren is (een mannelijke acteur speelt een transvrouw), waardoor geslacht als belangrijker wordt gepresenteerd dan genderidentiteit.…”

Section: Theoretisch Kaderunclassified

‘I’m feeling some sapphic vibes comin’ off of you.’

DeCeuninck

Dhoest

2016

Tijdschrift Voor Genderstudies

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Female roles and sexuality on television have come a long way since the traditional representation of women as homogeneously soft, passive and (sexually) submissive. However, these representations are often still trapped in a rigid, binary framework on gender and sexuality. Representations of LGBTQ1 subjects have also become far more common, although they are still often stereotypical, while transgender people continue to be marginalised on mainstream television. The Netflix series Orange is the New Black seems to challenge this view by presenting characters who present different ways of being a woman and by showing women in different sexual roles. This paper presents a qualitative content analysis of this women-in-prison drama, exploring in-depth how femininity and female sexuality are represented. Four main characters were selected as the focal point of the analysis. Our analysis indicates that Orange is the New Black combines more progressive with more conservative elements: on the one hand, femininity is represented as an arbitrary construction and sexuality as fluid, while common stereotypes such as the butch lesbian are used in a self-conscious and humorous way. On the other hand, Orange is the New Black does have a tendency to employ problematic tropes, as the show’s portrayal of African-American and Hispanic women as more tough and streetwise shows us. On the whole, we argue that Orange is the New Black does partly depart from mainstream conventions of female representation and therefore has some subversive potential.

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“…Although the film was nominated for and won a number of awards, 1 it received little attention in academic discourse. The academic recognition the film did receive, includes a comparison of the portrayal of romantic love in this and other 'trans-films' (Abbott 2012) and how paratext (film reviews, movie posters and director commentary) can 'validate, and celebrate lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) life and subjectivity' (Cavalcante 2013). Although the discourse on gender goes far back in history and has a solid academic grounding, there is no focus in academia on how this specific film provides insight into gender constructs and transsexuals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender and the transsexual body in <i>Transamerica</i>

Jensen

2018

Literator

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Transamerica, by Duncan Tucker, released in 2005, addresses lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer- (LGBTQ-) related themes through a transsexual female protagonist, Bree. This article discusses the film as an important step in the direction of representing the complexity of gender, which, by today’s standards, is more generally appreciated. Because of its subject matter, Transamerica is a contentious film, lauded and condemned in mainstream media for how it dealt with and represented transsexual identities. Despite nominations for a number of awards, the film’s portrayal of transsexual identities was largely ignored in academic discourse at the time. I argue here that the film provides insight into the challenges, requirements, concerns, as well as the consequences of gender-fluid expression, which has been recognised in academia for years and has become a more discussed topic in mainstream society, but the manner in which the film examines these insights was overlooked. I do this by contextualising the film in terms of contemporary examples of transgender existence, which have brought the topic to mainstream discourse, and by applying gender theory concepts to the film. I discuss the protagonist’s physical and emotional journey to self-discovery in the context of the road movie trope. I then look into the protagonist’s gender performance, as well as how the protagonist negotiates this performance in the various places she visits while on the journey. I show that the film encourages open and honest discourse about gender identity and expression; the opportunity for this discussion was not taken in the year of the film’s release.

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The Trans/Romance Dilemma in Transamerica and Other Films

Cited by 19 publications

References 9 publications

YouTube as Educator: A Content Analysis of Issues, Themes, and the Educational Value of Transgender-Created Online Videos

YouTube as Educator: A Content Analysis of Issues, Themes, and the Educational Value of Transgender-Created Online Videos

‘I’m feeling some sapphic vibes comin’ off of you.’

Gender and the transsexual body in <i>Transamerica</i>

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