Isn’t this GLAAD alert itself transphobic?The alert says:
“However, while some of the actors in the film identify as transgender, the characters are written as drag queens, “performing” femininity in a way that is completely artificial. The very names of these over-the-top female caricatures (Emma Grashun, Rachel Slurr, et al.) drive this point home. . . . It demeans actual transgender women who struggle for acceptance and respect in their day-to-day lives and to be valued for their contributions to our society.”
I thought drag queens were trans people.  I thought trans included a diverse array of gender nonconforming people who engage in a wide variety of gender non-conforming behavior.  Now GLAAD tells us that not only does trans not include drag queens (or presumably, kings), but that the very portrayal of drag queens is demeaning to “actual” trans women.  
Has the definition of trans been narrowed or is this an example of GLAAD transphobia?

Thanks done and tweeted.Note: To all interested Rachel Maddow now has a blog. Maddowblog.msnbc.comALSO there is a specific tweet site for it #maddowblog. 

Emails sentI love how the people who make these kinds of things always use the fact that there are real members of the various minorities they slander involved in the production, as if that somehow proves it can’t be hateful.  A few years back, the national tour of the appalling stage musical version of The Producers started its tour here.  I slammed it in a very strong review for being a gay minstrel show (I also think it stinks, but that’s another matter).  The show’s publicist called me, furious that I would dare call his show bigoted, and he pointed out that some of the cast members were really gay.  I responded by asking him, “Wasn’t Stepin Fechit was really black?”  He ended the conversation very quickly.  I imagine Israel Luna will be telling the press something similar any day now.

Umm…Did we forget that John Waters did this back in the 70s? Are we not allowed to like Desperate Living now?
While I sympathize with transexuals’ desire to be portrayed in positive ways that emphasize the common hopes, fears, and needs as non-trans people (their everyday-ness), I don’t think it means having to lose one’s sense of humor.
Certainly, the references to Angie and Jorge are in poor taste, but the sexploitation genre Luna appears to be citing is exactly about the pleasure of things done in poor taste.
Likewise, besides Russ Meyer, one of the other leading figures in the genre was Doris Wishman, a woman.
The nature of these films is hyperbolic and excessive, and I have a hard time believing that a largely literate, educated audience in New York City of all places is going to take those images with wholesale credulity. I have an even harder time believing that this film will be touring the big megaplex cinemas around the country.
I wholeheartedly agree that the experiences of Brandon Tina, Gwen Araujo, Angie Zapata, and Jorge Mercado deserve to be told with gravity and dignity, and should be used as touchstones for humanizing these victims of senseless hatred.
However, there is a danger in making this the sole message about transexuality or transvestitism, and that danger is that young individuals questioning and experimenting with their gender expression get the message that there’s a gang of homophobic thugs around every corner waiting to kill them. I am part of a generation of gay men that grew up seeing emaciated AIDS patients all over TV before AZT became common. If it wasn’t that, gay men were killing themselves or ended up battered and bloody in parking lots. After a while all this did was to teach me to put a deadbolt on the closet door.
Luna’s film may be crass and tastless, but just maybe, there might be a transcurious person who watches it and not only laughs at the grotesque and over-the-top performances, but
to take pleasure in the way in which gender, as a social construct, is made into something pliable and fluid.

There’s a big difference between this and John WatersNumber one is appropriation. John Waters doesn’t seek to define “transgender” people to the rest of the world, primarily focused on genderfuck and drag and doesn’t use exploitative trans depictions or lay claim to transgender icons to lend “pathos” to the camp elements he pioneered and perfected.
Luna however sets himself up for it. Instead of using camp to reclaim sexual morality, sexual expression and queerness, he’s specifically using it to reclaim the negative stereotypes, imagery, and slurs “for” transgender people and does so not by actually doing anything with them (the stereotypes in Waters works were always really an attack on the small mindedness of some other group or the audience) but in reveling in them and often replacing them wholesale with the more purposefully cis aspects of drag culture.
This on its own perhaps would not be too much of a problem, but for problem two. Most depictions of trans culture in media are heavily influenced by drag culture and while drag culture can include self-identified transgendered people, it is not the entire culture, nor an accurate reflection of the whole culture. At a time when we could use a film moving away from the all-drag depictions or “make them more obviously their original sex” depictions in media, we get one featuring people looking like David Bowie with implants doing Divine impersonations back and forth to each other.
Again, not a problem in isolation, that can be a valid expression, but when that’s already the cultural idea of trans people, he isn’t doing anything new with it, not subverting it, borrowing real trans history, and doing reclamation “for us” without even a passing understanding of trans culture and while really wanting to use something “edgy” to talk more about gay culture’s fascination with camp and drag?
Well, altogether, these isolated factors are unfortunate to say the least and personally upsetting if I may be frank and emotional for one brief second.
I don’t think he meant ill and I understand exactly why gay men in particular may be excited about the movie coming as it does from those subcultures, but there were a good number of, as I said, unfortunate decisions made in this work that will have negative consequences to the trans community entirely because of the sparse offerings of trans stories as we are most often are. Especially for transwomen.

this film is about Transgender (note it’s title)since it’s called
“Ticked off Tr***ys with knives”
NOT “ticked off drag queens with knives”
so asking the above question is silly.
movies like “i spit on your grave” are terribly offensive to rape survivors, is that not obvious?
“blaxploitation” films are also an insult.
so why give slack on this even for THOSE reasons?
people are murdered.
this is not funny…
a film about a gay child being
harrassed and beaten, and “humorously” getting over the top bloody revenge as camp would make ME throw up, at least.
and some movies should never have been made in the SEVENTIES.until one has lived in fear, one should not laugh at other people’s pain, or murder.
and  the   point  still is:
this is not a joke, people are actually KILLED.
only anne coulter laughs at this sick stuff.
(and her little re-pug dogs, too…..

