(Radio Transmission Begins) “What the fu**, over?”Okay, here’s the scene:
A group of African American funeral directors who have been targeted by a white supremacist group. They are constantly accused of improper relations with a corpse, they get ridiculed and even assaulted whenever they are leaving the funeral home, so they decide to take up martial arts to defend themselves.
Let’s call it, “Necrophiliac Ninja Ni**ers with Nunchucks”.
What? What’s wrong with that title?
/facepalm
Seriously, I can’t believe this person is really this effing clueless. I am, of course, now wondering just how much of it is shock value? Become controversial and people remember you, right? But then again, how much IS really him just being a total dimwit? His statements seem to indicate that he has a full six-pack, but lacks the plastic thingy that holds them all together.

Clue

To me, Israel Luna’s failure to understand why there is so much backlash to his film speaks to his cluelessness. Luna’s surprise is literally unbelievable.

“Cluelessness” contains a tiny, yet accessible, excape clause.
Strictly speaking, cluelessness could possibly, somehow, maybe, if the moon is right and Joe Solmonese is wearing the proper tie, be excused.
However, I’m not buying even the possibility that there is anything innocent about this.
Luna is Ron Gold with more hair and better blood circulation – and Michael Bailey with more hair and more self-honesty as to sexual orientation.
There is a segment of the community that, under no circumstances, will accept the concept of trans people – particularly trans women – being equal to non-trans gay men and lesbians.
Luna’s film is a weapon of notion-reinforcement.
And we should all ensure that it ends up in a dump as soon as possible.

Would any of these movie titles be okWhen I sent my copy of the GLAAD petition to some of the individuals at the Tribeca film festival I included my own P.S.
What is the chance that a movie entitled “Angry Ni**ers With Guns” or “Violent Yids With Uzis” or “Pedophile Phags With Pistols” would be shown at your festival?
Note I used the unchanged n-word in the original note because that word and the other slurs would have been on the marquee of the theater  for these imaginary films, wouldn’t they, or is tranny acceptable and the other words not.

I can see itBut more as his statements are very much congruous with someone awash in his own privilege who is not used to listening to people other than himself or at least of listening and then immediately dismissing them.
His statement seems to me to be of someone basically who didn’t expect this response because he didn’t intend it. If he in his heart didn’t intend to be mocking trans experiences, then how could any trans people be offended? After all, he’s a big fan of drag culture and knows a bunch of transgendered people in it, so shouldn’t that be enough? He doesn’t show any sign of being aware of the greater culture he’s operating in as seen by the community he’s appropriating, nor any intention that he cares or wants to care. They weren’t things he thought about so why should he have had to keep them in mind.
Note this isn’t to say he’s a bad person, obviously he was trying to do something positive, just that his personality and approach to this project pretty much insured he was going to stumble into a lot of tone-death actions and presentations because he had no mechanism in place to keep an eye out for them or enough humility to listen to others and comprehend them when they complained.
And the history would play that out. Based on my admittedly shallow understanding of him, it would make sense that he would be checked out of the Dallas Voice drama and even the problems raised by GLAAD and will remain checked out and confused by the negative press his work will continue to receive from the trans community through its potential festival debut and beyond. And if I’m right, I’m not sure how to fix that. Someone ignorant can be educated, someone who doesn’t want to learn that which they aren’t interested in? Much harder.
Similarly, this makes Ashley Love’s response predictable. I saw a number of red flags in the clip beyond the obvious elements such as the over-the-top Bowie get-ups for “fight mode”, the use of a slur in the title, and the appropriation of trans icon Angie Zapata. And they lead me to conclude at best ignorance of and more likely a casual indulgence entirely by accident of a number of stereotypes about trans culture and women in general and yeah the “bitches bring about their own rapes” is a part of that.
I doubt that the movie will “redeem” itself because of the subtle red flags that have nothing to do with the big glaring flaws and the attitude and stance of the director kinda hint at that as well. He “wanted to make a simple revenge film” which betrays any understanding of revenge films. To be good, to be in taste, they can never be “simple”. To be any good, they have to deconstruct the origin society, the reason that justice is so often excluded, a deep understanding of the culture “getting revenged”, etc…
See Heathers, Boondock Saints, and Thelma and Louise.
He also shows no genuine interest in his chosen subject matter. He came to trans people because he was tired of making a gay story, so he made a gay story with trans characters. Basically that quote of why he chose trans characters reminds me of the bit in “The Producers” where they go to the flamboyant musical director and he rants on about how he’s tired of making fluff-heavy musicals and then describes his approach to the project immediately incorporating huge amounts of fluff musical set pieces.
His heart wasn’t into doing the project “right” and it shows in what I’ve seen and what I’ve seen and heard doesn’t make me believe that it succeeded, in essence, despite him.
And yeah, it also shows that he’s deeply into drag culture, but there’s no sign that he’s interested or cares one iota for any trans experience or viewpoint other than the “satire of femininity” aspects of drag culture in deeply southern cities such as Dallas. A problem when all transgender depictions have relied on drag elements or iconography even in sympathetic presentations.
And also yeah, I’m not a movie director, though maybe I should develop some time learning the craft, but as a writer, his lack of craft disappoints me on an artistic level. Damnitt, I want you to care about your works, not “I just tried to shit out a run-of-the-mill mess with superficially original elements, why does everyone care?” You’re not Michael Bay, you are not making horrible movies for audiences that only care that enough things explode and are actually offended by things like cinematography and plot, you’re an art house director. At least show that you give a damn about whether or not your work is any good.
I know that this is coming out as a detailed denunciation of the man, and yeah, it is a little bit, but I want to stress that I don’t believe he is hostile or ill-in-intent. He is not Porno Pete and to his immense credit he hasn’t once shown any inclination of relying on the BS passive-aggressive cop-out of “striking a blow against the PC police and for the right to make offensive movies”. He seems legitimately confused.
Now, yes, the legitimacy of his confusion stems from issues of deliberate ignorance of anything he doesn’t care enough about to listen to, but damnitt I’ll take my silver linings where I can get ‘em.

This is why people don’t take our movement seriouslyI’m a long time reader of this blog, and this series of posts has made me want to quit entirely.  The hyperbole has gotten ridiculous–the director says he intended the film to be empowering, and you call it a cinematic hate crime?  A hate crime would indicate malicious intent, no?
What’s really annoying me is the fact that all of you freaking out over the movie haven’t even seen it.  It reminds me of all the right wingers blowing a gasket over Kevin Smith’s film Dogma sight unseen.  Congratulations, you’re guilty of the same knee-jerk reactions as the religious right.
Yes, I’m going to the latest person to accuse you of being overly PC.  There are trans-folk in the movie, and all of my trans friends think it sounds hilarious.  Not all people in the LGBT community are humorless and waiting for something to flip out over.  I realize that our opinions don’t matter to you because you see us as Uncle Toms, but we are out there.  And we are the majority.

really?The clumps of hair on the baseball bat is NOT played for cheap laughs. There is nothing funny about the scene. GLAAD is wrong about this and if they thought there was anything “joke-y” about the scene, then I assume they also thought Rocky was a romantic comedy.
Trans Forming Media is Ashley Love’s little blog right? It’s dubious that she saw the film. If she did, why did she make so many incorrect statements about the content of the film & how the film started and mentioned Angie and Jorge. She kept saying it on 3/25 all over message boards and has since removed those statements.
Make Ashley own up and say when she saw it. Tribeca were the only people with a copy and she wasn’t at the singular Dallas viewing oppourtunity.

Everything wrong with that titleBut am I horrible in thinking that something exceedingly interesting could be done with that premise.
I mean, okay, I’m picturing it as a “Take Back the Night” training (for female cast) or maybe a set of middle class or safe urban childhood blacks regaining confidence from a scary threat by white supremacists.
But then maybe something goes wrong. Say an attack gets thwarted by self-defense, but like the Jersey 5 (I might be misremembering the name of the case, but the group of lesbians that fought back against a hate crime and ended up in jail for “assault”) they get blamed for attacking their attackers. They get presented as violent by virtue of their race.
Perhaps things get worse, the case is collapsing, white allies seem to be abandoning them, the systemic racism colluding to treat the attackers as the real victims and putting their family business at threat. Maybe even the attacker’s buddies flexing their privileged status by increasing passive-aggressive threats against the business at the same time the business is already being hurt by the court fees and the bad publicity. Say if we use the necrophilic accusation angles, Fox News or family groups pile on with “didn’t we always know” style attacks.
Where this goes could depend on tone. Smart comedy, maybe it ends with a hare-brained scheme to bust their friends out of jail or get the real facts (maybe one of the supremacists is well-connected) that ends up getting the original offenders to admit trial-ending stuff in front of the media or with their martial arts trainer coming back to help get their spirit back up. Uplifting semi-drama, maybe it ends with them defending their evidence, standing up for the right of self-defence or the sudden appearance of a large connected community of small people they’ve helped or been connected to rising to their aid, maybe all in ninja masks and Spartacusing for one example.
Hell, there’s a million ways one could play with it as long as one understood the various pitfalls and the weight of what one was working with.
And pretty much last on the list of people that could do it would be someone using the title you described or going, “I don’t know, I just wanted a kick-ass ninja movie and I was tired of always using asian casts”.

Sigh“overly PC” accusation – check
accusation of humorless – check
claim that it is the offended who are really hurting the movement – check
you’re the same as the right wing accusation – check
silent majority claim – check
all my trans friends think exactly like I do argument – check
I’m sorry, I’m tired of having to go down the list shooting this stuff down. I mean, yes, disappointed, disagree, could run down the general list I’ve done several times over the threads already, but yeesh, I’m getting tired of the same song and dance every single thread. Can I just tap in someone else and bounce on the ropes for a little bit?

the director says he intended the film to be empowering
Oh, well then, that settles that.
I remember when Billo the Clown “couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks, primarily black patronship.” O’Reilly added: “There wasn’t one person in Sylvia’s who was screaming, ‘M-Fer, I want more iced tea.’ ”
He really couldn’t understand why people took offense to his statement either.

Sometimes

Congratulations, you’re guilty of the same knee-jerk reactions as the religious right.

Grieving for people just like yourself, who have been brutalized for being just like yourself, tends to do that.
When I go home, I am wearing the same retail uniform I started off the day with.  I’m making dinner after I change.  I’m probably going to be reading a book soon after, and then going to bed.
No little dresses, wild makeup, or weaponry for this transsexual woman.
Sometimes, I still have nightmares about being beaten up on a weekly basis at school, until I learned to stifle myself, and fill a male mold that I hated.  Puberty was an agony, as unwanted changes steamrolled my existence, even in my own private garden of dreams.
Sometimes, I still have doubts when I am in a store, “Is that salesperson ignoring me because she knows I am trans, or is she just busy?” She’s just busy, as it turns out.
Sometimes I remember how a few (only two) co-workers harassed me, one by telling filthy jokes about my transition, and the other by calling me a “f*ggot* and “Boy George” and how I had to find out about it after each was fired, both for reasons totally unrelated. (Nice karmic touch, maybe, but not visible justice.)
Sometimes, one of my family members slips, and calls me the name I went by for 30 odd years, and I wonder if some bigot is going to hear that, be threatened, and follow me home to beat me to death.  ”Another one bites the dust!”
Sometimes, I think about trans friends of mine who are still in the crucible of transition, and still feeling agonies, just so that they finally feel right in their own skin.
Sometimes, I remember about the ones who could never survive that crucible, their agony ended by their own hands.
Sometimes, officially once a year, but more often unofficially, I remember those who might have made it, except that they crossed paths with the wrong person.
Sometimes, I also remember my own blessings, that I made it, that my eyes dance, and I laugh because I now love my life.  I do that for them, in part, but yes, too, for myself.  
Sometimes, I even laugh at myself.
Israel, if you want to make a movie about my life, my hopes, my fears, my loves…
Talk to me, first.

Nice obfuscation attemptHowever…
The trailer for the film starts off mentioning the real life murder of transgender woman Angie Zapata would be the the actual statement on her blog that you are relying on to discredit her.
Given your behavior on other threads, I have to admit to being biased more towards her credibility here and the elements of her accusation were more than visible on the trailer and I’m not just talking about the obvious stuff.
I understand the need to defend your artistic merit and I genuinely do believe that the artist who made the work had all the best intentions in the world and genuinely believed he made a kick-ass gift for the trans community. Unfortunately, the lack of forethought means he stumbled into a lot of red flag offensive holes.
I’ll be the first to take it all back and indeed to seek out a copy for my collection if it somehow turns out to be a genuinely trans empowering movie. I freaking own a copy of Fight Club which was based on the diseased ramblings of an illiterate deeply rabid misogynist and was advertised as a mindless action flick. But early signs do not look good and defense attempts do not seem to be mitigating those early signs.

OW! Stop it! It hurts when I laugh!I’m sitting at home with an infection setting up subdivisions in my jaw thanks to a broken molar, slightly dizzy and a headache (common side-effects) from the antibiotics that I took, and then I read your post.
Now my jaw hurts because I was smiling, giggling, laughing…
Thank you for bringing me out of today’s doldrums. That is the best reply I think I have ever read!

If I may have the honorAnd if I have permission I offer you this
e-hug
I’m more near the beginning and I’m much much crazier in terms of personal safety, but yeah, we’ve all had the run-ins with our reality in our own ways.
I think the worst problem of this movie isn’t the stereotypes, isn’t the violent defenses, isn’t the slur in the title or the passive ignorance of its creator, or even the offsides use of trans icon Angie Zapata.
It’s the appropriation. It’s one of a very short list of movies claiming ownership to “transness”, that seeks by its title and focus to speak “for trans experiences” in some way or another. And it does so with no interest of our lives, no input from us, entirely substituting another culture for our own.
The comparison I make here will be easy to react negatively to so I’ll try and mitigate it by overemphasizing the meaning. It is like a rape, so much in that the real carry-home, the thing that the focus most comes back to, is the complete removal of autonomy and consent. The action is horrifying, so horrifying that this comparison is potentially offensive, but it’s about the emotional response. What haunts is how someone can come along and just ignore your autonomy or consent and do something to you.
In a similar way emotionally, the trans community is being defined by someone else in the media vacuum that exists (wherein trans voices have at times been deliberately not included) completely without input. Someone is deciding that they will speak for trans experiences and trans culture with not the slightest interest or knowledge in the subject.
It feels like “who we are” doesn’t really matter. You on that snapshot walk in that retail uniform, doesn’t matter, because someone else thought we’d make edgy “characters” in place of who he really wanted to talk about.
However empowering this work could be, by claiming a mantle to trans experiences and trans reclamation of language “for us”, it has already enacted a deliberately disempowering act.
At this point, it’d have to be somewhat empowering just to break even.

