Creative agency in Film
For over a hundred years, films have perpetuated the gender binary. The Motion Picture Production Code, or Hays Code, prevented any portrayal of subverting gender norms.
In recent years, popular films about trans people are often about their transition story, their discovery of themselves. In movies like those, trans people are being presented to cis audiences as a discovery. Original stories are usually about taking a common trope, genre, or story and changing it a bit to subvert the expectations of the audience. There are many films where the trans character is treated as a subversion in themselves because trans people are novel to the majority of the audience. These kinds of films are written for the cisgender gaze. Giving attention to more diverse films and shows about trans people from trans creators can deconstruct the cisgender gaze, resonate with trans audiences and give cis audiences more awareness.
"I think so much is often like erased through that kind of representation too. It's like people who transitioned early in childhood and like you could, you would never even know," Kington said. "Those are important people and voices to represent. And by leaving out, like, whole swaths of trans community that like are viewed as less desirable by like the media companies and their perceptions of their audiences like that. That's really harmful, too.”
Some Like It Hot
Some Like It Hot, 1959, is one of the earliest cinematic portrayals of cross-dressing and breaking gender norms. Two musicians find themselves wanted as witnesses by the police and hunted by gangsters. They disguise themselves as women in order to join an all-girl musical group and escape to Florida. The cross-dressing is played for laughs, but most of the jokes come from the characters plotting and trying not to get their secret discovered. The film pokes fun at gender stereotypes a The film was released without approval from the Hays office, yet it was a hit nationwide, to the uproar of the Catholic League of Decency. Most comedies are targeted to a broad audience that expects men and women to be a specific way.
Comedy uses the subversion of gender norms because it is assumed to be unexpected and therefore funny. This subversion of gender has been used to varying degrees of offensiveness and awareness. Some Like It Hot is one of the most positive examples, one of the most negative being Ace Ventura. What if there wasn’t a popular expectation of what a man or woman should be? When someone doesn’t have that expectation, the movie isn’t funny to them and can be considered offensive. Jaydi Funk, Steven Funk, and Sylvia Blaise Whelan said in their article, “Trans and Intersex Representation and Pathologization: An Interdisciplinary Argument for Increased Medical Privacy,” “The gender binary pervades every aspect of society, sets up varying matrices of power and production, and was considered “natural” until recent feminist, humanist, and post-modern critiques have suggested otherwise” (120). They went on to say, “These academic fields suggest that the categories of ‘female’ and ‘male’ are not an inevitable or innate human instinct, but rather a socially constructed set of behaviors, relationships, and rules” (120).
Some Like It Hot doesn’t portray any trans people, it only portrays crossdressing. It should be mentioned as an early divergence from gender norms, but it didn’t do much to influence the public perception of trans people. Being trans and crossdressing are both compliant with the idea that people don’t have to conform to the gender they were assigned at birth. Some Like It Hot was the beginning; how has media changed since? How can it still change?
What does it mean for representation to be “bad,” or “good?” A trans character doesn’t always have to be morally good to be considered good representation. A representation may align with the reality for some people in a group, but not others. Representation is judged by how it makes the group look, and what the consequences are. An inaccurate representation may also lead to positive effects for trans people, by helping those outside of the group understand them better, and trans people feel good about themselves. “I've noticed that a lot of movies tend to portray trans and gender non-conforming people [as] serial killers, or just [a] really bad representation of them,” senior pre-law student, Esme Miranda said. The "bad," representation Miranda referenced can have negative consequences by jading a cis person's perception of trans people. Another way to judge representation is by examining how the film conforms to the gender binary.
Emilia Pérez
Oscar-winning 2024 film, Emilia Pérez, attempted to bring a nuanced representation of trans people to public attention. Trans reviewers think it failed terribly. Emilia Pérez is about a Mexican kingpin (Karla Sofía Gascón) who threatens and bribes a lawyer (Zoe Saldaña) to help her fake her death, transition, and start a new life free of crime. Despite her name being the title, Emilia is not the point-of-view character; the lawyer is. After completely changing her identity, Emilia becomes a hero of her community to absolve herself of her guilt from her past life. Emilia’s obscuring of her identity from her wife until it’s too late results in Emilia and her wife dying. “The film hits just about every trans trope you can imagine,” Drew Burnett Gregory pointed out in her review, “’Emilia Pérez’ is the most unique cis nonsense you’ll ever see.”