Try this comparisonA parallel would be if I were to make a film about gay men in which I made every single gay character a ridiculously flaming “Queer Eye” type of caricature, wouldn’t that be problematic? Sure, some gay men are flaming interior decorators and such, but it would be unfair to paint the entire gay men’s community with that one particular stereotype, especially since the stereotype in question is often used to portray gay men as flighty and frivolous, not worthy of serious consideration.
It’s not the fact that some of the characters in Mr. Luna’s film are drag queens (aside: not all drag queens identify as trans, either), it’s the fact that if you were to watch his film, you’d think that’s the only kind of trans person out there. That’s what I find to be really problematic about this film’s portrayal of trans people, and I think that GLAAD is trying to make the same point with that part of their call to action.

Or even better…Try imagining if I made a film stereotyping all gay men as drag queens. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that that stereotype got applied to the gay male community, too…

I respectfully disagree…1) with the John Waters point. I strongly believe if many of his films were released today, there’d be a bevy of gay, lesbian, cis,and trans activist after him. He is equal-opportunity and very vocal about being so.
Yes, Luna is guilty of poor taste and lack of originality. However, I think he and his film are quite self-reflexive in that sense. I also think that despite the politically incorrect way he handles it, his message is a good one. He wants to imagine a scenario in which trans individuals fight back and turn the table on those that would kill them.
I also have a problem with you equating this film with the larger media culture. I hardly see this film extending very far beyond Tribeca. I don’t see this becoming Hedwig, a film which had its own trans-insensitivity problems.
2)@ Javier…again I respectfully disagree. Your comment about Blaxploitation films is not wholly correct. There were quite a number of black film makers who produced and directed blaxploitation films. Secondly, I think Luna is very aware that trans people are being killed.
However, I appreciate the scenario that Luna is trying to imagine precisely because it is not a message solely of victimhood and fear. When I was young I was held at gunpoint because some crazy fuck sensed I was gay and didn’t like it. I have seen people being beaten for being gay, lesbian and trans, but I have seen them fight back and have also fought alongside them. If I laugh at Luna’s film, it is not because I’m mocking the deaths of Angie Zapata or Jorge Mercado. I laugh because the social order that allows those deaths is being overturned in the film.
I think the activist attention being given to Luna’s film is disproportionate to its overall cultural impact. Protest would be better spent against real life ordinances that stand to discriminate against trans individuals.
 

NOinstead they made Queer as Folk which was just as much a disservice to they gay male community.  

this is not a tomato/ tahmato argumentum ,neurotobot,
if we really expect people to take us seriously
re matt shepard,brandon teena,angie zapata-type
hate crimes, we can’t just turn around and LAUGH at it.
and i really am not.
really not sure how you are not seeing that here.
it’s not really a semantics argument, or one about “alexis” or “marc” as portrayed in tv’s ‘ugly betty’.
this is ground zero on glbt hate crimes,
ala matt shepard et al.please think about this as an issue, not “film 101″.
this is life and death.
your’s, too.
(i assume you are gay?)
so,
good night.
moving on…..

No1) Given that John Waters prides himself on being ahead of the curve and pushing the envelope regarding straight up-tight America’s worldview, he a) probably wouldn’t release the films he did then now, because queer culture has made significant gains since then, b) his films don’t have the problems I mentioned above. They explored gender-fuck, drag, etc… He never claimed ownership to trans self-identification and he rarely if ever made his gender-transgressives the butt of the joke. They were almost always the vehicle for a larger joke, one often at the expense of the audience itself.
And furthermore this isn’t John Waters. It’s taking another culture, claiming ownership over the rights of reclamation because that’s what camp is and inserting more elements liked by gay male culture for a movie that’s a thinly veiled vehicle entirely for gay men (he admits he really wanted to write a gay male revenge film but decided to appropriate trans people instead because they’d be “edgy”). There are more problematic aspects in all of the promo material I’ve seen than I cared to count and zero signs of subverting the stereotypes in any interesting manner other than fulfilling other negative stereotypes.
As far as the media culture at large, it has to be considered in that regard. As of now, there are very few genuinely decent depictions of trans people out there, even fewer that don’t “play up” the “original sex”, negative stereotypes, or more elements from drag culture subculture than any other version of trans.
Such a movie in a diverse field of representations would be far less damaging. The fact that there is such a dearth of depictions means depictions like these have more of an effect than they should. Sure, such exploitative illy conceived messes should be water on the back of a duck, but because this is how trans people are seen, this adds to that and there’s no sign of any genuine subversion of that owing to the fact that it’s owing way more to trying to be Tarantino and doing a problematic genre “straight” than genuinely understanding the culture involved.
A huge amount of the problem is the implied ownership. It’s asking to lay claim to not only transgender stories, but their revenge fantasies, their culture, their reclamation of language, and most damningly our icons, our symbols of justice finally granted after years of the trans panic defense. It does this with only a facile understanding of us, little respect for us, and intensely problematic depictions of us.
The fuck?
That’s the real hit home aspect. When our stories are nowhere to be found, our directors not given space, our writers not promoted, for this to lay claim to us and claim to speak for us, to deny us our own path to reclamation and processing of our lot in life?
That is a travesty. It is dehumanizing, deeply problematic, and completely off-sides.
Also, thank you for the concern on where we should apply our protests, finite resource that they are. I will gladly check in on what I am allowed to protest, comment on, or note problematic broad sociological aspects on in the future. Being of a more privileged class on this particular issue, I’m sure your advice is the only impartial advice there is, because the oppressed class in any debate is always shrill and spread thin and ignoring “real oppression” and the oppressor class always has their head screwed on tight and are the only real arbiters of when something is offensive to the oppressed group. Also they are the only people who understand humor apparently.
Thank you kindly for your concern, I will file it accordingly and with all the respect it is due.