HmmmmOne thing that stands out is the way that the “revenge” is undertaken.
FOr one, he utterly underestimates the violence trans folk are capable of.  A given group of trans folk of the ages shown will, often, include at least one ex servicemember.
A decent revenge film would not be done as a comedy, either. It could be done with moments of humor (for example a former Explosive Expert bitching about wrecking a skirt whilst wiring a car), but a decent and truly empowering film would have been done the same way that serious exploitation flicks were done.
That is, a serious story about about some individual — we’ll say an ex boxer who works to change a law regarding bathrooms because he hates those damned creatures — with money, authority, power, and a small private army of loyalist thugs.
When his thugs enforce a law — say at a bar, where some trans person is beaten to death to stop them from using the restroom, and then it comes out as being the trans person’s fault in the news paper in a story written by The Man — it’s time for some serious payback.
They would get together and use the skills they had (blaxploitation flicks always feature someone who either learned in the ghetto or in war itself, most often Vietnam in the period — an example today would be Desert Storm or any of the current wars) from “before” and then plan an explosive and violent end for The Man’s crew.
This would, of course, result in the deaths of at least two of the members, one of them because of some error the team made in estimating the force they are up against and, since it involves a structure which is ultimately sexist, would have to include a rape-murder to drive home the point.
After that, the lead character would have the rest “stay back” whilst going in and confronting the villain solo, with the intent of dying themselves in some honorable fashion, but also having set things up to trick the bad guy into revealing some terrible secret about himself.
Let’s get crazy and say that she gets him to see that he’s really attracted to her.
That’s when she delivers the coup de grace, and he is killed.  As she readies for the attack of his henchmen, they all turn and leave, and she staggers out to join her companions beaten and escapes as the cops arrive, someone noting there’s not way a trans person could have done this, it had to be someone else.
Roll credits.
That is an empowering story in the exploitation vein.
The film being talked about that way apparently was written by someone who not only utterly fails to understand the exploitation venue and methodology, but also lacks any real and significant skill in structure and story telling, on top of the whole bullshit thing about trans anything.
In short, this person, this Israel Luna, is an idiot desperately trying to save the film that he was hoping would give him a leg up into the industry.
Pull the film, people.
Pull the Film.
ANd Luna?
Try again.  This time with something that actually is an empowering exploitation film.

Politically CorrectPC is the “antiword”.
PC is nothing more than common courtesy.  Literally.  That’s all it is.  Simple, basic, common decency when dealing with other people.
Saying that people are “dumping on you” because they are telling you that you are not being courteous, or displaying common decency, is pretty fucking stupid people, if you’ll excuse my lack of PC there (and I know you will since you are saying how you hate PC stuff).
When you say you are “sick” of PC, remember that you are saying you are sick of words like faggot and nigger being erased. You are sick of people giving you a simple and basic courtesy of respecting you as a person and your worth.
You are saying that you support being rude and obnoxious.
So shut the fuck up (in what you are saying you prefer)
or
Please, stop that (if you prefer something more pleasant)
Thank you.

I’m afraid that response is impossibleAs everyone knows you and I are humorless.
Logic centers imploding, heat death of the universe imminent. Red Alert, red alert! Call the Mortician Ninjas, they are our only hope!

Yes, yes, a thousand times yesIt is no big surprise that “anti-PC” as a “movement” arose at the exact time that it was no longer socially sustainable for someone to be a “proud bigot”. Pre-90s, bigots happily owned the term. “If wanting to protect my children from the black menace is racist, then call me a racist” sort of stuff. But as that group shrank with growing acceptance, slurs devolved mostly to code-words and suddenly everyone started acting like there was a period in American life where jackbooted thugs cut off the dicks of anyone who used the n-word.
And yeah, as you say, PC culture is a fancy scare-tactic word for common, fucking, courtesy. It dictates at its most Mao-esque level a simple respect for people from cultures or lives different from one’s own and a willingness to listen to and respect their life experiences. Oooh, scary, jackbooted thugs.
And it’s not like the “proud anti-PC warriors” aren’t aware of this. When they describe the jackbooted thuggery of this pervasive hideous movement, it basically ends up “someone who bears an uncanny resemblance to your mom will dare, I say dare, to chide you for being offensive and make their displeasure known, to your face even.”
My word, how do these people survive such maltreatment? People, disagreeing with them, upset with them, to their face even, as if they were fully people with valid emotional responses. Some of them not even you know, them, but “normal” people who should have been trusted to laugh along with my casual bigotry like in the good old days. Now, it seems there’s almost no-one around I can relax and be bigoted to without having to think about the existence of other people.
I mean, besides the obvious problems, it’s also offensive to privileged people. I mean, are those of the privileged status in any debate, so genuinely weak that the existence of other points of view and the prospect of having to think and grow as a person are game-ending “attacks”? Really? You really want to argue that you aren’t adult enough to interact with anyone not a hundred percent like you? That you are that socially impaired?
Call me silly, but I don’t like to think that poorly of the people I’m dealing with. Even if they’re Sarah Palin levels of ignorant.

Criticizing an exploitation movie for exploiting?Next let’s criticize horror movies for being horrific.  Darling, are you even aware of things like blaxploitation?  There is a huge audience for these sorts of things.

PC is common courtesyBut I think when people criticize people being overly PC, it means that one is going too far to punish or intimidate. An example would be the person who used the word “niggardly” which means stingy. They were accused of racism because it sounded like the N word and were fired from their job. The staffer was subsequently rehired, but the damage had been done.
http://www.adversity.net/speci…

“Base Moi” and “Irreversible” two French moviesEver heard of these? I doubt most people have. Unfortunately, I have heard of them and had the misfortune of seeing them. In “Base Moi,” two young women are brutally and savagely raped. And because the French trend is showing actual sex by the actors, we were treated to closeups of the penetration. They subsequently go on a horrible, violent quest for vengeance against all men. In “Irreversible,” a man goes on a quest for vengeance after his girl friend is savagely raped and beated. And because it’s a French movie, we are treated to an inedited, fifteen minute showing of Monica Bellucci being raped, tortured and left for dead in a Paris subway tunnel. I bring these two obscure movies up because of the brutal and disgusting way rape is depicted. Yet, I heard nary a PEEP out of rape victims advocacy groups, or womens’ groups. NOTHING. Why? Because they are obscure French films that no one heard of? Because there are so many movies about rape that people are immune? Why were they bought by American movie distributors? I have no idea. But I believe in movies, no matter how disturbing, being SHOWN. LET people see it for themselves and then discuss it. Become an activist to alert people to stereotypes and to educate.  

Oops I take it backI found some protests in France and Canada over “Base Moi” showings.

But nothing in the USWikipedia:
In the United States, the film was marketed under the names Kiss Me  and Rape Me and released without a classification from the Motion Picture Association of America. It screened only at a small number of cinemas (almost all of them in arthouse cinemas in the major cities) The film took just $70,000 in receipts from its American release and there was a marked lack of controversy as compared to other countries.

And “darling”Said movies are often criticized, especially when they are done poorly. See, making an exploitation movie means you’re going to get criticism, I mean, you are exploiting random group X often using negative stereotypes or shallow characterization and often with directors coming from a privileged non-family background. Already an arena running with red flags and lots of potentials for slip-ups.
Take someone who’s, shall we say bad at his job, or at least not well-informed about his target exploited group and we end up with a travesty. Hmm, good example, good example. Ooh, what about the immensely forgettable “chicksploitation” movie Dead or Alive or any of the exploitations of popular gamer iconography by Uwe Boll. Especially in a culture this sparse for positive or even any depictions of the exploited group. In a culture filled with various depictions of women, Dead or Alive is a forgotten meaningless movie. In the culture for trans people, this movie is one of only a handful that even claims to speak for us and it does so like this.
Also, the argument that a lot of people are a fan of a particular genre is a really bad argument if one wants to argue that that somehow mitigates any possibility for offense or wrong-doing. Yes, blaxploitation has a large, often white audience.
Better example, did you know that there is a genre called the “rape fantasy” genre. It’s a genre of often “erotic” storytelling that is entirely about vicariously getting off on a fictional character finding, kidnapping, and raping some woman or group of women. This mode of storytelling is immensely popular. There was a game released in Japan called Rapelay where you could dictate the actions of the rapist, there are a number of erotic anime and erotic films in America that have this as the subject, a large section of any “non-consent” section in any online erotic story database will have a large number of well-rated and well-read stories of this genre and there have even been non-erotic mainstream blockbusters based on this premise released to huge rabid fanbases.
There is a huge audience for the rape fantasy genre so obviously we shouldn’t ever criticize any problematic elements in any example of it. I mean what should we expect? It’s a video game where you kidnap and rape sobbing women, it’s from a popular genre that people enjoy, why are you even criticizing it?
Cause the problem starts at the genre and just gets worse from there. Because blaxploitation is deeply controversial and very difficult to do “right”, i.e. in a way that mitigates the easy land mines inherent in the choice of genre. In the hands of an ignorant filmmaker the results can be exceedingly upsetting. And that’s what we got here.

And as the “best” exampleit highlights the basic problem. The worst that happened was someone was temporarily fired for a mistaken interpretation. Given the absolute worst cases that have resulted from the casual -isms in general society, such as the perpetuation and cheering of systemic racism and the rape culture, it kind of pales in comparison.
And yet, overly PC is this horrible over-reach, something we all need to be on guard for. Why, we may wrongly accuse someone of ill sentiment, the horror, the horror. No, not really, I mean, yeah, it’s a mild inconvenience for the person involved but discriminatory culture affects a hell of a lot more people in literally life-ending ways.
And “niggardly” is the great example of an innocent word, wrongly connected to a more deeply hurtful word. A word that despite its innocence, has lost its usefulness. It is really close to the n-word and despite not even sharing etymological roots with it, has a potential to trigger people racially because of the close similarity. Rabid PC culture gone wrong says, hey, this word is innocent yes, but it may trigger people hurtfully, think about using one of the umpteen billion synonymous for “thrifty”.
I always flinch at the whole “oh my god, it’s so horrible, he was accused of racism” angle even when “oh my god, they were entirely wrong” because it happens. I’ve said stuff that people have interpreted as offensive or casting disparagement on them. I’ve apologized, re-clarified myself and gotten on with my life. When dealing with unfounded unfair criticisms that I feel are unfounded, I try and learn from them and I deal.
I have never felt like my interactions as the privileged player in any debate were worse than my interactions as the offended or oppressed player in a debate. Ever. And I’ve had whole arguments with my partner where she was seeing me as a literal manifestation of a rapist abusive past boyfriend (about as bad as it gets as far as false defamation). Just doesn’t compare.

Liked that?You’ll love this:
http://www.dyssonance.com/?p=1499

I agree totallyWhy the word was used by this staffer to begin with, knowing the way it sounds and knowing that it’s not a common word to begin with, is itself a mystery. He had to have known somewhere inside him that the word just sounds too close to the racist word that is offensive. But I used it as an example of people over-reacting first, and then using their intellect later. This man was fired for no reason other than using a WORD in the English language.

Funny You mention thisI saw Irreversible in, of all things, a horror movie marathon. It was an unbilled addition to the line up brought in by the guest director because he was curious how it would play to an audience.
Anyway, I was totally unaware of the film, it’s plot or it’s problems. Aside from the 15 minute gut-wrenching rape, the rapist is actually after a trans women prostitute, but gets foiled by the poorly timed appearance of Ms Bellucci. gay men are featured in the film as trashy violent sex-fiends… gah..
As a survivor of rape and stalking, this film hit me like a bag of bricks right in the gut. I was too shocked to move – I was simply made sick and angry and freaked out by it…
watching TOTwK’s trailer and the resulting glossing over of the real issues by most of those involved with it leaves me with very similar feelings.

ButThe arguments we are making are not solely related to graphic depiction. Graphic depiction can be powerful, necessary, etc… Some examples, Full Metal Jacket, graphic depictions of war, should anti-war, anti-violence protestors be necessarily against it? Rosemary’s Baby, very on-topic, features a rape-scene by Satan, graphic by the standards of the time, considered one of the most feminist horror movies ever made (ironic considering the director). Boys Don’t Cry, brutal rape/beating scene of a trans-identified character, considered one of, if not the best trans movie ever made.
Graphic depiction is not even the main complaint here. It is a sub-complaint. I can think of a billion ways in which a detailed rape scene, one exceedingly graphic, could work and still underly a great movie and there have been quite a number of feminist discussions in general regarding rape scenes in movies or fiction regarding artistic merit, triggering, and titilation versus emotional necessity in our rape-denial greater culture. Good arguments on various sides.
And if the worst this film had to offer as far as causing offense was the brutality of the “bashing” scene, this would be a greatly different debate, perhaps one so muted that a very indie movie like this would have skated by without an outcry or much of a response at all.
But sadly, that isn’t the worst the film already has to offer just in its previews. Reliance on negative stereotypes in character-building, red-flags regarding treatment of trans culture and characterization of women and trans characters, using a slur in the title, a lack of seriousness regarding the subject matter, it’s reliance on “everyone knows I’m just joshing” camp elements in a media environment devoid of trans inclusion, and many many more well documented by multiple people pointing out the surfeit of problematic warning signs.
And yeah, I’m fully willing and indeed desirous of being proven wrong. I don’t think it will happen and sociologically I think pointing out what is problematic will aid if nothing else PR promotion in the future regarding movies like this in how not to alienate the exact target audience for the movie.
I’m also a bit offput on the assumption of shallowness on the part of the detractors, like protest movements are supposed to just jump on casual things and like context isn’t actually being considered in regards to works like these.
I’ve looked and seen a large number of warning signs and the response of the director hasn’t alleviated them. And as you note, even those movies, in french, I’ll note, received some criticism and protest in countries where they speak the language. Quell surprise. It often takes an incredibly offensive work to receive blowback in countries where they don’t even share the language. At that point, you pretty much have to be Rapelay. I haven’t seen much organized feminist resistance to Night Shift Nurses, a japanese hentai also of the rape fantasy genre. It’s even been released in America. So why not much comment? Because it’s in Japanese and obscure and thus it has to be pretty fucking bad to receive comment outside Japan and Japanese speaking countries.

Yep, RioA stunningly shocking film to be sure. Glad you brought up the rest of the plot elements. I actually thought it was fascinating how the director told the story from the end to the beginning. I think it’s a trend in contemporary French films to shock sexually. Catherine Breillat is also another provocateur.

Yes, butLet me be clear. I was a film student in college and wrote about film in my career. I have seen ALL sorts of graphic movies. I have seen all sorts of tacky, offensive and graphic movies at film festivals over the years. I don’t mind graphic movies, whether it’s violence or sexuality. It doesn’t phase me because I know it’s make believe. But when it comes to rape, and being shown the penetration, even I, a jaded movie goer, can become appalled. I brought those movies up in particular because I found the lack of outcry very telling indeed. BUT, having said that, I do NOT advocate, as GLAAD does, having a movie “pulled” from a film festival. On the contrary, I think it needs to be SEEN by all types of people so that can be a springboard for discussion, activism and enlightening filmmakers to their own biases. I felt that way about “Cruising” and “Basic Instinct” and I felt that way about Robert Maplethorpe.

