Trans New Wave Cinema

ISBN-13: 9780367566999 / Angielski

Akkadia Ford

Opis

This book presents a critical cultural study of the Trans New Wave as a cinematic genre and explores its emergence in the twenty-first century.

Drawing on a diverse range of texts, the cultural, social, aesthetic and ethical implications of the genre are placed within the context of rapidly changing understandings of gender diversity. From the cinematic borderlands of independent film festivals to wider public recognition via digital technologies, the genre encompasses a diverse range of texts from short films, documentaries, experimental films, to feature films and narratives that range across life histories, narratives and themes. The book presents transliteracy as an original theoretical approach to reading film representations of the Trans New Wave, and combines it with a new theoretical concept of cinematic ethnogenesis to investigate how the genre emerged from specific communities and the reciprocal interaction of audiences and texts.

This interdisciplinary volume engages with contemporary issues of gender diversity, transgender studies, screen and media studies and film festival studies, and as such will be of great interest to scholars working in these fields and in media and cultural studies more generally.

Spis treści

Introduction 1

Introduction 1

Background to the Trans New Wave emerging 3

The relationship of the Trans New Wave to earlier cinematic waves 8

Historical overview of key films pre-2008 with transsexual

and transgender characters, themes and narratives 12

Characteristics of the Trans New Wave 14

Representational work of trans woman actors in

independent films and streaming video 17

Overview of methodologies and the interdisciplinary approach 21

Thinking across boundaries 23

2 Transliteracy 34

Foundations of Transliteracy 34

Understanding the cultural contexts for independent trans cinema 38

Transliteracy and textual exegesis 43

Epistemological cinema 44

Ontological cinema 48

3 Key Texts of the Trans New Wave 62

Overview 62

Fictional, narrative short, animation, drama 65

Factual, documentary films, docu-drama 68

Uplifting lives: Black Trans Lives Matter 69

Use of life cycle narratives as a representational structure for documentary: three representations of transmasculinity (selected case study text Trans Boys) 77

Experimental & performance art films 82

Music on screen 84

Use of genres: road trip, science fiction, horror (selected case study text The Thing) 86

The ‘real’ and ‘reality’ 90

Use of the road movie genre as a representational metaphor for transitioning 94

Recurrent themes & tropes 97

4 First Nations and Indigenous Trans Cinema 111

First Nations and Indigenous trans cinema 111

Transliterate approaches to reading films from non-western and First Nations filmmakers 111

Two Spirit and Third Gender cinema 117

5 Gender-Diverse Youth Narratives 132

The significance of the emerging body of cinematic narratives focused upon transgender youth 132

Screen families Tomgirl (Jeremy Asher Lynch, USA, 2015)

and Raising Ryland (Sarah Feeley, USA, 2015) 133

Temporal considerations 140

The role of education 141

6 Cinematic Ethnogenesis 148

Birth of a new cinema 149

Countercultures: screening independent trans cinema 152

Overview of key international independent queer and transgender film festivals 155

The reciprocal interaction of audiences and texts 158

How classifications (ratings) systems may impact independent filmmakers and film festivals: overview of differences between the Australian, United Kingdom and American Systems 160

Non-hegemonic cinema—whose community decides who sees the film? 173

Trans new wave as reparative cinema 175

7 Cinematic Futures 190

Developing a canon of representation of gender diversity and sexualities 190

Sexing the Transman (Buck Angel, USA, 2011) 192

Trans Boys (Ali Russell and Monique Schafter, Aus., 2012)

Dex’s story 196

Community Action Centre (A. K. Burns, A. L. Steiner, USA, 2010) 198

Cinema on demand 201

The democratisation of distribution 202

O autorze

Dr Akkadia Ford is a Sessional Lecturer at Southern Cross University, Australia.