Do you honestly not get it?If members of a disparaged minority say they find a given film, book or whatever offensive, then it is offensive.  You don’t get to make that call for them.
I remember people telling me when I was a kid and Amos’N'Andy was still on TV (in syndication), that black people who found the show offensive were being oversensitive and should learn to loosen up and laugh at it.  Why couldn’t they take a joke?  What on earth was wrong with them there uppity black militants?
Now, I have only the dimmest memories of Amos’N'Andy.  I do remember it being well enough done, in strictly technical terms.  Tim Moore, Lillian Randolph and the other black players in the cast were very skilled comic actors.  But that doesn’t change the fact that the show trafficked in horrible racial stereotypes.
I remember seeing an interview with a local black activist in which he asked, about the show and the “cantcha take a joke?” line of argument, “How many times should we have to laugh at the same jokes before we’ve satisfied the white community?”  I would ask the same question now:  How many god-awful movies and TV shows trashing LGBT people should our community have to bear?  Any good film buff could point you to movies made during WWI (and even earlier) that peddled the same horrible LGBT stereotypes.   Enlighten us: at what point should we be permitted to say enough is enough?

But it wasn’t LGBT people getting trashedIt was just the “Trannies”. By a Gay director.

SequelsFurious Faggots with Blades – based loosely on the life of Harvey Milk
Raging Rugmunchers with Scimitars – watch them use their toaster ovens to give their rapists a Hot Date
Crazed Coons with Axes – based in the life of Martin Luther King
Psycho Sheenies with Hacksaws – Camp Comedy about Auschwitz survivors seeking revenge
“Edgy”, all of them.

*Sigh*Cerberus, I know you’re angry; so am I. I temper my anger when I post my diaries, but we both know my anger iss there.
Your snarking in your last two paragraphs at neurotobot is awfully close to those personal attacks at other blenders that the we baristas (and the Pam’s House Blend Terms And Conditions Of Service) frown upon.
Please remember to debate the ideas with verve, but please keep a good distance from ad hominem attacks that may be interpreted as flaming. In anger, it’s easy to write our comments that are pointed not at a person’s ideas we disagree with, but at the person who puts forward the ideas we disagree with.
Let’s just not go there, okay?

Relevant passageI think the activist attention being given to Luna’s film is disproportionate to its overall cultural impact. Protest would be better spent against real life ordinances that stand to discriminate against trans individuals.
Regarding the origin of the snark and the paragraph it is in direct response to.
But yes, I did stop arguing dispassionately and allow undue snark for those paragraphs. Snuck out from the half-bottled rage at the same tired crap of an argument. Calmed myself down at the expense of some strong insomnia, but overall, z’all good.

Talk about exploitation!This is horrible!

ticked offI like the premise.    I like the idea of someone who gets beat on getting it together and going after bully ass.  Most of the time, nobody will do it for you. Why didn’t they do a little consulting before making a mess of a movie?
Love,
Rick

As I knew it would be. Seriously, you’re fine. No worries.

ticked off . . .etc, etc, . . . with knives.Well, I signed the petition. I thought it was completely unnecessary and insensitive to start the film off with the exploitation of Angie Zapata’s and Jorge Mercado’s tragic deaths. Presumably to give this film an air of legitimacy? That is why I will not be giving my money to Mr. Luna.
But, I’m sure many people in the trans community will want to see it. If the film was given a rigorous editing makeover (get rid of the painful real world references to Angie and Jorge for starters–after all–the film claims to be camp and fantasy)then I might go see it. Transgender, transsexual, drag queen, etc . . . all together in a ‘Faster Pussycat, kill . . .kill” type of of flick doesn’t bother me personally, but I am bothered that the common denominator of the bigoted, violent crowd that stigmatizes and hates us all will not be able to make any of the distinctions that the director and actors insist are plainly obvious. I did not spend tens of thousands of dollars on SRS surgeries so that I could become a female impersonator, sex worker or show girl.  I did it because it is an innate biological drive. I know a lot of people will groan as soon as they hear that, but just because it may not be the case for someone else, doesn’t mean it’s not my truth. Saying I’m transsexual and not a drag queen is not to say, for example, that because I have long hair, therefore I hate people with short hair. I guess the point I’m trying to make (actually agreeing with) is that these distinctions are important–they show how truly diverse our community is, and, in the end, we are part of the community writ large, LGBTI, straight, everybody.    

mad, mad world.Some of the reactions to this film make me feel like I am some sort of traitor. I’m trans, and I want to see it. On a visceral level, it’s wish fulfillment.  Many, if not all of us in the queer community, walk around carrying the fear, sadness, and anger of knowing that being targeted for violence is a painfully real possibility. We have watched our friends and families suffer. In that reality, we know that vengeance and retribution will not take their, or our, pain away. But I will not deny that in a dark, shadowy corner of my heart, I want those who would hurt me, who have hurt those who I love, to feel that same fear. To lose their power. To feel my pain. Inglorious Bastards would be a recent comparison. At the end of the movie I had to come to terms with myself, because I realized that I spent two hours desperately hoping that I would get to watch hitler die.
But because the vast majority my heart is built with forgiveness and love, cartharsis through an intentionally absurdest movie is as close as I will get. I’ll return to looking over my shoulder when I walk home alone.
I respect TFF’s decision not to pull the film. Yes, it will lead to more ignorant people running around making jokes about “trannies” and trans people will be hurt and offended. I will be hurt and offended. But do not I think it shouldn’t be shown just because the filmmakers are throwing another match on a burning building. If I give Luna the benefit of the doubt, his heart could look like mine, and I’m not here to tell anyone what kind of art they are allowed to make.