And way way way morepeople have been fired and even killed simply for being or appearing to be of a non-privileged class. Two latino brothers were killed because by holding hands, they appeared gay. Today, as I type this, somebody is getting shot or starving together in an “inner-city” ghetto that has been allowed to deteriorate because of the casual racism of the “nice-parts” of the city and surrounding state. It took a massive democratic battle to barely fix some aspects of health insurance’s reign of terror because people are still scared “one of them” might use their personal doctor’s office and get “treatment with my money” as they are fond of saying.
It’s a problem with scope. This story is the absolute worst case that the enemies of PC have come up with in their endless battle against something they claim is literally worse than actual ism. And it’s unfortunate, I’ll agree. He shouldn’t have lost his job, even temporarily, but it completely wilts in the face of what people have suffered just as friendly fire to the casual and active isms of bigots. The two latino brothers who dared hold hands, someone who took a roofied drink meant for someone else, the poor white christian women who will die tonight because someone wanted to make sure welfare and health care wouldn’t go to any darkies.
As a “worst case” scenario, it’s pretty forgivable. He mistakingly lost his job as a very well paid staffer for a connected politician and had that position restored to him with apologies and new “street-cred” as a hero for all time against the “PC movement”.  Not exactly in the same scale.
It’s why I pointed out where I’ve suffered false accusations in the privileged position. My partner, love of my life, ascribed to me by flashback the attitudes, motivations, and actions of a man who ritualistically raped and abused her for three years. That’s harsh shit. A painful, soul-wrenching moment that was totally unfair to me. And I didn’t care, I still don’t care. I dealt with it, I hated the man responsible for the flashback, I did a lot of due diligence to prevent it from happening again.
And as that “worst thing evar!” left its scar on my soul, so to speak, that scar is non-existant, especially in comparison to all the crap I regularly have to shovel just arguing for my basic existence to well-meaning allies, much less in dealing with the crap from trolls and hostile enemies.
He was fired for using a word, how horrible. Yeah, it sucks, but not really in the same camp as being fired because Tom in Accounting thinks you’re gay and we don’t employ queers here or those two dead brothers. Not even in the same ballpark as “collateral damage” goes.

No, not in the same league at alljust but one small example I remembered where PC sensitivity resulted in a person being embarrassed and fired for an overreaction. It should NEVER happen to anyone. But it does beg the question: why don’t some people ever fucking THINK before reacting?

The same can apply to the filmmaker.Why didn’t Luna think about how offensive his film would be to trans people who told him in advance that there’s a problem with using the term “tranny”?

Would anyone be offendedif I posted a youtube clip of a blaxplotation trailer?

IndeedI haven’t seen the movies or even the previews of those movies so I didn’t go too much into that and as I stated there has been extensive conversation in feminist circles about just what you described (absent using those films as examples though I’m sure they would have if they had heard of them). And I think both sides of that debate have good points, using graphic rape to bring it home to a largely male audience can have artistic merit, but as people like Melissa McEwan argue, doing so runs a high risk of painfully triggering genuine rape victims in the audience and making them “relive their rapes again”. Both her and Amanda Marcotte have also joined in massive feminist discussions and posts regarding “rape jokes” i.e. positive jokes involving rape and their therapeutic use versus their potential to trigger.
My point regarding the lack of outcry is that more to the point, for a movie to arise outcry outside it’s country of origin or language sphere requires a movie or piece of media to be exceptionally offensive. As an example, I’ve also seen little American feminist outcry to Legend of the Overfiend, a hentai anime that features a ginormous demon who rapes women until they shred in half on its massive cock in a giant fountain of blood. Nor have I seen much American feminist or general outcry to a Japanese movie called Suicide Club which features the most graphic, bloody, triggering mass suicides ever seen in cinema history as well as a scene I have come to call “the bowling alley of horror” wherein two female characters are graphically raped and murdered while a villain sings a jaunty J-pop tune. As a movie it is literally the ultimate test to see if you are so jaded as to be a sociopath. If you get through the movie without flinching in abject horror, you are a sociopath, it is that disturbing.
The point is such movies don’t get very widely shown and in a foreign language, even fewer really bother to raise a fuss about them. Some will use them as an example here and there, but for the most part, once it needs to be subtitled, the chance for organized resistance and outcry drops off dramatically.
So saying that it is somehow telling that there wasn’t a mass resistance to those movies is really comparing apples and oranges. Foreign movies don’t receive as much push-back in general. Full stop. This is domestic and it is also targeting a group who well, have enough representation and choice in media that they don’t have time to look up and follow every new depiction of themselves in tiny independent film festivals. The media environment for trans depictions is that dearth, which is probably why the negative response is this amplified.
On its own, it sucks and we criticize. In the media context, oh look at the massive outcry and organized protest.

I agreeI too, want to like this movie. I *want someone to address the issues raised about it seriously and honestly with out feeling like I’m being marketed to.
I LOVE schlocky movies – Blackula is one of my favorites. I remember thinking Kill Bill would have been 110% awesome if Uma had been playing trans.
I’m tired of trans characters being tear-jerking “pathetic transsexuals”. I’m tired of trans women playing hookers. I’m tired of the only regular “cinematic” depiction of bodies like mine being in porn. I’d LOVE to have something different.
However, Mr Luna’s reason for doing a Trans movie is because the gay stuff has been played out. The thing is, trans stuff is so few and far between. We don’t have the social context for this film or it’s marketing. We aren’t in a place where we can easily laugh at ourselves like this.
I know this can be done. Anyone who remembers RiftGirl from youtube (she’s gone unfortunately) will know that she poked fun at stereotypes. She made fun of dating while trans and the weirdness we go through with guys. She even did a bit with a foiled attempt at bashing, where her “tranny hooker” character beats her attackers. She was able to do this with a style that was funny, and challenging.

I disagree Cerberus on one pointthat because these movies are from outside the US they don’t get enough attention. I don’t know if you remember back in the 80s when Jean-Luc Godard released “Hail Mary.” It was a modern update about the life of Jesus that took quite a few contemporary liberties. This offended Catholics in this country to no end. The Catholic Church condemned it too. Looking back, it was much ado about nothing since most people will never remember the movie or controversy, but I covered it for the college newspaper and believe me, people were fired up.

Only if it features sexy Pam Grier

How about Fred Williamson?Although I loooooooooooooove Pam Grier.

How about The Silence of the LambsNow THAT was offensive in every scene, in every character. Yet it was  abig critical and award winning hit.

Please read the Helen Boyd post.Seriously ciaranmishima, We’re also objecting to the marketing of this film, which includes an epithet in its title, and the exploitation of Angie Zapata and Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado — two who were killed due to antigay, antitransgender hatred and prejudice — to market a “‘transploitation’ action comedy.” One doesn’t have to see the film to object to the title and its marketing.
Please see Helen Boyd’s post on the controversy around this film. For once — just for once — all of the non-trans community members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community just need to listen to why trans people are upset about this film, and just understand that words and images matter to trans people. Please stop and think hard and long before telling trans people we’re humorless, overly PC, hurting the movement, and acting the same as our enemies of the LGBT community. Please thnk about supporting trans people’s concern to the same level that you want people who aren’t LGBT to support LGBT issues, such as ENDA, and repealing DADT and DOMA.
The people and organizations that have set this conflict in motion aren’t trans people, but instead are Israel Luna, La Luna Entertainment, and the Tribeca Film Festival. Trans people aren’t the ones who set this tearing apart of LGBT community in motion…Israel Luna did.

Either total oblivious insensitivityor he thought he was taking an offensive word and taking the power and ridicule out of it, the way the gay community does with “faggot” and “dyke”. Or he wants the publicity.

SighOkay, first of all, it’s not “one small example”, every single “PC culture is out of control” argument either goes to the “guy who used niggardly” martyr or the Duke rape case. They are the icons and giving that most of the people pushing this are looking to find some “reverse” action to excuse genuine -isms, this is literally as bad as they’ve found. It hasn’t gotten any worse than that as a result of PC culture.
Now let’s go into the rest of it. Is this a positive thing to have happened? No. Was it unfair to the man that it did happen? Sure. In an ideal society, would this ever happen to someone? Of course not.
But thing is, we don’t live in an ideal society. We don’t even live in a society where mistakes are uncommon. See before that list of people actually of the dominant class killed simply because they were mistaken for being of a minority class.
Now, let’s answer the last sentence, why don’t people think before reacting? Well, because they are hurt. Regardless of anything, people can get triggered by a statement or mishear something and be upset about it. And it’s hard to keep a clear head when you are emotionally upset, though certainly upset people of oppressed classes have traditionally had better luck staying logical and fair while hurt than oppressor classes when they haven’t been hurt, are wholly dispassionate and should by rights have no excuse. And that hurt will exist and need to be dealt with in one way or another.
Now let’s deconstruct that sentence. That question is asked or rather assumed a lot. It is the point of the “man fired for a word” example and the very railing against PC culture itself. And the problem is that its only ever asked about the oppressed side of the equation. Oppressed people are supposed to examine their hurt. Rape victims are supposed to second guess their own rapes. Because nothing, nothing in the world is worse than accusing someone of the dominant class of being a bigot or a rapist unfairly.
And on the rape end of the spectrum, I’ve seen its effect. I’ve seen the problem go wholly unenforced because women have been trained to wholly discount their rapes because it’s far worse to accuse a man of rape than to have been raped. My partner was raped by another man at a party. She decided to swallow it up and eventually rewrite herself as the real villain and instigator of the event because she didn’t want this person she once loved to suffer potential problems even from her telling people (much less prosecuting him) about his rape of her. It would just be awful to subject him to being accused of being a rapist just because he stalked her into a kitchen and raped her as she said stop repeatedly. Simply the worst thing you can do.
The disproportionate weight given to the “PC” side versus the dominant side in being asked to “check yourself” before criticism has the actual effect of silencing legitimate criticism. People weigh in their mind whether its worth it to bring it up and second-guess themselves about whether it was just in their mind and they’re being unfair to the person who offended them. They self-censor themselves and end up being at the mercy of having reality over-populated by people saying offensive things and no one commenting on them.
This further continues the problem, if no one is commenting about that thing that hurt me, they must not be offended, I must be imagining things or responding for some other reason. It couldn’t be offensive, otherwise someone else would have commented by now. I guess I should just stay quiet.
Hell, this reality is why “PC” culture arose. It was this idea that you should speak up when something offends you or is offensive so it’s at least out in the open and you can discuss that even if the discussion is “oh I didn’t mean it that way” “oh, sorry, continue”.
There’s a problem with “why don’t people THINK before reacting” because reactions stem from people not THINKing before actions and it is in the response to the reaction that the hurt can be dealt with. If unjustified, you hash it out, if they also can’t be placated, you deal, you learn from the existence of the response so you can think about how to avoid it or strengthen your defenses of why you chose the words or depictions you did.
But the “shouldn’t they think” worries used so often against the response, kills everything. Makes people stifle their responses to the privileged of casual hate speech. Those who mean well will hurt people, uneducated about the hurt they’re causing. Deliberately hostile people will hurt people, secure in the majority tacitly approving their hate speech. And connections will be hard to form or maintain as we each silently nurse our hurt unable to dialogue past it and grow.
This disproportionate response targeted to the oppressed does far too much damage and the sliver of unavoidable collateral damage owing to humanity is so non-existant and insubstantial to hardly deserve such a weighty disproportionate response. People have been temporarily inconvenienced at worst by Political Correctness, we need to shut these extremists down permanently before their craziness causes further damage. Hey, how did rape become one of the most under-reported crimes there are?

Responded to thatOn different thread.
No one can reclaim language for another group. I can’t reclaim the n-word. A man can’t reclaim bitch. A straight person can’t reclaim fag. They can ally with reclamation efforts by said groups to reclaim the language. But they can’t do it for them.
As such the decision to reclaim or not the word “tranny” falls solely and only ever solely to trans people themselves.

Either way……he was told in advance that trans people found the term problematic — dehumanizing and degrading. He chose to ignore the trans people who told him he shouldn’t use the term.
Luna isn’t trans. He doesn’t have the authority to reclaim the term “tranny” on behalf of trans community. Knowing that he knew the term was problematic before he used it in the title of his film, I can’t help but fell he deserves all of the backlash he’s receiving; all the backlash the Tribeca Film Festival is receiving.
If the Tribeca Film Festival goes ahead with giving someone who is not trans the prestige of screening a film with an antitrans eptithet in the title when the trans community is objecting to it, then it is exactly the same as white film makers receiving a prestigous showing of a film with the n-word in the title if the black community objected to it; exactly the same as straight filmmakers receiving a prestigous showing of a film with the-other-f-word in the title if gay members of the LGBT community objected to it.

Yes they should have thought before they reacted in this caseTHINK about it: a white staffer working for a black politician uses an outdated and oddly sounding word that sounds like the N word. Did he really do that, or did I overhear something that wasn’t there. No, instead this person complains before knowing all the details and this man is fired. I don’t consider him a poor martyred man or a symbol of pc oversensitivity gone wild. I think of it as a prime, superb sample of someone not thinking before reacting. Why didn’t the person question the man’s use of the word before blabbing to his superior?

Thank god we live in a society where artists don’t take instructions from activistsWhether it is fundamentalist Christians shutting down productions of “Corpus Christie”, fundamentalist Muslims threatening cartoon artists, or fundamentalist trans activists trying to bully the Tribeca Film Festival, it is all about demanding that art follow one group’s political preferences.  Stand firm, Mr. Luna and the world will applaud you.  I know I will.
I would acknowledge that, in one sense, Luna was clueless.  He was clueless to think that trans activists would be able to raise an objection with maturity and grace, taking into account both his intent and the value of artistic freedom.  What was he thinking?  There is an overriding need to find a villain of the week to hound, humble, and destroy.  That is what fundamentalists do.  So of course, nothing Luna says in regard to his film or his artistic intent matters.  What matters is the need to show him who is boss.  
This week it was Luna and Savage.  Next week, it will be someone else.  Only when the true believers have destroyed all of the heretics will there truly be heaven on Earth.

Kind of an exception that proves the ruleSort of case. There are quite a number of far more offensive deconstructions of the catholic church, especially from Japan, that have received little to no attention from American catholics. Foreign origins reduce chance of outcry, not eliminate.
Also the Catholic Church likes to scour obscure art to get in a tizzy about in this country and many others. See the response to Pisschrist (which ironically was done by a sympathetic catholic who thought the way it refracted light made it really spiritual powerful, whoops).

I don’t know what he was thinkingI tend to be inclined to believe he was using the word to be irreverent, the way John Waters used to be in his offensive movies. If he were trans, would you find it just as offensive? Or is it because he’s a gay man, he’s not allowed to use any irreverent trans phases because he can’t possibly know about discrimination and offensive stereotypes?

I spoke with Ashley Love today……and she reports that she saw the film approximately two weeks ago.
If you still don’t believe she has screened the film, Willam, please go the website I linked to in the body of my posting above, and then please tell her you believe she’s a liar.
I’d honestly like to see how that exchange would go.

OFFSRead my post.
And frankly, I don’t care about him. Misunderstandings are human nature. But it’s a problem when we are supposed to put more thought into reacting than acting. Reacting should be organic, as I spent multiple paragraphs carefully building a case for, because from them, things can be learned even if they turn out wrong. Whereas when they are stifled, as again, I spent multiple paragraphs building a case over, they can lead to huge societal problems that greatly dwarf whether a rich staffer in a political job is out of his job for the length of time of a long vacation.
Especially in a world where misunderstandings in the opposite direction kill thousands upon thousands of “collateral” people every year.

I didn’t want to ban Maplethorpeeven though the images were graphic and at times stereotypical. Many gay activists agreed with me and defended the man’s art. When we start demanding that something be “banned” from being shown, it sets a dangerous example.

A misunderstanding is one thinggetting a man fired over a word in the English language because you see racism where it wasn’t is completely different. You may disregard this man all you want, it doesn’t negate the fact that this was an assault on this man’s income and repuation.