For Gregory, the film was too focused on dissecting the process of transitioning. Gregory explained her review further on an episode of the podcast, TransLash. Films like Emilia Pérez make trans people’s medical information the business of cis audiences. Jaydi Funk, Steven Funk, and Sylvia Blaise Whelan said these movies contribute to the violation of trans people’s privacy in real life.
“[Emilia Pérez] seems to put forward that trans people can never really truly become themselves, which is completely false,” Alexandra Parker wrote in her review. Emilia is wrestling with her current identity and her former identity throughout the movie and she is constantly discussed as if she was two different people.
“I do not think only trans people can tell trans stories, but I’m curious when we will cease to be a metaphor,” Gregory wrote. Gregory was the director’s assistant on a movie called Monica, which is about a trans woman who reconnects with her estranged and dying mother. Gregory said the director listened to her advice According to her, Emilia Pérez could've been even worse representation if Gascón hadn't told the director, Jacques Audiard, to make it clear Emilia wasn't using transitioning as a means to escape.
The question of who gets to tell trans stories is integral to the discussion. Historically, trans narratives have been filtered through cisgender lenses, often reducing characters to tragic figures or comedic devices. When moviemakers hold inaccurate beliefs about a group they aren’t a part of, their movies are made inaccurately, even if they have the best intentions to portray what they perceive as that group. Casting cis actors in trans roles not only denies opportunities to trans performers but also perpetuates the notion that trans identities are costumes or performances rather than authentic lived experiences. Audiences have witnessed a shift, as more trans creators, writers, directors, and actors are stepping into positions of influence, bringing with them the ability to tell stories that resonate with truth, depth, and complexity.
I Saw the TV Glow
I Saw the TV Glow, directed by Jane Schoenbrun, has been praised for its use of trans themes. Rather than using transitioning as horror, it is about the horror of not transitioning. The main character, Owen, neglects self-reflection and change until he runs out of time. The movie never says the word, "trans," but the whole plot is a metaphor for being trans. “I think [I Saw the TV Glow] is a really good representation because the director is, non-binary, and they did a really cool job of depicting that trans experience of trying to find your way in a world that has such a hard time accepting you, and especially when you don't fit into those molds,” Miranda said.
According to the Standpoint Theory, which states that “social positions influence individual perspectives. Marginalized groups offer unique and often critical insights into power structures, making diverse viewpoints essential for understanding societal issues.” This illustrates that it is an amazing change to have more trans individuals in the creative process.
“There's a really harmful idea that [if] you're part of a marginalized population, you shouldn't be involved in covering that population because you have a bias. But I think that is really backwards,” Kington said. “I think actually being a trans person covering things that impact trans people, you know, I do that work, and I feel able to do it from a much more informed position because of my identity, and I don't see it as any sort of conflict.”
This growing creative agency is pivotal for reshaping the cultural narrative around gender and identity.
News and the Public Perception
Two theories work in tandem to effectively highlight the implicit harm of insufficient transgender representation. First, Erving Goffman’s Framing Theory explains how the media shift perceptions and actively construct reality through their various methods of covering topics. If the media want certain issues or people to appear a specific way in the eyes of viewers, they can strategically adjust their methods of presenting information to do so. A simple and timely example of this is when news outlets covering the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 would either choose the word “riot” or “protest” to make an immediate moral stance on the actions of those in favor of the movement. With just one strategically used word, the essence of the event is either perceived as violent or peaceful in the eyes of the reader.