Well, except that is not what the GLAAD alert saysIt doesn’t object to the fact that this movie only portrays one kind of trans.  It says that drag queens are not actual trans people.  So I don’t think your analogy works.
Also, your analogy fails b/c the “queen” is a gay stereotype.  Drag queens, as I understand it, are not a trans stereotype, but are actually part of the preferred definition of trans.  Is it now required that every movie about trans people must include at least one transsexual, one drag queen, one intersexed person, etc.?  

Whatever.Queer of Folk was a groundbreaking show, and there was diversity in it, if you cared to watch more than one episode before forming an opinion.

“Psycho Sheenies with Hacksaws – Camp Comedy about Auschwitz survivors seeking revenge”Rumor has it that the producers of “Hogan’s Heroes” originally wanted to do this, but the network wanted something less-Jewish.

just my two centsI’m not associated with it at all. I’ve never met or spoken with anyone who made it, or anyone who has anything to do with the Tribecca FF. I read about a group of people boycotting it on facebook, and saw a link here. I’m not trying to discourage anyone from organizing against the film, and I can certainly understand why they would want to. The discussion about it and what it means for our community seemed, to me, to be headed toward “gay men v. trans people and their allies.” I think both sides have valid points, but it stirs up intense feelings in all of us and I thought the tone of the conversation was less than constructive. I don’t like watching us tear each other down.
It struck a chord me because I saw inglorious bastards recently, right before the oscars, and I had been thinking about exploitation films and wish fulfillment.  

WellThe “gay men v. trans” thing really is going to come from this just by the appropriation and the camp elements alone. The camp and the drag elements make gay men very emotionally connected to it regardless of trans people and makes it easy for them to view it as “meanie” trans people “taking something away from them” and well for trans people, see complaints about objectification, lazy stereotyping, and most importantly laying claim to our culture in order to produce a poorly made camp travesty featuring multiple slurs against our family in the name of our family.
Certainly I’d like to avoid that, but it will come and as Autumn noted in the lower thread, it comes at a really bad time. Unfortunately, it would definitely be asking too much to demand trans people not point out problematic elements and it’s unfortunately asking too much to ask gay men not to go out of their way to act like victims because trans people are pointing out problematic elements.
It’s sad, but unavoidable now that it’s out here. Considering that many in the gay male community are already calling for a counter-boycott against GLAAD for daring to comment on this movie, there will be a scuffle.
Ignoring that though and getting to your original point, I see the role a revenge fantasy can play, though I’m not the greatest fan of the genre, especially when they aren’t done by the oppressed group themselves. Inglorious Basterds for instance had as much problematic elements as all the other Tarantino movies, possibly more and that was a revenge movie in the hands of a supposed cinematic genius.
But the bringing of catharsis to a shitty situation or a shitty history is every bit of a valid story emotional response as any other and there have been amazing revenge movies made such as Heathers. There’s no reason why one couldn’t have done so for the trans characters with a genuinely subversive story.
This isn’t that movie. The trailer alone reveals deep fundamental problems in the director’s understanding of and idea of trans characters and even his basic interest in trans culture. I know that this movie won’t provide much catharsis because one would have to wade through dehumanizing unfortunate problematic portrayals including unending hurtful stereotypes just to see someone sort of almost maybe supposed to be you kicking ass and taking names.
But we’re so starved for any portrayal that the problem becomes like that for black cinema. What are we willing to suffer to see “our people” on the screen and something that is at least semi-like “our stories”?
It’s a tough individual question and I don’t disparage your personal calculus on that. We all have varying degrees of what we’re able to or willing to screen out in order to enjoy what we want.
And that is a personal decision to make.

Please see the post at Joe.My.God.  A different perspective.

Well, if you intentionally misread it…There’s nothing in the GLAAD alert saying that drag queens can’t be trans. (You’ll notice I made that point in my response to your original comment, too.) The drag community does indeed have some overlap with the trans community, but (and this is the important point) they aren’t the same community, and pushing the idea that they are, as this film does, paints an inaccurate and misleading picture of the trans community. That’s all that part of the GLAAD alert is saying.
BTW, thank you so much for coming along to tell me how to define my own community, and just what stereotypes my community gets targeted with. You’d think we could figure this out for ourselves, but it turns out that we’re just too naive to get any of that political stuff. Also, I’m glad you’re here to tell us what is and isn’t transphobic – the concept is just so darn complicated that it really does take someone from outside of the trans community to decide when the trans community is being portrayed badly. If it weren’t for well-meaning people like you, the trans community truly would be lost!
/sarcasm

The one taken over by people in the commentsCalling for a counter-boycott of GLAAD and saying that trans people are a vile lie who don’t belong in the general queer community?
Though fair be it, Joe isn’t really pushing that line, but wow, swirling cesspool of gay men apparently jonesing for a good gay men v. trans people battle which is really rather sad both from a coalition building standard and a “wow these people are broken privileged assholes” standard.

Now nowYou know that to let a community define itself would be heresy. Also they are not allowed to complain about sociological pictures made by media representations that only paint certain pictures which are all painted by non-family sometimes supportive, sometimes hostile, sometimes well-meaning but problematic.
Just sit back and let the proper folk define you, you’ll thank them later.
Note to Autumn: this is not at all directed at Daniel, but rather a sociological trend wherein minority groups, especially in late visibility phases end up being treated by both culture in general and media marketers in particular.

Didn’t know the director was gay.That makes it even worse.  Much worse.
I always find myself wishing there was some way I/we could apologize to the trans community for the way some of our gay brothers treat you.  Obviously, any such apology would ring hollow.  All we can do is keep soldiering on, trying to enlighten, and hoping.