OFFS Part DeuxI would request of you politely, pleading for the dear sainted blood pressure that you start actually reading my posts before commenting like this.
Both me and Autumn very carefully explained that irrespective of personal desire no one can perform reclamation for another group.
It has nothing to do with how well he knows them or anything else, but reclamation has to at least carry some level of initiation if nothing else by the group in question.
That. Hasn’t. Occurred.

Don’t group Luna with SavageIsrael Luna is not (as far as I know) the advocate for gay civil rights that Dan Savage is.
The burden for Dan Savage is higher.
Myself, I’m a bit of a libertarian as far as art is concerned, but I also think that trans activists have an equal right to protest his speech. Also, Luna was not Cathy Clueless as far as the use of the pejorative nor in exploiting the deaths of Zapata and Mercado in his movie trailer.
I bet you would probably defend Shirley Q. Liquor too, no matter what black people (gay and straight) says.
And you’d have a point.
But then you can’t get mad if someone called you racist for doing so.

Or the Chris Offili (?)depiction of the Virgin Mary at the Brooklyn Art Museum in 2000.

OmOk, I am very carefully controlling myself because I can see myself getting angry with you and that could impact my ability to continue arguing dispassionately.
I have spent now, several posts, posts you have apparently not bothered to read while skimming ahead to repeat your insistence that “ruining” a privileged group member’s “reputation” outweighs and should outweigh the corrosive cost of self-censorship that is the inevitable result of demanding a “think first always” standard on reactions as is seen in the Rape Culture. These posts carefully argued my case. My answer to the question you keep reposing.
I would kindly, politely plead with you to read them before continuing on like this. Please, as a favor to me, can you do me that solid?
Cause you’re killing me here. You really are.

yes or any number of controversial artistsIt seems that there are two threads going on: whether to ban this film or properly protest it and express one’s anger. Yes, by all means. If you find it offensive, write letters, call Tribeca, protest outside. But GLAAD is actively advocating BANNING this movie. What in the world is that going to do but set a scary precedent?

YupAnd it has been routinely used alongside Psycho in the list of problematic displays of trans characters and trans-offensive movies. Great movies both. I’ll admit to regularly re-watching both of them and clenching my teeth through the gnrgh rar rar bits.
I’m not sure exactly what you are arguing here.
If it’s that this movie might be a masterpiece? Highly unlikely, but ok, great for it, I guess. If it’s that other movies are also offensive? Yes, they are, that’s kind of the problem we’re talking about here. It has disproportionate effect because the media environment it enters is one where negative stereotypes and depictions greatly outnumber genuine and positive portrayals.
Indeed there has been much discussion of both the problematic elements and those which we are happy about in earlier threads. We’ll notice them, we’ll comment on them, and we’ll speak out about them.

WARNING: Some may think this is offensive.And it is. Racist as all get out, to be honest
But…the trailer IS funny in a way that I don’t get from Luna.

I’m getting just as angrybecause you are NOT listening to me. I’ve read your very long diatribes and explanations. I’m trying to give you examples of movies and you dismiss everything I’m trying to explain to you. Who gives a shit if you think he’s “privileged” because he’s white? I’m not defending his whiteness or his privilege. I very carefully picked this as an example of PC sensitivity gone wild, and you utterly and completely dismiss me in post after post. Why can’t you just see that this was a very scary thing that could happen to anyone at anytime because people don’t think?

It wasn’t bannedand it was rewarded. THAT was my point.

Oh you againHello you.
Yeah, strike a blow against those powerful dastardly trans people who only care about depriving the only sources of joy in this cold heartless planet. They are exactly the same as massively privileged parties attacking downwards to less privileged parties. Right on.
If only some methodology could be developed by which more dominant groups could silence and harass minority groups simply for existing and commenting on things they find personally offensive. That would be swell.
/sarcasm
We’ve all done this dance, you have no interest in education on this, it’s how the cookie crumbles, right?
Get your rant out, we’ll soak it up as always.

Sorry, but what happened with Dan Savage?

Shit that title!How the hell did that one get by!

Thishttp://endablog.wordpress.com/…

FineYou are right that I have avoided that conversation with you here as you have avoided any real conversation on my topic upthread. In the interest in detente, I will pull my share in the hopes that you will do so for me.
Okay, on the broader social context of whether this movie should be pulled. Actually I personally haven’t signed the petition. Why? Because I don’t want to feed the BS persecution complexes of those involved and their defenders. It should get aired, to the detriment of people like me, and we will continue to air exactly why it is a direct detriment to people like us.
However, and it’s a small however, so you can lower the initial defensiveness. If this petition succeeds beyond the measure of most petitions by minority groups (big secret, when a minority group petitions for the removal of an offensive movie, it pretty much never gets removed unless the festival in question had not actually known about the offensiveness to begin with) and this movie got removed from this festival, it would not have been banned from existing.
This movie has already done real damage if to nothing else, trans-people/gay-male coalitions and this movie still exists. It will be shown in other less prestigious film festivals and nothing can or should stop the artist’s ability to show it in as many personal screenings as he should please. If he wants to release it for free to the internet because meany activists managed to pull a rare coup, we would be powerless to stop him and it would be wrong to.
We can’t erase this work from existence, we can’t ban it from existing.
What some are doing and what I am abstaining from personally, is arguing for its disinvitation from an event that will grant it unwarranted prestige, especially in the context of film festivals like that turning down large numbers of award-winning films by trans directors in the past.
And yeah, it’s a touchy subject. It’s why I’ve sat out that element of the protest, relying solely on my arguments for why it is offensive and allowing others to come to their personal decisions about whether they want to see the work removed from this film festival or if they just want to comment on the offensive nature of the work.
Again, we can’t ban it from existing, only argue against its inclusion in a prestige-granting film festival.
Also again, I’m not personally in favor of blocking its inclusion. Though I will raise hell about it, cause, well…above and beyond the call of duty with little to no redeeming features. I’m offended simply on the level of craft.

Some Words You only get to use if you are oneHistorically speaking on the West Coast the word was “Transie” and for many years it was an in group word that covered every one from queens to post-ops.
Somewhere along the line it became “Trannie” and our bars were trannie bars.  Trannie applied to those who got SRS and those who didn’t.  To those who like girls and those who liked boys.
I sometimes detect a hint of classism in the rejection of this word because it came up from the streets and hustle bars and has sex worker origins rather than coming down blessed with the approval of academics and those trying to be middle class.
I use it sparingly but as someone who was once called one and even self described as a trannie I see it as a word we can if we so desire claim.  But if you aren’t you can’t.
It is our “queer”.  Like queer I have had it hurled at me to hurt me.  When I use trannie and queer I am saying to the straight world “I am not like you and I reject the very idea that I should try to be like you.”
Once upon a time I lived in the Haight Ashbury.  The straights called us hippies and flower children.  We called ourselves freaks and mooned the buses full of tourists.
This does not excuse the director of this film although I might give him a pass if he were John Waters.

DetenteYou are right, I haven’t been fair to your chosen topic below, that of whether the work should be banned or not, I have rectified that in the interest of peacemaking.
This oversight corrected, will you apply a similar amount of effort to actually reading and responding to what I have actually argued here about the underlying problem of assuming that down-up actions deserve more trepidation than up-down actions? And why the “PC culture gone wild” is offensive and problematic on its own?
Please?

I KnowDarn those activists … boycotting and pointing out problematic media depictions of themselves when they don’t have the industry capital to make their own media to counter it.
http://abillings.livejournal.c…
Has a post where she talks about the film. She loves it – good on her. However :
“A small speech done in exquisite off the cuff style about God, Adam, Eve, and the third sex: Ava- who in this version is a combination of both Adam and Eve.”
I’m really NOT comfortable with a cis (non trans) person putting this discussion in the mouths of trans women and drag queens. Take anti-trans violence and boil it down and THIS discussion is the root. This is the reason why trans women are kept out of DV shelters. THIS is the basis of the damn bathroon argument. This can be an important discussion, but not one done by a gay man for trans women for the consumption of a mixed audience.
This is the marketing of violence against trans women.  

Fair enoughI wholeheartedly agree with protesting this movie for its offensiveness. I am not trans, but I should be more sensitive to Autumn and others who find this movie painful. I do see your points and your posts are very persuasive. Please understand from where I was coming: the very idea of banning something from sight just goes against everything I believe in. As for the PC stuff above, I did see your points about everything you said. Honest. Perhaps I was harping on one example too much and not allowing myself to see what you were trying to get at. I’d like to dust off and try again.

Thanks KatDan has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth.

Yes of coursePoor wording on my part. PC gone wild is what right wingers use to dismiss the real experiences of minorities. That wasn’t my intent at all.  

“You have no interest in education on this”I know!  Why can’t I keep an open mind like you?  You obviously are very introspective and can be persuaded that, once in a rare while, you might be in the wrong.
In fact, I think every one of your posts is educational.  Every Blender should read them in order to see what can happen to someone who believes that power determines morality.  Your comments all focus not on principles that should apply to everyone, but rather on who is allegedly “privileged” and who is allegedly “oppressed”.  The latter have the right to say anything and do anything they please to the former, which ironically makes the privileged the oppressed and the oppressed privileged.  This isn’t a moral system that any gay person should follow.
Regardless of your “power” in society, what you and your cohort are doing is censorship and intimidation of an artist, and that is dastardly regardless of who does it.  You can roll your eyes and do type /sarcasm all you want.  But gay people have a long history of standing up to censors.  One of the very first gay rights victories in the US was to defeat censorship by the US Post Office, which banned the mailing of gay magazine.  A magazine which surely was more offensive to most Americans at the time than this movie is to you.
I hope the day never comes when we get seduced by a small group of amoral trans activists employing “queer theory” jargon into becoming the very thing we have fought against.

Watching itAnd admittedly I’m the wrong color to be authoritative on this so take it with a ginormous grain of salt, like ladle that shit, but the difference seems to be tone and style.
This seems of tone sympathetic and of black people. It feels like its airing specifically black grievances and humor and directs its focus increasingly upwards not only in physical actions, but also in the focus of the humor and set-pieces. The negative stereotypes and slurs seem balanced by these focuses thus limiting their impact entirely to those of what the use of the word may trigger. It also arose at a time (presumably) where a good media track-record had already been established of “good” black characters defusing the “angry” black man stereotype. The angry stereotype is also carefully explained in context. Slavery is in existence, here’s the daily racism, this is for you (the presumed black audience) to enjoy a little escapism.
Whereas Luna tries for that, I can tell he really did try, but his ignorance of the subject matter and his desire to really tell a gay men rise up against bashing movie means that the tone is very gay male.
Now, before I continue I want to stress that that isn’t a problem on its own. But it does lead to problems. It doesn’t ease the trans people in the audience into settling into the target role and doesn’t let them feel ownership of the reclamation. Instead they get to see the aspects of trans that interest gay men (drag queens, “fierceness”, camp, and crass parodies of femininity and femalehood). Again, on their own without the implied ownership, not a big deal. But already, it distances the trans audience as it claims to tell the story. The tone and style being more gay male it pushes out the trans as it purports to tell their story and “give them” a revenge film.
At that point, the offness of the style leads to a lot more jokes ending up back on the supposed giver’s faces rather than making them end up on the intended targets. The intro didn’t have “big reversals” well known by the subculture (such as in your clip, the dragging away the person for saying the n-word in public or randomly hassling the white banker as police officers or the dinner gag). They weren’t really included because they were just set-pieces just to have general revenge against bashers where they used their “fierce” pumps to bash back. As such the sterility of it leaves it more alien and lets the negative stereotypes linger and relapse back into weapons against the supposed heroes.
It’d be like if the jokes in this were entirely from an ill-informed white perspective, so that instead of those reversals we got them saying “yes, I sure do love the Jackson 5, also fried chicken” and “I am a slick jive turkey, fool” and from there on it was just indiscriminate violence against whitie.

OHUsing dead trans girls to market a movie about beating up trans girls is such a laugh – a HOOT – cuz it’s by a gay man. Those gay guys, they can’t do anything wrong. Trans folks need to just shut up and let the boys have their fun.. right?

LOL,…Fred Williamsonthe “Boss Ni**er” wrote and co-directed the movie, I believe.
And this was 1974, the n-word was pretty common in movies and on TV.
And this wasn’t the only movie that had the n-word in the title either.
And hell, tell me the scene where the sheriff takes the bank president to jail wouldn’t play well in theatres today (considering the headlines).
But…uh, there’s a few titles from blaxplotation films that are worse than that.
Cerbrus gets it right, for the most part…

I hope we’ve all read The Celluloid Closet by Vito RussoI couldn’t believe the amount of anti gay anti lesbian anti trans hatred that’s been portrayed in movies over the course of what 80 plus years? It’s a real eye opening book. But Russo, as outraged as he is, finds that these movies can educate and be just as historically important as movies that portray the LGBT community in a positive light.

Removing a film from the line-up……is not “banning” the film. One can still go out  and see this film if it plays in your city. Or, one can still buy the DVD or Blu-Ray of this film when it’s released to the public in that format.
It’s also not “censorship” when trans people advocate that the film be removed from the Tribeca Film Festival line-up. Again, one can still go out  and see this film if it plays in your city. And again, one can still buy the DVD or Blu-Ray of this film when it’s released to the public in that format.
Governments censor media so no one can read or view particular publications, books, or art. Governments ban media so no one can read or view particular publications, books, or art.
I don’t want the film “banned” from the festival for not being funny, or because I want to “censor” the film. However, I do want the film pulled from the Tribeca Film Festival line-up because from what I’ve seen of the film, and have heard from my trans peers, and heard from those who’ve seen the entirety of the film. The film and its marketing are extremely offensive to many of us real world trans people. Therefore, I don’t want this film that is so offensive to so many trans people given the prestige that a screening at the Tribeca Film Festival would give this “‘transploitation’ action comedy.”
Let them sell the film without that prestige. As I said in my first post on this film, this controversy is probably going to be good for film and DVD sales, but it’s horrible for community building. Israel Luna has knowingly created a film with a antitrans epithet in the title; his La Luna Entertainment has exploited the deaths of Angie Zapata and Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado to market his “‘transploitation’ action comedy.” Those horrid actions shouldn’t be rewarded with the prestige of a screening at the Tribeca Film Festival.

All in the Family wouldn’t get past development today.

Thank youWow, I’ll have to admit, I actually wasn’t expecting that. I’m so used to reaching out like that and just getting doubled down bile that I’m actually tearing up in gratitude. That gesture really means a lot to me.
And I understand your point, it is why even though this hurts me and I believe it will only interact with my community negatively, I have continued to refrain from signing it personally. It shouldn’t be hidden out of sight. It’s a travesty and it exists and it will get unwarranted and undeserved prestige from having shown here, but that’s what happened. That cork won’t be going back in the bottle, but maybe responses, both of criticism and of various protests will succeed in educating both about the film and the dearth of trans representations.
Maybe the Tribeca Film Festival will even be moved by the hostile response to consider a genuine trans-person made film next year. I know, I’m a dreamer or otherwise reconsider whether they want to grant the prestige of their festival onto offensive piles of crap like this in the future. Again, yeah, dreamer.
It definitely will and probably should air now that they were stupid enough to accept it. We’ll make ourselves heard though as best as we can.