When making simple Google searches about news relating to the transgender community, one can find that FOX News, known for their conservative values, will use terms like “biological male” to refer to transgender women. Making that same Google search with more unbiased sources like AP News reveals headlines that simply refer to them as “transgender women” or “trans individuals.” Despite discussing the exact same subject, AP News avoids placing any immediate bias in the heads of readers by how they’ve decided to present information. As such, those deriving news from AP are treated to a rather neutral understanding of transgender individuals – an objective statement of their chosen identity. Those receiving news from FOX, however, view a perception of trans individuals that serves as an immediate rejection of their identity. Discussing the same subject, AP has framed the trans community as simply existent, while FOX has framed the trans community as deceitful, wrong, or illegitimate.
The potential harm of the media's ability to adjust communication to influence the public’s perception of issues is truly highlighted when linking it with Cultivation Theory. George Gerbner’s theory, proposed in the 1960s, asserts that long-term exposure to media can affect the public’s perception of the world around them. When audiences view media that constantly reinforce certain ideas and images, they are likely to begin viewing those stances as true representations of the world, regardless of the extent to which those stances are true. Using the same example of the Black Lives Matter movement’s prevalence in 2020, those who are consistently fed the notion that supporters of the movement are rioters will perceive the movement as violent and dangerous. Those who are consistently told that supporters of the movement are protestors exercising their right might perceive it as peaceful and entirely safe to engage with. Framing Theory explains how media can strategically communicate to position certain subjects according to the biases of the respective organization. Cultivation Theory then explains how this strategic framing plants itself in the minds of the public and shapes their perception of the world.
When media organizations like FOX News frame the transgender community in a negative light, or one that invalidates their identity, they are not simply making a claim. When they frame trans individuals as people whose existence is up for debate, they are not simply stating their opinion. Cultivation Theory highlights the very real implications of these stances. Consumers of media engage with their preferred content and then craft a stance on the world. If FOX News consistently pushes the notion that transgender individuals are worthy of vitriol and invalidation, then chances are that a number of their viewers will believe such to be true.
When viewing these two theories in tandem, we can unveil the sheer power of media and their ability to craft narratives in the minds of the many people. Regardless of which biases are on full display, there seems to be an indisputable fact that the media is capable of using strategic communication to uplift certain biases, while the public is susceptible to believing and crafting a worldview based on those biases. Media is not a mere avenue for entertainment, nor is it to be taken lightly regarding its impact on society. When putting it in the perspective of these theoretical frameworks, media exists as a powerful tool to be used strategically in an effort to make genuine impact. For those in the transgender community, this impact is rarely felt to be positive.
Having established the media's impact on public perceptions, we can come to understand how media has impacted the current public view of trans individuals in society. Research validates this theoretical framework, indicating that media representation of trans individuals does, in fact, influence the perception of the community in the real world. Jessica N. Jobe (2013), in her honors thesis Transgender Representation in the Media, posits that television, film, and news media frequently portray the trans community in both an inaccurate and unfavorable light. Rather than working to dismantle stereotypes, the media actively reinforce them. Through her analysis of transgender media spanning from 1975 to 2013, she finds that trans characters are frequently depicted as comedic props, deviants, or a cautionary tale. Jobe then further establishes why this is troubling – that for the majority of cisgender individuals, media is their first or only encounter with the transgender community. As such, consumers of this media craft assumptions and expectations of the community based purely off of these minimal, inaccurate encounters.
The Human Rights Campaign reports that around 1 in 4 adults perceive through the media that the transgender community seeks not just equal rights, but “more rights than is fair” (2022). Haley Soloman (2016), through her quantitative research, finds that consequences of negative or stereotypical representation include displayed reinforcements or worsening of transphobic beliefs in adults. Empirical data points to the notion that negative representation manifests as genuine shifts in perception.
Fortunately, Solomon’s (2016) research and additional studies indicate that the inverse of this reality is also true – that consistent, accurate representation of the trans community can reinforce tolerance and acceptance toward the community. A solution to the effects of Framing Theory and Cultivation Theory lies in the promotion of healthy, consistent, and accurate representations of the transgender community in all forms of media.