(Insert emoticon for sad face)Aww, no, we don’t blame all gay men for some gay men shall we say wallowing in privilege.
Any oppressed group for a particular angle of oppression can usually greatly appreciate nuance and greatly understands that one person’s unfortunate behavior doesn’t reflect negatively on the oppressor group as a whole. Feminists greatly understand that men don’t all suck. Queer people greatly understand that straight people don’t suck. And when certain overly privileged cis gays make unfortunate choices it doesn’t reflects on LBGs at all.
Privilege is also just one of those things. It can make you do stupid thoughtless things, but people try and do right slowly but surely and many are willing to listen.
You don’t need to apologize for your unfortunates, though it’s nice that you thought to do so. I’m very touched.

Funny, isn’t itHow is it that so many people want to boycott an organization created to respond to defamation in media for taking a stance against, you know, defamation in media?

YeahIt’s mostly one asshole named dwerk. I argue with him almost daily. He’s a blatant anti-trans bigot.
Other than that, what annoyed me on JMG is how many people were calling what GLAAD is doing “censorship”. As an artist myself, it annoys me that people do not understand their free speech rights. You have a right to express yourself, within reason, and be safe from GOVERNMENT retaliation. Freedom of speech does NOT mean you can put your art up wherever you like no matter what it contains.
As an artist, I am free to create offensive art. Because I have rights under the first amendment, I cannot be arrested or retaliated against by the government just because I say something they don’t like. But that doesn’t mean I am guaranteed a spot to place my art on any gallery wall.
Whether you agree with GLAAD or not, they are petitioning to have a film removed from a film festival. That isn’t censorship. It’s not like they are trying to get the government to intervene and imprison the filmmakers.

LOL right?Okay thank you, that was the second most annoying thing about the JMG forum. GLAAD doing their job makes people bitching.
What’s weird to me is that a lot of the readers at JMG are older guys. So theoretically they should remember the time when there were no sympathetic portrayals of gay men in the media. That’s all changed now. Still a lot of work to do, but it has definitely changed for the better. We are no longer only portrayed as sexual predators.
How quickly those older queens have forgotten what it was like to be constantly defamed in the media. And while I occasionally disagree with GLAAD, media watchdog groups are partly responsible for the positive changes in portrayals of gay men in the media. You’d think older gays would appreciate that a bit more.

What’s even more annoyingIs how many people believe “free speech” means no one has a right to their own opinion regarding your work or work you personally enjoy.
As you said, I have a right to create offensive art and other people have the right to call my work offensive, disrespectful, problematic and otherwise organize to boycott me, call me mean names, deconstruct the problematic nature of my work, and even call for my work to be removed from private festivals.
Often comes up in privilege discussions.

Well…since we’re talking about blaxplotation filmsand this film puports to be a send-up to that genre, I’ll try to keep my comments based on that.
Say what you will about the blaxplotation genre, you do have to see it in cultural context a little.
Especially note the whole “good nigger” (best exemplified by Sidney Poitier’s portrayal of Virgil Tibbs) vs. “bad nigger” opposition which came to the forefront in the Black Power days of the civil rights movement.
Also remember that blaxplotation films were primarily targeted at black audiences and many audiences loved the revenge/wish fulfillment theme in some of them.
While the initial blaxplotation movies (and it wasn’t just movies, it was also books by authors like Donald Goines) were pretty one dimensional and stereotypical (but then again, so was Virgil Tibbs), they did result in more fully drawn and actually pretty complex black characters that you see in some of the hip hop movies in the 80′s and 90′s like Boys in the Hood and Menace to Society.
Even the more recent Hustle & Flow fits pretty well into the genre. And certainly there’s a germ of blaxplotation in Denzel Washington’s character in Trading Days (although I think of Trading Days more in terms of Greek tragedy also, that was part of the genius of the film).
In other words, if you’re going to do a “transplotation film” as a send up to blaxplotation films then you damn well better have a series of “good tranny” Virgil Tibbs-like characters to refer your “bad tranny” to.
Otherwise it doesn’t work.
Of the top of my head, I can think of Flawless, Holiday Heart, and Priscilla Queen of the Desert. And now that I think about, I would relish the idea of a movie where transwomen, for example, went into the outback and kick some redneck Australian ass.
I did see a couple scenes in the trailer (the karate kick scenes) that I would consider to be a proper send-up to “blaxplotation.”
But…the timing is wrong, the cultural context is lacking, and the mention of  Zapata and Mercado was offensive and just plain tacky.
My $.02

What are you talking about?I am not defining your community.  I am working off of what I thought was the preferred definition of trans as created by trans people.  For example, gender identity anti-discrimination laws are specifically written to define trans to include drag queens.  And I know people on this blog who have gotten in trouble when they assumed that trans only meant transitioning transsexuals.  But when you take the trans-created definition and run with it, you still get in trouble with the PC police.  I guess you can never win.  Maybe that is the point of this whole “outrage of the week” phenomenon.
I don’t know how it is intentionally misreading the alert when it says:  ”It demeans actual transgender women who struggle for acceptance and respect in their day-to-day lives and to be valued for their contributions to our society.”
The reference to “actual transgender women” in contrast to the drag queens portrayed in the film can only mean that the drag queens were not “actual” transgender women.  It does not an objection that a variety of transgender women weren’t depicted.

there’s no accounting for taste“While the initial blaxplotation movies (and it wasn’t just movies, it was also books by authors like Donald Goines) were pretty one dimensional and stereotypical (but then again, so was Virgil Tibbs), they did result in more fully drawn and actually pretty complex black characters that you see in some of the hip hop movies in the 80′s and 90′s like Boys in the Hood and Menace to Society.”
Could we view this film as a new part of the “cultural context” that is lacking? Even assuming, since none of us have seen the film, that it “doesn’t work,” what does that mean? My inner queer film nerd is THRILLED about the prospect of having conversations about the line between constructive and destructive exploitation.
In another thread I read a comment by a trans woman who said this film made her more determined to respond with a film of her own. She didn’t specify a “transploitation” genre, but I would argue that a movie like the one we’re all discussing creates a spark. For lack of a better term, it creates  all these “teachable moments”  that can be helpful. Someone will be motivated to make their own film in response that comes closer to what we do want to see. If we could all catch our breath before we spoke with one another, gay men and trans folks could come out of this with a better understanding of one another. This sometimes gay trans man certainly his fingers crossed.
It’s never a bad time to speak your truth. I understand the problematic nature of appropriating another culture’s “truth” as your own, and the critique of that is inevitable and justified. I also think that we’re all entitled to try, and fail, and then try better, fail better.