Well, here’s the thingThere is a difference b/t defending the work and defending the artist’s right to pursue his own vision.  I haven’t seen this movie, so I honestly don’t know whether it is any good or whether it has a good message.  As a result of this campaign to silence Luna, I will now make it a point to gather up a carload of friends and go see it.  If you like, I’ll post a review here after I see it, assuming that Autumn doesn’t designate such a review the moral equivalent of the holocaust.
The trans activist mob is very much like the Catholic mobs who hounded “Last Temptation of Christ” and the evangelical mobs who hound “Corpus Christie”.  They condemn what they haven’t ever seen.  Now it may be that this movie is insensitive or crude or even transphobic, and in that case, I would criticize it on that basis.  
But that is not what this campaign is about.  It is this week’s exorcism of what we are assured is a demon.  It is not enough that people see the film and then offer criticism.  No, the filmmaker’s heart and soul have to be put on trial and he must be found guilty of some “ism” or some “phobia” regardless of what he says about himself and his work.  And his work must be banned from sight.  
Oh, and please think anyone is fooled with the deceptive phraseology “what Black people think” or “what trans people say.”  Just because Autumn and a few other people say something doesn’t mean that “trans people” say it.  They don’t speak for “trans people” anymore than I speak for  ”gay people”.  If I think for myself and that means that someone calls me a name, so be it.  I don’t outsource my thoughts and beliefs to anyone, even the morally perfect beings who post here.

Feel Better?

???

Oops I think that was intended for Daniel?

Name onegay exploitation movie that used the deaths of real life gay people to market it?
Tell me what the gay male reaction to a Madonna album called “faggots dance to whatever I make” would be?
can I make a movie about a boy who gets raped by an older man and then gets revenge on gays? I’ll call it “Irked Breeder Dude vs. the Homo Agenda”. I can even reference a real like case where think happened. for the movie trailer.

Oh goodI wasn’t sure how much I would be off because I’m not only not black, but also wasn’t alive back then, so most of it was imperfect speculation and a few historical clues.
A lot of it actually reminded me of Blazing Saddles though maybe mostly because of the conceit of the black sheriff in a racist small town and the jokes playing around with the n-word in a black-focused reclamation.

*applause*I just absolute have to say think you for having the courage to stand up and be a complete jerk by supporting the further marginalization of other people just for the vicarious pleasure of mocking them again in the future.
Please, do it some more!

Oh yeahSorry, nested trees can lead to misunderstandings.
Yes, it was a direct response to Daniel. I said that I would soak up his predicted “the oppressor class is the real victim of minority group fascism” rant, he ranted, I soaked it up.
Besides I was feeling good and wasn’t about to let him spoil the mood. Thank you for that by the way. I know it sounds silly but I’m still tearing up.

Do itProtest it loud and often. It’s the only way to get heard these days. My heroes have always been Larry Kramer and ACT UP. Now Dan Choi. It’s the only damn way to get anything done these days.

I can see why you feel this waybut I disagree about having this pulled from the lineup. I think it needs to be seen, just like every other offensive piece of junk we’ve protested through the years.

We need to respect each othereven if our feelings get the better of us. No worries. I hate to feel like I’ve pissed someone off just as much as I hate having my heart beat too hard at a critical post directed to me.  

Incorrect.What is being done is not censorship.
What is being done is censuring.
That you are incapable of telling the differences between those two things is rather startling for a person who steps up and says that Power does not determine  morality.
I could explain to you the incredible foolishness of making that statement, and I could spend countless posts explaining to you the nature of social dynamics (which you obviously have very little effective grasp on), but that would be wandering afar from the particulars here, so I’ll move on.
Your statements on privilege and oppression are * fundamentally* flawed — they sound good, but in fact they only sound good because you do not understand what privilege is or what oppression is as concepts (although you may understand some thin sense of it on a personal level that you are failing to relate to you rown life). And yes, what that means, in less pleasant terms, is that you lied through your teeth.
And what saddens me, personally, is that you have no clue you did so. Or how.
But then, given that you are a ringer, to be expected.
I find it fascinating, as well, that you understand how offensive this film is to us and can say that our level of offense is less than the level of offense of the general public in an example you provide.
I’m very curious: how do you know how offended we are?  What is your basis of measurement, and how is it that you have some sort of strange ability to read other people’s emotive conditions from afar?
I’m sure many people here are dying to know.
Censorship, for your education since you are in sore need of such, is not what is going on here.  It can’t be, you see — the film is already made, and already scheduled and advertised.  If it was being censored, none of that would be happening.
What is happening is censure — he is receiving the fruit of his labors, and that fruit of that labor is essentially a large number of people who are going to be sure that he is socially punished by flexing whatever  ability they do have to make this person understand their error.
And so you are aware of the error is, which you absolutely failed to note, it is  being a jerk.  Much like you are being by supporting this.
If you like being a jerk, then fine — I’m all for you having the right to be a jerk if you want.
But you’ll still be a jerk, and there will be consequences in the broader society as a result of that.

Can’t think of onebut I can name dozens of anti-gay movies that offended me to no end.

Seen, yes. This venue, no.IT needs to be shown in avenue where it is revealed as an exercise in what not do, not a venue where it is held up as an example of what to do.

Hmm.Apparently, I’m living up to my moniker of “Evil Autumn.”
Seriously Daniel, please do give us a review of the film, if you see it. Also consider going with a few trans women too — one or two who do drag perfomance, and one or two who don’t — and hear their reviews of the film also.
And too, every time you hear the term “tranny” in the film, be sure to think of the term “faggot,” because a large number of trans people hear the term “tranny” in the same way gays hear the term “faggot.”
In other words, try to see the film both as yourself, and while putting yourself in the shoes of the minority members who are by design being “transploited” in the film.
Seriously Daniel, I’d love to hear your review — good or bad. Email me if you post it, and if it’s well written (again, positive or negative review) I’ll personally promote it on the front page.

Okay, I have to say this again.Name calling, per our terms of service Dys, is bad. Personal attacks are also bad. We have an icon for those kinds of “personal fouls,” and you already know what it looks like.
Please remember to argue your points of agreement or disagreement with other blenders, but don’t ad hominem argue, or name call. Personal attacks are personal fouls here in our comment threads.
Calling, or strongly implying, another blender is a “jerk” is just not okay.
Okay?

May I bring up Mapplethorpe?As we remember, people wanted his photographs banned from certain prestigious places because they were offended. Their rationale was the same: well, people can go out and buy his books and look at the photos at home, why show it at museums and galleries? And as I recall, the gay community was outraged at the right wing factions who persecuted and hounded the places where they were shown, all in the name of artistic freedom. So why were we defending Mapplethorpe then, but demand that Luna take his movie out of Tribeca? I don’t understand why it must be taken out of TRIBECA, but we can see it if we wish at a local theatre?

“Rump Rangers from UR-Anus”would have Joe Solmonese issuing a press release condemning it in five minutes or less were the movie made by a group of Lesbians about “empowering gay men”

Well…there is a “bread and circuses” aspect to it.
And even though it’s black focused and presumably for a black audience, can you imagine showing something like this to some teabaggers (well, there are already some parodies on youtube with you-know-who as the “boss ni**er”)?
So, it’s not simply a black fantasy but also a white fear.
And…let’s face it, the title song IS catchy…
But most important, the sarcasm in this piece was written by a black man…he knows what button to push and how to push them.

hee heeAnd, in a perfect example of what I’m talking about, what Autumn is doing here is censuring me — not censoring.
And, as she somewhat delicately points out, for the same ultimate cause.

Oh I have no doubtthat even well-meaning people will piss each other off on occasion and sometimes it seems that nothing you can do can prevent you becoming someone else’s own personal hell.
And it’s not even always a political thing. My partner is currently the bane of her housemate’s existence because he’s an extremely light sleeper and there is no amount of silencing techniques she has found that has failed to greatly disrupt and infuriate him and no apologies that have been able to make up for it. There is little she can do to avoid driving him mad until she leaves. Things like that can happen and it gets even more likely when you have emotionally charged debates with varying triggers, cross-talking, and privileges getting involved.
I’m just a romantic, in that I always do try in many ways to reach out to hope and etc…, but I’m a dark romantic in that I have a cynical understanding of how often that fails. I’ve grown used to getting to the point of furious and having the person who infuriated me (politically) just going that extra step further in being shall we say triggering and obtuse.
When I get to the point of trying to be fair like I did there, I don’t often expect it to end like it did, but rather to be a sort of halftime where I get more sucked into a new debate on another scrimmage line with similar problems to the last one. Having it turn out as its “supposed to” with mutual understanding of where we were both coming from and having the other person get what I was trying to get at before?
Let’s just say I run into that response far less often. And I appreciated it working out as it did.

Well I’m pleased I made someone happy here!

One more thingI don’t know if you post on political boards, but they are the worst. I’ve had many years of posting “experience” and let me tell you, people are mean, vicious, nasty and WILL exploit any little piece of information they find out about you. I never found this to be the case here, mostly because Pam and the baristas do a good job of making people feel comfortable.

Wow, way to prove my points, folks.This one cheap little exploitation movie is going to destroy the LGBT movement?  Sorta like how Bruno and Desperate Living did?  Oh, wait…
“I don’t need to see it to know it’s offensive” is a line I hear from my Pentecostal relatives every time Hollywood puts out something THEY don’t like.  Explain to me why I should give my supposed allies on the left a pass when I don’t extend the same courtesy to them.
Look, MAYBE the actual film IS deeply offensive.  But you don’t know that yet.  What we do know is that the director INTENDED the film to be empowering.  So, at worst, it’s a well-intentioned misfire.  Hardly Birth of a Nation or even Cruising.
In particular, the phrase “cinematic hate crime” deeply offends and angers me.  A hate crime is a malicious act of violence.  The concept of this movie may offend you, but it clearly wasn’t intended maliciously.
And since I see some variation of this comment from all of you, if there was a movie called Fed-up Fa**ots with Switchblades starring Sean Hayes and Carson Kressly as hairdressers who take revenge on Focus on the Family, I would be THE FIRST PERSON IN LINE to see it.
Finally, none of you have addressed the fact that you DO NOT speak for the entire trans community on the issue of this movie.  Not only are their trans actors in this movie, ALL of my trans friends (of which I have a considerable number, the fact that I think you’re dead WRONG on this issue doesn’t change the fact that I’m a huge supporter of the trans community) think this movie sounds hilarious and want to see it.

It’s not for me to say but

sometimes detect a hint of classism in the rejection of this word because it came up from the streets and hustle bars and has sex worker origins rather than coming down blessed with the approval of academics and those trying to be middle class.

The classism part sounds right, as I’ve heard transfolk use the term as well and I’m in the Midwest.
But it’s not for me to make that call and I have heard it used as a pejortative by gay and straight cisfolks.
A movie with this title needs to have a trans director but then again, would a trans director have used the term, considering the class angle.

I do as wellAnd in general, I’ve found “people” are as strangers in life. I’ve actually had some good experience. I’ve been part of crews aiding in visibility for asexuals, trans people, and polyamorous people on several blogs including Pharyngula, Shakespeare’s Sister, Pandagon, Balloon Juice, and Sadly No. I’ve similarly strengthened some convictions and swayed some moderates regarding a woman’s right to choice and gay rights in general.
Overall, like speaking out in life, breaking the silence can yield some good results and proves its worthiness.
Of course it also means a lot of arguments with people who are so often trolls or at least married to their privilege. And I’ve found the same people in life, just in life they’ll lie to my face to stop the confrontation and start it back up once I’m twenty paces away. It can be draining, as is political work in general, but I feel its worthiness and I appreciate the changes I can already see in my admittedly short life so far that result from such tireless campaigns.
I learned long ago how little it matters for someone to use “who you are” against you. At least personally. So I’ve always gone full crazy in that regard. Other people think that who I am can be a weapon against me? They don’t know me then.
But yes, anyways, again thank you for reminding me in another way that my general policy of not giving up until I’ve literally hit my personal breaking point or fatigue level is a good one.  

I’m not tapping in yetBut for the sake of accuracy, I would point out that “Cinematic hate crime” isn’t a description of the movie, but rather is pointing out that they recreated a hate crime on screen. It’s a literal description of an “on-screen hate crime” not an accusation aimed at the work.
Also, not tapping in, so others, please continue the wrestling match on this one, I’m feeling too good to go a round.

My own takeBeing a middle aged trans woman and artist/film maker I’ve been reading this with some interest trying to pinpoint where this hits me. There’s the emotional reaction; I’ve developed a sixth sense for when, “the trans reveal bit” comes up on tv and in film. Usually, it feels like a big elevator drop. In a previous post I pointed out a short, award winning animated film which I found mind bogglingly offensive when I viewed it last fall at a film festival.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
In a mostly male, hetro cis community such as is found at animation festivals, I found it almost impossible to explain why I found this so disturbing, there seemed to be a huge gap between my culture and experience and the audience. Now comes Trannies With Knives, I’m amazed reading some of the bits here, more so as I expect other folks in the lgbtq community at large to be a bit hip to my experience ( this is naive on my part, perhaps ) Still it helps me trying to get to the heart of what might be important in coming to terms with this.
Past the emotions I feel, here’s what I think; It takes some work and creativity to represent the trans experience in a visual medium like film. Going with stereotypes is easy as the audience already knows the story, requires less work for the film maker and director. The story writes itself! It is also lazy and does not advance us to new levels of thought.
In the end, I don’t feel Trannies with Knives is worth much at all, it will disapper like so much fluff. It’s up to us to get on making our own art.

HmmI re-read the quote and I still think my interpretation of it is accurate.  I don’t think the source of the quote was offended at the depiction of a hate crime, as then we’d have to take offense at Boys Don’t Cry as well, wouldn’t we?

YeahI’m offended as a trans person, but also as an artist.
There’s a distinct lack of craft, a lazy reliance on easy well-trod ground and complete disinterest in actually doing the hard work of doing it “right”.
So often people treat “edgy” works i.e. those that are offensive to a minority group as if they are somehow difficult and ground-breaking when they are really the easiest things in the world to create. They rely on the well-trodden ground of the expected and the familiar and deliberately shy away from the hard work that comes from creating new, taking the genuine risks of actual biting satire and cultural commentary, and really understanding the subject you’re working for.
Creating an offensive work is child’s play, creating a transgressive work on the other hand, a genuinely transgressive work takes actual talent and craft.

hmmthe bowling alley of horror didn’t sit well with the rest of the film. but , to be fair I did enjoy Suicide Club. the premise is just awesome, and I love ambiguous wtf endings.
it’s one movie where I would like to see a US remake, as with the Ring vs Ringu, I think there’s an awesome movie in there.

Here is what bothers me about PCI see WAY too often on this site differing points of view shut down by the sudden insertion of the phrases “privilege” and “patriarchy.”  Now, I’m not saying that these things don’t exist and aren’t problems, but too often they’re used as substitutes for reason.  I can’t count how many posts I’ve seen those two words evoked to mean “I have no way of countering your argument, but you’re male/straight/white/not trans so how dare you have an opinion that differs from mine.”

BecauseLuna has gotten thousands of death threats and had people try to break into his home over this, right?
Give me a break…

Calling you on thatHave all your trans friends present here with their credentials as trans people, please.
Seriously.  You want to portray “trans activists” as a certain way, I’ll be glad to step into that role for you.
So have them come on over.
And, while you are at it, remember that trans folk still use terms like disclosure and passing and genetic girl and “real girl” — all of which are part of the whole internalized oppression piece.
Especially if they aren’t particularly active in the effort being described here.
You want to derail the conv (first with the “you don’t speak for them all” despite the large number of us posting here who do, in fact, speak for large chunks of the community, and then with the “well I have a lot of friends like that” when they aren’t exactly here themselves right now) fine.  I’m fully game for letting you try that because, well, I’m probably one of the meanest ones that come here and I can take pretty much any derail you want to toss at me and use it against you.
So bring ‘em on.
As for intentions — The Road to Hell is paved with such.  Oor opponents — the people who call us sinful and terrible and deny us our rights — are, in fact, doing it with good intentions for the most part.
And if you don’t realize that, then you don’t understand them nearly as well as you should.
Good intentions are not an excuse.  Good intentions are, in the end, just that — what one intends to do.
Not what one actually does.
We are dealing in what they actually did.  Perhaps you’d care to join the conversation?

Cuts both ways, folkshttp://joemygod.blogspot.com/2…

only if a character was named Joe.

Your point being?Total censorship as compared to censure is not an apples to apples comparison.
Try again.  And improve your derailing.

Which is primarily becausethe person who it is being invoked against doesn’t understand those concepts.
If they understood them, then they could, in fact, continue the argument, and often effectively.
This is especially important since the nature o those two things — they are, in the end, the methods by which the stigma attached to all of us is forwarded.
It is not my fault when I point out someone’s privilege and they not only don’t know they have it but proceed to deny it.  If they were effectively aware of their privilege, they are less likely to have made the statement in the first place.
To advance the argument, both sides have to be aware of the privilege in question and the concepts themselves — since the situation is such that often the arguments here involve a trans person being told by a cis person X, it behooves the wise and intelligent cis person to get off their hind end and learn about privilege.

HehYour word choice made me think of this:

I’m fully of the belief that Israel Luna meant well, despite his many severe limitations preventing him, but what he did was still offensive and we need to deal with that.

“Cruising” Scoreboard! Game, Set, Match – Kathleen!

Not to mentionThat I have not once encountered an argument wherein I or someone else talked about privilege wherein that ended the argument. I’ve seen positive examples where people talked back and forth examining it and I’ve seen way way more negative examples where people took it as some sort of personal threat. How dare you say I am affected by a universal effect by virtue of birth or circumstances, have at you!
But I don’t believe I’ve yet encountered a moment in my life where dropping the “privilege bomb” was some conversation ending “well, they got me there” sort of deal.
Same with the patriarchy.
And yes, it takes a deep misunderstanding of the terms to come to the conclusion that was come to there. I blame the patriarchy for that.
…What? I had too, the joke was just sitting there.

And again my endless irritationMaybe we do understand these concepts, and maybe we still disagree with you.  It does not follow that if one educates oneself on a topic, one will necessarily agree with everything dyssonance says.
I used to be a lot more politically active, but I got sick and tired of running into people who insisted on turning every ideological disagreement into a game of who’s more oppressed.
I know about privilege, thank you very much, but I’m sick of being told that, for an example, all men (including the homeless man I give to change to near where I work) are oppressing all women (including the Queen of England).  This attitude drives away reasonable people who might otherwise be allies.  Myself included.
This is, of course, why the right always wins.  They’ll appeal to anyone who agrees with them on a point and manage to ban gay marriage, restrict abortion etc.  Whereas the left demands ideological purity and adherence to a lunatic Andrea Dworkin-esque political correctness.  And this is why we lose.

YeahAgain, not going to wrestle with you, but that’s not what privilege means.
Privilege is a universal aspect given to all members of X set that has greater social standing than Y set on a certain aspect. Say men and women. It’s not however the same as oppression or even necessarily a bad thing. It merely means that group X say men as an example will not have to suffer certain inequities and life experiences of group Y say women as an example.
As such, by natural course of events, they will not naturally consider such life experiences and inequities because they don’t personally experience them and haven’t had to be painfully aware of them. This is privilege.
Some privileges are bad, such as those which are based on an unearned greater standing simply by virtue of their position. Most tend to be neutral, i.e. arising from the simple absence of oppression or not having to be aware of both one’s own life experiences and those of the dominant class by virtue of media and survival mechanisms.
You’re free to disagree, but no, you do not understand what privilege means, sir.

And yet…You make statements which directly establish that you do not understand what privilege is when you say things like:

but I’m sick of being told that, for an example, all men (including the homeless man I give to change to near where I work) are oppressing all women (including the Queen of England)

If you did understand privilege you would understand that male privilege is not such a thing, and that the way you presented it is fallacious.
So it is not merely disagreeing — it is, in fact, a lack of understanding of what privilege is.
I don’t give a rat’s ass if someone agrees with me or not — it is, in part, why I’m dyssonance.  Hell, I’m noted for disagreeing on some fairly serious stuff, which Autumn will be glad to point out.
You are correct, it does not follow that if one educates oneself on a topic that they will agree with me.  Which is not, in fact, what I said — I said they are less likely to say stuff that gets them in trouble.  Another attempt at derailment and another failure (in this case, a strawman).
When you say what you did above as the basis for a decision, such as this one:
This attitude drives away reasonable people who might otherwise be allies.  Myself included.
Then what you are doing is saying that since you imperfectly understand a concept and disagree with the thing you do not fully understand that is acceptable for you to call that which you do not understand unreasonable (a requirement for you to use the reasonable adjective above), and thus gives you an out that you can, in the end, only obtain because of your privilege.
So who is it that’s being unreasonable?
That is not why the right wins, btw.  That’s what they use to retain relevancy. But its a nice derail as well — just, again, ineffective.
Please, go and learn what privilege is. Because if the above is what you are thinking it is, then you do not know it.
As for ranking of oppressions — no, I haven’t gone there yet in this discourse, but should I do so you can be fairly certain I’ll tell you that I am doing so right then.
Calling out something as political correctness, btw is a tool of the Right. That is, after all, how it got started.
Lastly, I find the summoning of Andrea Dworkin in a conversation on Trans folk most humorous.

eh, blame away.I’m supposed to just be a tool of it, anyway…

Oh pleaseI’m so happy for you that you rule the trans clique on one corner of the internet.
Yeah, I’m familiar with the terms you mentioned above, and yes, I’ve heard trans people use them.  It must be wonderful to be so enlightened that you can judge all these people and how they must all be so uncomfortable with themselves.  What about the trans performance artist Anna-Varney from Germany, who prefers to be called “it” rather than he or she?  Deep self-loathing or the way Anna-Varney chooses to express gender?
I’m trying to derail the conversation by bringing up the fact that you are not, in spite of your incredible self-belief, the end-all and be-all of all things trans?  You’re accusing me of lying about my trans friends and their opinions?  Sorry, it’s a little hard to rouse them after midnight in order to win an argument on the internet.  And I’m sure they’d all love to hear a self-righteous twit tell them that they’re self-loathing because they have a sense of humor.
You know what offends me?  I define myself as gay, I define myself as multi-racial, but before that I define myself as an ARTIST.  And I’m sick and tired of self-appointed cultural cops from the right AND the left limiting the way I and my fellow artists can express ourselves because it might offend someone.  YOU HAVEN’T EVEN SEEN THE MOVIE YOU’RE COMPLAINING ABOUT!  As I’ve said before, this isn’t Birth of a Nation or Cruising.  The director of this film has EXPLICITLY stated that the purpose of the movie is to express the exact opposite of what you’re protesting it for.

I know what privilege means……but I’m pointing out how the argument gets misused.  Which I felt was perfectly clear.  Who’s derailing what, now?
My point (if we’re done splitting hairs) is that these endless ideological litmus tests drives people such as myself away from movement politics.  To be exact, an acquaintance of mine had his band’s performance shut down by leftist activists because he used loaded imagery to make a radical gay rights statement.  This in spite of the fact that he himself was gay and about as far left as one gets.
Finally, your endless hostility proves my point.  Because I express my genuine views, I’m trying to “derail” the argument.  Sorry, I disagree with you based on my own principles, not because I’m an internet troll.  Talk about your strawman arguments…

WellFor me, I don’t react to the “privilege bomb” as “well, they got me there” so much as “I can’t even have a reasonable conversation with you, can I?” moment.  Basically, I see it used as a grown up movement-leftist version of “la la la, I’m not listening!”
It was a good joke, actually.

I do understandWhat you stated is EXACTLY what I understand the concept of privilege to mean.  What I said above was how I feel the concept gets misused.  I apologize if that wasn’t clear.

ROFLMAODamn, I just filled a scorecard in!
Ok, first off, I don’t “rule” anyone.  Secondly, the internet doesn’t have corners. Thirdly, you really need to get off the strawman arguments cause they are utterly transparent.
Next, of course you are familiar with those terms.  THey are widely used.  But what you missed was the fact that they are all aspects of internalized oppression — and odds are pretty damned good you don’t see how that affects folks as a whole.
Next up, I note your thus far imaginary friends aren’t here. I’m hoping they gain some solidity fairly soon.
I’ll follow that up with noting that you presume I’m judging them when I point out things like internalized oppression.  Fascinating failure there as it reveals a subtextual understanding of internalized oppression that is also incorrect.
In any case, internalized oppression does not, in fact, lead to self loathing.  It can, but typically doesn’t.
As for your explanation of what you were derailing — um, no.  Thats yet another attempt to derail AND a strawman argument.  Your derailing comes from your attempt to say that I don’t speak for all trans folk.  It’s irrelevant, and an attempt to shift the focus to me and away from the subject at hand and is part and parcel of the effects of having privilege.
What about Anna-Varney?
No, I’m actually accusing you of not having any.
I’m not self righteous, but thank you for the pejorative. May I have another?  What I am is a well educated, academically privileged bitch on wheels that deals heavily in this stuff and is actively engaged in educating people about trans issues.
And you assume that I need to see the film.  I’ve seen the trailer — and let’s be blunt: it tells a trans person all they will ever need to see about the film.
Yes, really.
I am not a self appointed cultural cop.  I’m actually a duly appointed one, in some respects (I’m a sociologist, after all). And I’m not an activist by my say so but by the say so of others, initially — I just adopted it since that’s what they decided I was.
I define myself as either Antonia D’orsay or Dyssonance — the rest is description.  Your identity extends to the limits of your skin and ends after that.
This film doesn’t have to be Birth of Nation (which had significantly superior production values, I’ll note) to be a piss poor excuse for a film, and once more what they intended — what they meant to do — is not what they actually did.
OR are you now going to say that only an artist can tell someone what their work means?  Pretty freaking brave of you, if so (and you can probably guess that as an artist myself, I have a different take on the subject).
What this film IS — not what it was meant to be, or supposed to be — is what we are talking about. And it is NOT the thing that the creator claims it to be.
Entirely because the creator has no idea of how to do the things they are claiming its supposed to do.
This is not empowering stuff.  This is humiliating stuff.  THis is marginalizing stuff, oppressive stuff.
And had the creator bothered to actually learn about the subjects, they would have known it.
But what makes it especially egregious is that they were TOLD BEFORE it was a bad thing.
And did it anyway.
SO none of your points are holding up here.
Keep it coming.  I’ve got all night.

A movie with this title needs to have a trans directorWhat if John Waters had done it.  I mean he gave us Pink Flamingos etc?
Or if the Cockette’s had staged a play by the same name in 1970 SF at the Palace Theater.
There seems to be little appreciation of the Camp aesthetic or even a recognition of camp as aesthetic.
Perhaps we have been buried under so much anger and violence that camp as sensibility has been lost.
Mostly though there have been very few non-documentary films that portray trans-folks in a positive light and instead they are mostly junk.
In the 70s during the golden age of Blackpsloitation films like Shaft there were films like “In the Heat of the Night” and “To Sir With Love”
Transsexual and transgender people do not have the balancing effect of films that portray us in a positive light.

No, you didn’tYou did not say “this was how the argument gets misused”.  You used that as your example and then relied on it in other aspects of your post as supportive of your points otherwise.
Not going to fly.
ANd you are still derailing.
THis is not an ideological litmus test. It isn’t even ideological, or a test, let alone alone a litmus one.
This is simply something that exists, and you are still using your imperfect understanding of it to claim excuse to step outside it.
In this case using an expression of anti-intellectualism.
You are not trying to derail the argument by expressing your genuine views — your are derailing the argument by making about something it is not about.
Your genuine views, as well, I should note, are privileged views.  And, as a result, are, ultimately insensitive and based on various prejudices.
I should note I didn’t call you an internet troll.
Nor am I being hostile.  Hostile, from me, is significantly worse and far more likely to involve various pejoratives on my part.
This is mocking and playing.  Humorously.
You want to discuss the issues, then start talking about them.  

ExceptHis trailer – the thing intended to give his audience a taste of what was to come – uses real dead people as a marketing ploy.
His title is problematic in the exact same way a strait person calling a gay man a “queer” is.
His tag “it takes balls..” is actually used as a tag line in a number of trans porn movies.
He wrote a line in the film where trans women discuss not being real women, but rather some sort of 3rd sex. Given overall subject matter of the film this essentially confirms why the trans characters had to be attacked – since it is the exact same excuse given by the men who killed the people used to sell his film in the trailer.
His intentions may have been perfectly super. His film has a number of problems that he is refusing to address with the people who have to live with the fallout.
He, you, your friends, me, everyone is perfectly allowed to make, market, and show whatever piece of art. However, with this come the risk of having people not like it, find it offensive for any reason, and be vocal about it.
Trans folks have been quite willing to talk to Israel and others involved with the film. Unfortunately, he is to busy basking in his new-found fame and getting high-fives from his buddies (and letting his trans stars around to do damage control). This speaks more about his intentions than all the “I luvz me a tranni” crap on a stick I’ve been reading from his interviews.

Prove it.Cite an example of privilege in your own posts and explain why it’s privileged.

Campis not something I appreciate when its done poorly.
And far too often, it’s done exceedingly poorly.
“Bewitched” comes to mind — it was “meant as a camp send up” and it just sucked.

ThisExactly.
I love camp and and a tongue in cheek self deprecating humor. However, I don’t think the balance of images is there for trans folks to have the social/political/cultural space to have a non-trans person make us laugh at ourselves.  

Why do I even bother?It is not “a derail” to state that there are some trans people who do not agree with you.  It is now 1:24am.  Do you really expect me to get them out of bed in order to have an internet debate with an intellectually dishonest person?  I have taken what every poster and commenter has said at face value.  You refuse to extend me the same courtesy.  Arguing with you is pointless.  You refuse to accept that there may be trans people who see the humor in this.  Maybe there aren’t in your corner of the internet.  Maybe everyone you interact with is humorless and uptight.  I can’t speak to that.  But there are people who disagree with you on a principled level who are not transphobic.  You inability to see this only reveals your shortsightedness and gasp YOUR privilege.  Yes, I realize the irony inherent in my using that term.
Maybe the difference is that I (not to mention the trans friends in question) DON’T come from an economically privileged background.  Maybe my trans coworker finds the protests over this movie laughable because he had to move into a really sketchy apartment complex because he couldn’t afford the rent on his old place AND the payments for his top surgery.  
If you really think trans folk are as a monolith standing behind the same positions as you, maybe you should examine the arguments between gay activists over how to proceed on gay issues to see an example on how minority groups are not always in agreement.
It’s interesting how you twist my arguments in order to serve your own ends.  The director claims he intended the movie to be empowering.  Now maybe he wasn’t successful, but that makes the movie a well-intentioned failure, NOT a cinematic hate crime.  To be a hate crime, he would have to intentionally be attacking trans folk, no?
Finally, are you certain that the director was responsible for the trailer?  Frequently, film directors are not responsible for the marketing of their films, and I know of a number of cases where directors actively disliked how their films were marketed.