Keep digging…Well, if a non-trans person (I assume – correct me if I’m wrong) coming along and lecturing actual trans people about what stereotypes are or aren’t used against the trans community and what the One True Preferred Definition of Trans is isn’t about trying to define my community for me, I can’t imagine what might qualify as such…

its like rain on your wedding day…..one queer’s defamation is another queer’s art. In such a diverse community, it will be really hard to reach a consensus on what constitutes defamation. GLAAD is a controversial organization for that very reason, some people are offended when they purport to speak on behalf of an entire community that isn’t in agreement on something. I wouldn’t join a boycott of GLAAD, but I wouldn’t join a boycott of the film either. Others who want to, have at it. I’m just happy when we start talking.  

completely agreeand I respect yours as well.  

I didn’t apologize.

Obviously, any such apology would ring hollow.

Can’t you read?

Ticked-Off Trannies With KnivesI don’t agree..
Autumn Sandeen, one of your members here who’s work I’ve read and enjoyed, said on a blog of mine “I wish members of the gay subcommunity of the LGBT community would just not tell trans subcommunity members to get a sense of humor, and actually listen when trans people point out things we have legitamate problems with.. Telling us us to get a sense of humor feels pretty much the same as being told to “shut the fuck up.”
Well g’head and Wish in one hand & Sh*t in the other and see which gets full faster.
I’m not telling you to “shut the f*ck up” as you stated. I’m saying MAKE A MOVIE/DOCUMENTARY AND GET YOUR VOICE OUT THERE INSTEAD OF JUST TYPING. I’m saying that to everyone. Not just Autumn.
love your hair…hope you win,
WILLAM BELLI, star of Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives.
http://www.willambelli.com

UhBecause you have better connections, leg-ups, etc…
I know a few award-winning trans film makers and they have a hell of a time getting their works out there because a lot of larger film festivals will look at them and assume that they speak for a narrow and “controversial” potential audience and they don’t have the clout to throw weight around where they need it.
I get that blindness to privilege is your apparent thing, but any X group which has traditionally been kept out of or under-representated in Organization Y will face a steep hill and very strong pressure from Organization Y continuing that exclusion. This can occur actively or passively, but it occurs every time. Group X will have to fight for inclusion and only after multiple victories will it have the staying power and be allowed the freedom giving previous members of the groups. It was the same for the larger gay community over the years.
And one big problem of this is that when organization Y is a media representation sort of deal, Group X will find itself under-represented and at risk of being misrepresented by another Group Z perhaps even to their detriment. Again the larger gay community knows this very well. It was the reason GLAAD was founded in the first place.
As long as trans filmmakers can’t break through their works and those with clout are using their clout to fill this vacuum with exploitative works that claim ownership to trans experiences there is a problematic setup that will make any ill in the exploitative work that much worse because of the paucity of material.
The community is more than happy to continue making works and to keep fighting to get more and more into the festival circuit, but it’d help if you didn’t try and blame the victim over our efforts as if we somehow chose the media blackout.

To Quote DJ……from The Dallas Voice‘s Tribeca responds comment thread:

I agree with Tisha. Let’s frame it yet another way:
A white filmmaker creates a film called ‘Ticked of n******s with guns.’
It opens with the stories of Emmett Till and James Byrd Jr, then moves on to the action. 5 black men (actually two, the other three are white people in blackface) are brutally beaten by klan members. After they recover, the dimwitted and uncivilized survivors get some fried chicken and watermelon, then hop in their ’88 Lincoln Towncar and exact their revenge.
The director said he got the idea from the recent spat of hate crimes and figured violence against women and gays has already been done. He consulted with several real black people before making the movie, and see the film as empowering.
It’s clear that this scenario is inappropriate. The title alone would evoke outrage, and the use of such stereotypes would be roundly denounced.
Let me then present your statements:
- Also, I do not understand how the word ["n*****"] is offensive. Maybe I am not completely hip to every aspect of the [African-American] venacular, but what is offensive to one does not mean it is offensive to all.
- Just because a fictional film doesn’t represent an entire population or sub-culture, or sub-sub-culture, doesn’t mean that the film is irrelevant or offensive.
- All this being said, I think it’s great that Israel Luna had the courage to make, what I consider, an empowering film.
- Fortunately Israel doesn’t use the term ["n*****"], the Title of the film is “Ticked-Off [N*****S] With Knives.”
In both the film and my synopsis, a pejorative term is used in the title by someone outside of that community – and it doesn’t matter whether you understand that or not. They both exploit character and behavior stereotypes which are offensive and harmful to those communities they target. To juxtapose this exploitation against the weight of hate crimes is incredibly disrespectful. To call it empowering is an absolute joke.
Would you really stand up to the criticism of the film I described above and tell a person of color that you don’t find the film offensive, and that they need to just relax. You thought that characterization of their community was empowering, and hey, it’s just a joke? That is basically what you are doing.

It appears you don’t get where the trans people who are upset with this La Luna Entertainment film are coming from on this, Willam. I can’t help but feel a bit sad about that.

well…I could come in and slice and dice pretty much every major defense given so far.
Brutally, cruelly, and with my usual flair for the, um, intense.
As it is, let me put it this way, and make the point fairly simply.
If you think this film is ok, then you are saying that the stigmatization of trans folk, Lesbian folk Gay folk, and bisexual folk — as well as related gender and sex variant people — is perfectly fine and totally acceptable.
You are saying that “as long as its funny” that people can use our lives as insults and parodies, and that they can hand those things over to the general public to be used at will.
You are saying that it is perfectly acceptable to use the absolute worst possible stereotypes be paraded out in front of the american public as “classic” and perfectly reasonable.
You are saying that it is ok to use things like Matthew Shepard’s death as the basis and motivation for something which mocks you, personally.
If you are at peace witht hat — if you don’t mind being told that “that’s so gay” is perfectly fine as a term for saying something is stupid or ugly or unwanted (which is ultimately the same thing that this film is doing, just on a screen that will be seen by people who have power and influence over an industry that will do more of the same damn thing in the near future), then in my personal opinion, you can do the following:
support it all you want.
Just don’t complain about the next beating or murder or discrimination you face.
Suck it up and take it.

This film is making light of murder, the murder of people like me.This film is capitalizing on the murders of very real people, people like me.  People who are bashed to death in numbers far out of proportion to our numbers?
Why, oh why, would I think that is funny?
If the film was about a drag bar…or a trans friendly lesbian bar…or some such, and it was a romp about said bar being shut down by unfriendly forces, bent on harming “transiness”  where the DQs. transfolk and the whole heehaw gang got together and fought back,  that would be fine.  The film would probably on the level of fart jokes, but whatever.
Yeah, let’s do a campy film about Stonewall!  Or hey, how about HIV and the Reagan Administration’s inaction on it!  You know, we could load Super Soakers with that infamous vegetable, Ketchup, and hand it to John Hinkley Jr., who is secretly in our employ.
Is that funny enough for Luna?  I hope he hasn’t lost anyone…I know I have.
He needs to quit lighting his brain farts.

Totally diverse!Like, one of those buff, good-looking well-off cis white guys was kinda nerdy! Let’s go diversity!

A question

“The filmmakers provided a copy of this film to GLAAD in February, and for weeks the organization had been supportive to the filmmakers. In fact, GLAAD representatives advised the film’s producer, director and cast on how to describe the film to its core constituency.”

I’m interpreting this as something of a jab at GLAAD for – if I’m interpreting it right – being two-faced, either signing off on or tacitly approving of the flick initially but now backing the boycott.
Am I missing something?

Nope. That’s exactly what it is.makes one wonder enough to send an email, doesn’t it?

I asked a question. Is that now forbidden too?My post was a question based on my understanding of the definition of trans preferred by trans people.  Instead of dealing with the question or any related issue, you seem obsessed as to whether I am trans and therefore worthy to engage in a discussion about the term.  If you think you are going to intimidate gay people from discussion on a blog dedicated to discussion, you are mistaken.
You apparently view drag queens as a separate group that has some overlap with trans but is not definitionally trans.  OK, fine.  Not to lecture you, my overlord, but your view conflicts with a host of definitions in “gender identity” anti-discrimination laws.  Hope you don’t get sued b/c you didn’t know drag queens were covered.  

Point out that they are making the Sarah Palin mistakeThat usually makes them realise how stupid their “I have a right to say what I want, but you don’t have right to criticise me” stance of “free speech” is.

They were “working with” Luna……but Luna didn’t take GLAAD’s advice. I talked to a staff member at GLAAD Friday, and they told me that that was a key area of disagreement with Luna.
GLAAD never bought off on his use of the term “trannies” in the title, and let him know it was problematic from the get-go. Luna apparently told GLAAD he wasn’t interested in changing the name of the film.
That’s what’s missing here — “working with” someone doesn’t mean the person you’re “working with” takes your advice.

OohkayFirst off, get off the cross, disagreement is not censorship and making you feel bad for privilege is not the same as stripping away your right to free speech. I am always appalled that the tone of arguments from the side of defense of hurtful speech always treat people responding that they were hurt is some giant attack against them for making them know about the existence of hurt people.
To answer your questions. Let’s start with gender identity in law. Like with sexual orientation, it covers a broader stroke than those who would actually call themselves anything in Kinsey 1-6. It covers real and perceived gender identity. The perceived is so that a bigot can’t escape on a technicality. If he decides to attack some very cis person who dressed up “funnily” for a frat party because that bigot thought that person was trans, he can’t use their real gender identity as a loophole. The broadness in legal law is important to protect the greatest amount of people from targeted hate crimes.
Important takeaway, the laws are deliberately broader than the communities that lay claim to the identity and gender performance protections are broadened to cover gaps found in gender protection. They attacked a man not for being a man, but for looking “girly”, that’s now better protected as a formal hate crime or in anti-discrimination laws. Broad laws are important to avoid loopholes.
Secondly, general trans identity is often one of self-identification. And there are several groups under the banner of transgender who may or may not lay claim to that term. Primarily and almost universally those who’s mental sex did not or does not match their birth sex, sometimes those whose gender performance radically departs from their expected performance or who otherwise often adopt a persona of the opposite sex as scene or life play, sometimes those who transgress gender the social construct and see themselves as somewhere new, possibly even as a third sex entirely, and several others including genderfuck. It’s a broad coalition, indeed.
Which gets into the problem with point number three, media representation. And that’s what we’re discussing here today. Media representation is just that, how the community gets depicted in films, television, and other mediums, which greatly influences how trans people are viewed by the world. This directly effects a great deal because we are often shallow creatures and without personal experience, we are very prone to believing wholesale in media representations as the accurate and whole picture of any group of people. This point is especially proven in right-wingers who will make their arguments entirely from the fictional worlds of television and movie stereotypes, but it is a factor we all fall prey too. This effects how enemies see us, how we see ourselves when we are figuring ourselves out, and how our friends and families see us when we initial come out.
So now, we come to the meat. Regardless of variety realities and a majority base of trans people being of the brain doesn’t match birth plumbing variety, media representation has been overwhelmingly dominated with presenting either drag culture stereotypes, it’s own negative stereotypes regarding fictionality, or in the rare cases of presenting brain-v-plumbing trans people, using actors whose “initial sex” is very highlighted via makeup or other clues to play these characters. A narrow presentation field that sees only one type of trans person, those who treat gender as a game or as a farce  and who reinforce the narrative of artificiality and superficiality.
And this is a problem when one depiction that very much doesn’t cover most trans experiences becomes the dominant and often sole narrative about trans experiences.
So when we complain about it borrowing heavily from drag elements and treating those as synonymous with trans culture, we are not complaining that the subgroup of drag performers who also consider themselves transgender should stop.
We are complaining about how the media narrative is one where it is assumed all trans people are of the same philosophical idea as drag performers and that which works in the context of drag culture can easily stand for a description of the broader trans culture. This is untrue and is deeply problematic in an existing media culture where that is pretty much the assumed case. There is an over-dominance of drag as all trans experiences and that is why seeing one demanding this level of ownership with this many deeply problematic red flags is upsetting.
In a more diverse media outlet where trans depictions were broad and varied, I might react negatively but far less dispassionately, because it would have little impact other than being an offensive poorly made movie. It’s the paucity and narrowness of media culture surrounding trans people that rise this work to travesty and make its narrow appropriation so much of a gut punch.
Hopefully this answer will serve you well and I would ask as a personal favor that you rethink your constant pose as victim of some grand PC conspiracy of trans people. Trans people are kind of in their right to be short and testy, they’re the ones being offended and it is not always their job to educate you on the why, nor are they removing your rights of speech when they point out problematic narratives in either the film you are defending or your personal defense.
Remember that they have literally heard these arguments hundreds of times before, had them repeatedly and seen them so often end in nothing positive but including feelings of isolation and offense on their part and the now oddly righteous ire of the more privileged party who thinks having to talk with a less privileged party was some grueling ordeal in the work camps. It’s emotionally draining in a very unique way and if we engage you, we are doing so as in many ways a favor to you, to educate you to privileges and about our life experiences.