Proving my point againYou seem to enjoy calling my views “privileged” and insensitive, you accuse me of making up my trans friends, and you wonder why I respond to you with sarcasm.
If you want to know where my arguments come from (and if you were to ask me instead of resorting to baseless accusations) they come from a position of being pro-free speech.  They come from believing that everyone has the right to make a statement, regardless of whether I agree with it or not, regardless of whether or not I think it’s stupid.  I also come from the position that sometimes letting someone say something completely stupid makes your point for you.
I don’t agree with trying to get the festival to pull this film, and my position would be the same if the movie in question were Cruising, which denigrates my own minority.  And, arguably, Cruising is an even more negative portrayal of my community.  At least Luna was trying to be positive.
That is where I am coming from, your assumptions and stereotyping notwithstanding.

Because you think you are right.I never said that was a derail. That also wasn’t what you said.
Yes, I do expect you to do so since you are claiming something about them as defense of your position, and I do indeed expect you to provide them because, to be blunt, I do not believe you.
I do not refuse to extend you that courtesy — you have demonstrated that you are dishonest in your statements.
I’ve never once said that other trans folks might not see humor n it.  And whether they do or not is irrelevant to the fact that it is still a poorly done film with very offensive aspects.
Arguing with me is never pointless — but it is never easy.
The internet has no corners.
Most people who interact with me are aware I’m anything but humorless and uptight. Not that you’d realize that.  That I have a problem with this film does not mean I am humorless about trans stuff.  That’s a fallacy, and a derailment on your part.
Understand something — every single time you make a comment about me, you are derailing the conversation.  I am not the issue here.  The film is the issue here.  And it requires arguing from a position of privilege to make that argument about me.
I’m curious: what privilege is it that I have revealed?  Specifically, please.  I’m not unwilling to own up to my privielge — and I’m not perfect (I can lack awareness of it).  So I’d like to know what privilege it is that you say I show in specific (because there are, indeed, very specific kinds of privilege).
Interestingly enough, I don’t come from an economically privileged background, either.
Please point out where I describe trans folks as a monolith.  I’ll wait.
I do not twist your arguments.  I reveal the logical flaws in your arguments.
As far as I’m concerned, the film is poorly made, poorly written, poorly conceived, and not really worth being shown at Tribeca exclusive of the issues regarding the trans aspect. It’s artistically void of value.
Interestingly enough, no. To be a cinematic hate crime (which is not something I’ve called it, so your point is irrelevant) does not require one to have a good intention.  It simply requires that one’s intention be to portray trans folks in a bad light. And he did — by refusing to listen to trans people and organizations who were telling him, bluntly, that’s what he was doing.
Incidentally, your story about your trans coworker means nothing — at this point its a figment. And as for the intimation that perhaps I am doing better, well, given you only joined here today and have only commented here, you likely have no clue about my situation, which, if you did, would provide for some interesting stuff.
As for the Director’s involvement with the film, perhaps you should read the article you are commenting on.  I did, and in it is pretty much the answer to your question.
He wants it marketed this way.
You really should pay a bit more attention.

I don’t wonder.I don’t need to.
Sarcasm is a spoken art, not a written one.  Something an artist should know.
Free speech has limits.  And no one is censoring the free speech of the director.  Free speech is a right, and rights come with a responsibility.
Surely you aren’t saying that an artist should not be held responsible for the effects of their work?
I posted a link earlier and already dealt with your “position” well before you posted, and, to make matters more interesting, I also dealt with your commentary about this earlier in our exchange.
I never enjoy pointing out privilege. When you do, it gets ugly and nasty and the subjects always attack you, personally, as if you’ve cast some sort of slur at them.
I haven’t, by the way, stereotyped you.  If you think I have, please point out where.  I’m very interested in seeing that.
At this point, the only things I know about you are that you are multiethnic, gay and cis.  That’s it.
I agree with the festival pulling the film because its the wrong venue and the wrong way to present the piece. Censure, not censor.
As for the test, you are the one who started making derailing statements, and so what I did was simply take you on with each one of them. Because when people have to rely on that, they aren’t thinking clearly.
Debate is an art and a craft as well.

You’re very good at twisting wordsand you’re very good at responding without actually addressing my points.  You accuse me of being dishonest, yet have not a single shred of evidence that I’ve lied about anything.  You’ve simply chosen not to believe me because it is convenient for you not to.  I am very pro-trans.  I grew up with a trans woman in the apartment above me.  One of my coworkers is a trans man, and through him I know many other trans folk.  Of course, I don’t expect you to believe me, because it would spoil your caricature of me and my viewpoints to accept that I’m telling the truth.
It doesn’t make me anti-trans that I refuse to accept your viewpoint as the only possible legitimate one.  You refuse to engage me on an honest level because your argument falls apart if you can’t call me a liar.

The art of debatefor you, apparently includes ignoring legitimate points, making nasty implications and then denying you made them.
Maybe people get irritated when you “point out privilege” and treat it as a slur because you use it as a way to dismiss their viewpoints without truly engaging them, as you’ve repeatedly done with me.  That’s a stereotyping of a way, don’t you think?
I don’t think preventing a work of art from being presented is appropriate.  I believe that it is your right to explain why you think it is offensive, and your right to encourage people not to go see it.  I also think in doing so you inadvertently encourage people to see it, so they can see what all the fuss is about.
You like to imply that my position is the result of privilege, of an anti-trans bias, of an intellectual dishonesty.  I am TELLING you that my position springs from an absolutist opinion on free speech.  It is you who are derailing now.

The art of debatefor you, apparently includes ignoring legitimate points, making nasty implications and then denying you made them.
Maybe people get irritated when you “point out privilege” and treat it as a slur because you use it as a way to dismiss their viewpoints without truly engaging them, as you’ve repeatedly done with me.  That’s a stereotyping of a way, don’t you think?
I don’t think preventing a work of art from being presented is appropriate.  I believe that it is your right to explain why you think it is offensive, and your right to encourage people not to go see it.  I also think in doing so you inadvertently encourage people to see it, so they can see what all the fuss is about.
You like to imply that my position is the result of privilege, of an anti-trans bias, of an intellectual dishonesty.  I am TELLING you that my position springs from an absolutist opinion on free speech.  It is you who are derailing now.

What caricature?Seriously — what is the caricature I have of you?
I’m interested in knowing.
Please explain where I twisted your words, and demonstrate how I twisted them.
Your own posts are what I’m dealing with.  Only the stuff you’ve posted here.
I have engaged you on an honest level.  I haven’t used strawmen arguments, I haven’t derailed, I’ve stayed on point, and always directly responded to what you’ve said.
If you feel otherwise, please show where I haven’t done that.
I haven’t said you were anti-trans once — if you feel I have, please point out where I have said that.
I’ve already shown you my arguments regarding censorship.  Most of the stuff you’ve said otherwise has dealt with me, a person about whom you know very little if anything.
Even above, you talk about:
My twisting of words, my evasions of your points, my accusations, my ideas about you personally, your being pro trans, your childhood having a trans woman above you, one of your co-workers, other people you know (which has yet to be established as factual), your not expecting me to believe you (when you haven’t given me any reason to do so, and in fact have given me reason to doubt you, solely in your own statements just here and just in this series of exchanges), and the caricature that you’ve decided I must have of you when I don’t have a caricature of you because I don’t have enough information to develop one.
You make several assumptions in the above post about me — as you’ve been doing the whole time, with nothing in my posts on which to base them.
In short, you seem to know more about me than I’m presently aware of, and every time I ask you a question about these things you say about me you proceeed to avoid answering them.
Now you attempt to place all the blame for your faults on me, personally, abdicating responsibility for your actions.  I’ve been engaging you, and honestly, the whole time, even if I am being my usual self in the process — a self you are utterly unaware of but that most of the regulars here are familiar with.
Here’s a trick for ya:
Present your arguments without making any kind of commentary about me.  That means not talking about who I represent or not.  Not talking about my motivations for something without asking me first.  Not talking about anything regarding something you cannot know.
That means, in short, discussing it as an abstract concept, and only discussing the merits or lack thereof of the film, based on the information regarding the film so far.
Do that, and then see what I do.
Oh, and check out derailing for dummies.  It will be very useful for you, personally, given the large number of tropes you’ve used thus far.

…I call bullshit.  If you engaged me on an honest level you wouldn’t ask me to prove things that can’t be proven.  What, I’m supposed to come up with a photo of me with my upstairs neighbor from fifteen years ago and send it to you?  You have no reason to disbelieve a word that I’ve said.  None.  Every word is true.  You place an unreasonable burden of proof on me.  Why?  Because if you accept the truth of what I say, you have no argument.  It’s easier to just call me a liar isn’t it?

And, again, you make it about meWhich is why you are having such a hard time with this.
Please note a legitimate point I have ignored.
What nasty implications, and how are they nasty?
What denial of an implication have a I made?
I am not dismissing their viewpoints.  I am pointing out that their viewpoints are part of a series of oppressive tactics used to silence and humble others who lack the privilege they do.
In other words, when I do that I am not silencing them, I am telling them to stop trying to silence others.
Which you would know if you truly did understand privilege, as you have claimed several times, yet each and every time you discuss it you pointedly demonstrate how you do not, in fact, understand privilege.
Nor is it stereotyping — were I to stereotype, I would have to have more information about you, and I would have to have a particular classification for you.  Privilege does not allow for that, since everyone is subject to it in some form or other.
Again, which you’d know if you understood it.
This is why I distrust your statements — so far you’ve said several things and then gone on to show that what you said was false.
The reasons for it being offensive are all up there in the article — and several more in addition that I have, in fact, pointed out thus far.
Which you ignore, in favor of making it all about me.
Your position is the result of privilege — at the least in large part.  Knowing someone of an oppressed class does not free you from privilege, and is not a defense.  Indeed, it’s actually something that weakens one’s arguments regarding privilege.
I have not implied that your position is the result of an anti-trans bias.  If you feel I have, please point out the cases where I have done so.
I am very, very rarely intellectually dishonest.  Indeed, I’m intellectually exacting.  Cruelly and harshly so.  It’s one of the reasons I have the reputation I do.
And I am telling you that the United States does not have absolute freedom of speech, and that the right itself comes with a responsibility to the society in which one lives.
Nor is anyone’s freedom of speech or expression (expression being the more accurate concept here) being denied to them.
Since no one is having their freedom of speech denied, you cannot be making this claim with any validity.

Then call it.Just be aware that what I’ve asked can be proven.
If you were to say it is an unreasonable request, I’d not have a problem confessing to that.
I know perfectly well it’s an unreasonable request — just as I know that people who are in trouble defending something that’s considered bad by a large number of people will cite that they have friends in the suspect class as evidence that they are somehow good, when, in fact, proving it or not has absolutely no merit on the points overall.
Let’s be perfectly blunt — you are aware there are transphobic trans folk, and homophobic trans folk, aren’t you?
You also know there are over a dozen different kinds of trans folk, correct?
So what makes you think that somehow having trans friends makes what yu say somehow better?
Seriously.  That’s like me saying I have plenty of gay friends who agree with me. Big freaking whoop — what does that prove about the points I make?
nothing.
I do, indeed, have reason to disbelieve things you’ve said.  You have said that you understand privilege.  And yet, when asked about it you avoid answering any questions.  Then, to make it worse, every time you’ve discussed it’s use, you’ve done so in a manner that clearly demonstrates you do not understand privilege. And on at least one occasion you’ve made a statement about one of those uses that is not part of the semantic structure of the posting referred too.
Even by a wild stretch of imagination.
So yes, I do indeed have reason to doubt your veracity when you come out and you say things like that, when you say things like I have a caricature of you, when you say that I’ve said things that I have not said (strawmen), and so forth.
All of that, plus the use of mariginalized people who are friends as a defense, gives me plenty of reason to suspect your veracity.
That’s not me doing all of that, either — that’s all coming from you.  You talk about intellectual dishonesty and yet now you are positing a situation where you are asking me to accept something at face cvalue when, on the face of it, you’ve already demonstrated some aspects that are suspect.
This is why strawman arguments are dangerous.
This is why derailing is a bad idea.  Incidentally, the last two statements are derailing.
So let’s see — I do, in fact, have reason to doubt much of what you’ve said (in strong part because you’ve said a great deal of it about me and been wrong, for example that I’m doing this with hostility and anger when I haven’t even begun to get angry yet).
And therefore, I am, obviously not subject to the last point you say, since you haven’t provided any evidence to give me reason to accept what you declare as a truth.
But, for arguments sake, look earlier in this response and note that even if I did accept your friendships were real, they would make absolutely no difference in the overall argument.
None.  It’s meaningless, unless, of course, they do not exist, or that you are using them as some sort of defense against privilege, which is proof yet again that you do not understand privilege for it isn’t a defense against it and you do not need a defense against privilege.
That said, there is still the large number of statements you have made about me and my responses thus far, and the issue of your knowledge of privilege, which you have pointed avoided dealing in or with.
Which would still give me reason to doubt your veracity.
Now let’s go ahead and say that you do understand privilege, in which case your arguments thus far, which use several aspects of privilege, are meant for the purpose of upsetting someone (in this case, me), and getting them to back down and shut up, and you are ware of this and doing it anyway.
In which case you are acting in bad faith, and I no longer have any reason to trust you.
So…
Which is it?
And when are you going to answer the other questions I’ve asked of you?

P.S. before I go to bedOur argument in a nutshell:
Me: I don’t support this effort and the hyperbole surrounding it.  I have trans friends who agree with me.
You: You’re making up having trans friends because you’re obviously anti-trans and enjoying privilege.
Me: No, actually, I have strongly felt convictions about free speech and this is where I’m coming from…
You: Anti-trans bias!  Privilege!  LALALALA I’M NOT LISTENING!
When you cut away all the dancing around this is the gist of the whole conversation.

Not everyoneimmediately thinks race, whenever they hear or see a word. Not everyone “knows somewhere inside” that a perfectly cromulent word such as niggardly will be taken as racist by ignorant idiots.

And, for the fourth time:Please show where I have accused or implied anti-trans sentiment on your part.
That was not me response to the free speech argument, either.
Disingenuous of you to misrepresent the conversation that way.
Yet more reason to doubt your veracity.

Suddenly it all makes senseYou said:
your arguments thus far, which use several aspects of privilege, are meant for the purpose of upsetting someone (in this case, me), and getting them to back down and shut up, and you are ware of this and doing it anyway.
Now who is making assumptions about who?  I am not opposed to your position because I want to upset you, or to get you to back down or shut up.  I am opposed to your position because I actually disagree with you.  If you feel I’ve been hostile toward you personally, it’s because in your very first response to me, you accused me of lying about having friends in the trans community.  I, like many people, do not take kindly to being called a liar.  If you want to lay blame for dragging this argument into the mud, look in the mirror.
Why do you think my initial post was meant to upset YOU?  I wasn’t responding to a post you wrote.
I will state once again, I disagree with you on free speech grounds.  The trans people I have discussed this subject with agree with me, also on free speech grounds.  It is clear that you disagree with my position, and that’s fine with me.  What is NOT fine with me is your dismissing my position as illegitimate because of some anti-trans bias that you made up.  I am NOT anti-trans, I did NOT lie about anything regarding my life and the people in it.  If you can’t handle people who disagree with you on an intellectual level, you really need to grow up.