ThanksGiven GLAAD’s propensity for selling out the T for anything even remotely favoring gay marriage, I was wondering what had actually happened.

No, it’s not forbidden…But you’re not automatically entitled to having your opinion accepted without question, either – especially not when it looks like you’re trying to derail the discussion by nitpicking over GLAAD’s terminology. Stop playing the drowning maestro and whining about the “PC police”, because really, the worst I can do to you here is point out that I think you’re being disruptive and petulant – some readers may agree with my assessment of your posts, and others may think I’m out of line with that assessment. You can always take your opinions somewhere else if you want people to give you unconditional agreement.
As for my view supposedly being in conflict with the anti-discrimination laws, well, I believe Cerberus has already addressed that in the post above mine. Read it if you haven’t already.

This is why I engage GLAAD.Engaging GLAAD in conversations about trans people and issues — treating GLAAD as my potential trans ally — they’ve behaved as my trans ally.
Sometimes, engaging others actually has very positive results, and sometimes not. When trans folk (like me) engaged GLAAD, there were positive results; when GLAAD tried to engage Israel Luna, there wasn’t positive results.
But, because I hope for the positive, I usually try to engage.

Okay.Thanks for posting this.  Out of all of the criticism of the GLAAD boycott, this is the only one that troubled me.  I wanted to know how they would respond to the point that they had been consulted but are now boycotting the film.

Non-binary Gender people are indeed Trans tooBi-Gender, Genderqueer, Crossdressers, Drag Kings and Queens who consider that part of their identity rather than mere performance and more are indeed Transgender too.
And far too often we are made invisible or are attacked in the process of protecting binary-identified Trans people. And sometimes it’s Vice Versa. All of which is Transphobic.
And it’s got to stop.
Also some growing problems on matters of offensive language.
Transvestite. A term considered offensive in some places because of the oppressive definition of Transvestic Fetishism. Also considered offensive by some people because it has ‘trans’ in it and they don’t want to be associated with Transsexuals.. in otherwords a Transphobic reason for the term to be offensive. It’s also a term NOT considered offensive in whole countries and various communities and cultures. Where some consider crossdresser the polite term in other places IT is the offensive term because it’s assumed to be performance rather than identity or in that place it is the term associated with a sexual fetish.
Tranny is also in some places considered not offensive. Again this varies depending on the location especially country but sometimes also class. I’ve been informed that the term is offensive because it refers to sex-workers, non-binary people and especially originally referred to transvestites…
I am now coming to the conclusion that concidering the term Tranny as offensive may itself be potentially Transphobic! Specifically anti-non-binary, anti-crossdresser/transvestite Transphobia. And anti-sex-worker as well! Of course the way a term is used and by whom and in what context can drastically change the offensiveness of a term. If the term is being used as an insult of course that’s insulting clearly. But if people are finding the term Tranny offensive because of an anti-transvestite or anti-non-binary or anti-sex worker bias THAT is very offensive.
Non-binary members of the Sex and Gender Diverse population deserve respect too. And oppression of us must stop.

I hope you all read!Kathleen
Bill is a common nickname for William.
I’m Willam. That would be like me calling you Leena for Kathleena even though your name is Kathleen. If you’re going to address me, get it right please. That’s my given name too not some switch up like Willem Defoe pulled.
I’m not shitting on you. I’m playing the roles offered to me. More transfolks should audition and get the jobs instead of me but until that happens, I’ll be the one doing it.
Hattie McDaniel didn’t like playing the help and the bad german dude from Die Hard doesn’t like playing the villian all of the time but they do (even though they’re not). Acting is nuts, isn’t it? You probably have a stable career. I’m envious.
WILLAM

Question for youDo you identify as Trans, and, if so, what sort of trans person do you identify as?