…You said:
Your genuine views, as well, I should note, are privileged views.  And, as a result, are, ultimately insensitive and based on various prejudices.
And then you proceeded to dodge every point I made to argue semantics, my arguing technique, and in general ignore every point I made that you couldn’t counter.  Oops, I left out “derailing!  derailing! LALALALA!!!”

And more evidence.I did make an assumption about you.  I proffered multiple possibilities and asked you which one.
For each one I demonstrated the reasoning behind it, as well.
So there’s no assumptions involved at all — merely questions, which you continue to avoid answering for some reason.
I find it interesting as you probably have no clue what my position is since you haven’t asked it of me. And when I have noted aspects of it, you’ve specifically talked about everything else but them.
I don’t know if you’ve been hostile to me — I’m not in the same room with you and while language can convey emotional state, I’m generally not seeing much hostility in your posts — more a strong defensiveness.
More over, I did not accuse you of lying — I asked you merely to provide evidence of your friends because I’ve seen that used as an excuse far too many times. THe more defensive about it you became, the more I found cause to suspect your veracity.
I didn’t say I thought your purpose was to upset me.  I asked you a question.
Very different kinds of things.
As for your free speech grounds, I’ve already pointed out that such an absolutist position is not supported by the function of rights in the united states.
You have yet to respind to that point.
I have not once dismissed your positon.  I have challenged you on it and other aspects unrletated to it that you have brought up.
SO that’s lying about me, once more, and at this point I’m tired of talking around it.
Nor have I said there was an anti-trans component to it.  Not once.
And, lastly, your statements are extremely revelatory, and I could use them, at this point, to provide you with some observations regarding your overall methodology, but rather than do that I’ll just let it stand.
I will say stop being so damned defensive.

And yet…We haven’t discussed those in detail.
A person who was being intellectual honest would have asked questions about that if they didn’t understand it, or for clarification, rather than leap to conclusions.
Semantics is, after all the art of meaning, and therefore quite germane to the subject at hand.  Next you’ll be condemning rhetoric without realizing that it’s what you are using.
You haven’t made a point yet that I haven’t countered.
If you think you have, state it again and I’ll show you where I did or, if I haven’t, then I will counter it.
Seriously — the whole conversation is here, so you have no reason not to.  I mean, I’m “beating up on you”, aren’t I?  Isn’t that how you see this going down?  Well then, put me in my place.  SHow me where I didn’t.
The only dismissing going on so far is by you — you dismiss notes about derailing, you dismiss notes about privilege, you dismiss comments about oppressive behaviors.
I haven’t dodged anything.  I’ve stood up to you on each post.
Your views are privileged.  They are insensitive. And you only get there based on certain prejudices.
The question you should be asking is the one you are making assumptions about, assuming already that you know what I’m thinking when you likely haven’t realized that I’m watching the remake of The Andromeda Strain while doing this and only half heartedly paying you much mind during the commercial breaks.
I already mentioned you should look into derailing for dummies.  You apparently haven’t, or you’d be able to counter them more effectively.
Sucks when you come up against someone like me — an unknown quantity, a person who you can’t quite get a handle on.  Someone who is nothing like the usual person you encounter when you do this.
Oddly enough, I read your posts.  entirely.  I even ask you questions (which you do not answer, except for this one, and then you leap to some strange conclusion without any sort of evidence.).
I’ve been pretty darn nice to you, overall.  Funny how ya don’t get that yet…

…Explain to me why making an argument based on freedom of speech is insensitive, privileged, or prejudiced.  You haven’t because you can’t.  Because it’s not.  You don’t see that your attitude is dismissive.  You don’t see how that fails to engage the argument as presented.  What about when I said that I would support a showing of Cruising, a movie offensive to my own group, based on my feelings on free speech?
You keep on dodging anything of substance I say.

Are you a gymnast?Because these contortions you’re doing are AMAZING.  In one comment you deny accusing me of prejudice and privilege, and in the very next post you make, you reiterate your earlier accusation of prejudice and privilege in almost exactly the same way you originally stated them.
That’s why I call you intellectually dishonest.

Interesting strawmanFirst off, the statements that are insensitive, privileged, and prejudicial are not based in your argument regarding freedom of speech.  The are based in the rest of what you have written here.
Surely you don’t think that everything you’ve said so far is logically and reasonably tied to such?
I addressed the issue of freedom of speech separately in at least two different posts here in response to you, and in the one large one here in general, as well as at the link I provided.
I did not address the attempt at freedom of speech by talking about privilege.
I’m giving you the benefit of reading your posts, but it appears you are not giving me the same courtesy in return.
As for the rest of it, I have.
But to understand it you have to understand privilege, which you do not.
The fact that despite a large number of trans people telling you that it is offensive, you are stating that you don’t care and using arguments that are dependent on privilege to establish it.
I can’t have dodged anything of substance which you said — I’ve directly addressed all your posts.

I did not deny thatIndeed, you seem to be laboring under the idea that there is someone in the US who is an adult and does not have prejudices.
That’s incorrect.  At the very least they will harbor institutional prejudices.  
However, no, I am not a gymnast.
You keep using strawmen arguments.  A strawman argument is where you say that I said something, and that is markedly different from what I did say.
You have been doing this consistently — which indicates that you do not understand some of what I am talking about or you are not reading my posts due to my habit of being verbose.
I did not deny that you are speaking from privilege.  I asked you questions. I noted that you should ask a question.  At no time did I deny I accused yo of prejudice.
What I deny is that I ever called you anti-trans or implied that you were anti-trans.  For one, I don’t imply such — I state it matter of factly. IT requires evidence for me to do so and you haven’t provided any so far.
You have however, advocated in a manner that is supportive of something that seeks to further marginalize trans people (specifically, your defense of the film), but that, in and of itself, does not make you anti trans, it merely makes you someone who is advocating on behalf of something that is furthering marginalization.
That you’ve leaped to various conclusions about the meanings of certain statement of mine — always made with great care — is reflective of your defensive posture.
Indeed, it is your leaping to conclusions without all the facts that is letting me mock you to the degree that I am doing so.
So, your basing your statement that I am intellectually dishonest on all of that is, in and of itself, intellectually dishonest, since you are doing it ont he basis of something you are incorrect about and something else you fail to fully understand.

And, at 17%of the posts, I must step away, which is most unpleasant as I’m still enjoying the trading with the person who has registered today and posted thus far only here in this one thread.
Thanks to all the regular blenders for putting up with me once more as I played a bit of cat and mouse, I will return tomorrow after the total number of comments reaches 180 in order to maintain my percentage of total posts in a thread at a level deemed permissible
As for my erstwhile opponent:
Your argument on the basis of censorship is improper as this is not censorship being engaged in here.
The rest of it was stuff based in your derailing tactics, which I was playing with because when people want to use those well known and fairly standardized kinds of comments, it becomes a bit of a game with me to see how long I can drag them out.
I would continue, but as I have a history here, I’m unable to do so without facing censure myself for having too many posts in a thread.
So the rest will have to wait until t90morrow, and I’m sure that some sleep would do you good.
See ya then.

Could John Waters get away with this?I think so by virtue of the fact that even many transfolk trust Waters to do it.
A movie like this requires a director with a lot of trust, trans or not

ByeThis one was the end of the line for me. You have nothing real to protest? You’re against a movie masde by GLBT people for GLBT people? Waste of electricity to read the whole mess.

YesI’ve been trying to explain stuff for a day now and it boils down to trust. I have no reason to trust that Israel Luna can be trusted to tell this (or any trans) story. His silence regarding all the red flags up to now hasn’t helped.
Thanks for helping solidify a nagging poing for me that’s I’ve been dancing around.

My thoughtshttp://pamshouseblend.com/diar…

That was by a closeted gay manThe Lt Gov’s escapades are widely known.

Trans women are not real women?The women of op history that I know in 3d are certainly real women.
Isn’t this a sort of second wave separatist position?
Isn’t this the crux of the argument against people of trans history attending MWMF or changing gender markers?
Mr Luna would be appearing to hand weapons to the enemies of the LBBT community.
Excuese me, I have to be off to support the installation of Robo-pottys in Florida cities to stop all of the public sex that gay men are alwys engaging in to recruit people and to spread HIV
And yes, as a feminist whose conception of women imcludes women of trans-history, Mr Luna’s film is predicated on viewpoints that are THAT bad.

Odd argument. So the same images by someoneyou trust is okay, but not by someone else do it. How does that change anything? I have mostly stay out of this, but this kind of argument sums up why I have stayed out of it. Ia m sure you will not tell me that I don’t get it or whatever but has a black gay guy who grew up poor (to prove my bona fides ) the reality is that I do understand this all to well from the communities that I come from. This is that point in a conversation where it has ceased to be about substance.  So, substantively, explain to be how the same story and images can be less offensive by someone you know than someone you don’t, and why would you assume you can’t trust this person if you don’t know him or her. That’s just screwed up.  

There are substantive discussions that occur. This is just not one of themThe fact is unless one has seen the movie, which I have not and sounds like the people haven’t either, I don’t see how one can comment. This would be like me commenting Mel Brooks Blazin Saddles because someone told me they called a black man nigger in the movie without having seen the context of the scene. It just does not pass credibility to comment on things unseen. Or to argue as one person does above that if it were teh right person the same story and ideas would be okay, but with someone unknown they decide it isn’t okay.  

Well, John Waters wouldn’t usethese exact same images, I think was the point.
John Waters is also someone that does camp really, really well.
There’s a certain trust factor that comes along with the name John Waters.
And do consider Luna’s hostility that’s in the Dallas Voice thread that’s linked.

And I don’t think that John Waterswould use the recent murders of two transfolk (although Mercado seems to have identified as a gay man) as a selling point to his movie.

That’s nice, but what you are saying now is not what was said aboveBasically, I wonder if the offense is about who did the film rather than what the film is about, especially since many, if any, have not seen the film.  I have a real big problem with that. I have a problem some of Tyler Perry’s work not because of who wrote the stories, but because I see themes of neo-blaxploitation in them. By the same token, I can watch Mel Brooke’s Blazin’ Saddle and Cohen’s Bruno because I know what the story and characters are there to do rather than because both are straight white wealthy men. The construction of arguments here is to say the least troubling. I had enough of this sort of behavior with the black and gay community of which I am a member. I am certainly not going to shy away from saying that I see shades of the same sort of questionable reasoning here.
Satire, camp, etc are not suppose to be comforting images or ideas that everyone will accept. That’s why the director’s intent- he says this is meant to be about empowerment does matter. Now, may be you can say after you  have seen the movie that he has failed at his goal because he did not capture the story in the way that he was trying to create. but that’s not what we are discussing along this thread
What we are seeing is the conversation that happened in DC a few years ago where the AA community was in an uproar because some politician used the term niggardly, and everyone assumed it was the same as saying nigger. The actual definition of the niggardly is “Grudging and petty in giving or spending.” When confronted with the fact that the word was not related to “nigger,” the AAs said It does not matter because he should have known we would be offended by any word that sounds like nigger.
I was stunned by the omission that they didn’t care about what the politician meant. It was about how they felt. When I saw this thread stating that it was more about who did it than what was being said- that’s an omission that says to me many of you are off track here.
There are battles that the trans community and other community really need to fight. There also things that like the AA community and others for which we waste our time. This feels like the later.

Bru–I too mentioned that very example. It was the white staffer of a black politician. He was talking about the budget I believe and he used the word in question. He was subsequently fired, but then rehired. I don’t believe he received any apologies either. If it were me, I would not have accepted any apologies nor would I have gone back to that job.

I’ve made it clear……my issues with the film have a lot to do with how this film is being framed and marketed. The issues I have with Israel Luna and La Luna Entertainment include using an epithet for trans people in the title of the film, and exploiting the hate crime murders of Angie Zapata and Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado to market the film. That second point is particularly galling to me.
What I’ve seen of the imagery of the film, I don’t like, and have said as much. But, I would have to actually see the film to comment on the substance of the film.

A few pointsa) What has your comment got to do with the specific comment to which I am responding?
b) If a trans person had written, directed and produced this, would you have these problems?
c) As mentioned on another site, do you have a problem with the following, and if so, why do you have any previous articles illustrating that you had a problem with them:
  1. Tranny Shack in San Francisco
  2. As someone else asked, are you offended by the following:
“If “tranny” or “trannie” is soooo offensive, how do you explain San Francisco’s Trannyshack Bar (hear its great fun!), or http://www.Tranniepersonals.org? Or the more than a hundred other bars and websites using “tranny/trannie” in their names reaching out to the trans community?”
Another question:
“Here in SF “Tranny” is used all the time by everyone in the Queer community and it is from a place of respect and power. In fact tonight I am going to a Queer cultural institution Trannyshack (It’s Bowie night!.”
http://www.queerty.com/8-thing…
I agree with someone above who asks do you represent the trans community or just your own view of the community?
One gets the feeling here that this is not as simple as claimed. Part of the issue for me, I must say, is that the only interpretation you seem to be allowing is that this is intended to offend the trans community. I say that as someone who got on someone’s case for claiming Bruno, a satire about homophobes, was actually a gay minstrel show.  I found their inability to look at the way that the over top caricatures were meant to reflect back on the homophobes view of gay people like Borat was meant to reflect back on how screwed up America is rather than the groups that Borat made fun of like saying Jewish people could turn into cockroaches in the middle of the night.
Those claiming gay minstrel would never admit that as a possible although the creator stated that was the whole point of Bruno. Here, I get that same vibe.
Thus, my linking this more to who says it than what is being said.

On the term “tranny”……I’ve said something on this more than once. One who isn’t trans should treat the term like non-African-American people should treat the n-word, and non-gay people should treat the the other f-words. There are sizable numbers of trans people that have problems with the term, but there are trans people who don’t have problems with the term, and there are other trans people who are trying to reclaim the term. “Tranny” is an epithet to many trans people — but to others, they’re okay with the term. I personally agree with GLAAD in seeing the term as an epithet.
New York and San Francisco aren’t all of America. It’s definitely not red state America, where “f*cking” is frequently the adjective used before the term “tranny.”
And, even minus the term that GLAAD, many of my peers, and I see as problematic in the title, that still doesn’t excuse the exploitive marketing of murdered trans people to sell a “‘transploitation’ action comedy.”
I speak for me. I talk about what other trans people are telling me about the film, including the folk who alerted me about the film. I see what trans women are writing on the facebook page on this film. I know over 800 people signed onto GLAAD’s petition for removing the film from the Tribeca Film Festival line-up. I know a trans woman from Los Angeles (Ashley Love) who’s seen the film, and a few minutes ago received permission to crosspost her piece on the film. I also have a letter to the Tribeca Film Festival from concert pianist Sara Davis Buechner for which I’ve already received permission to post tomorrow. I’ve already posted what Helen Boyd wrote about the film and the controversy.
I don’t say, and haven’t said, that I’m the mouthpiece for all of trans community. But, I have a point of view, others share my point of view, and Pam is fine with my point of view.
If you don’t like my point of view, then you can disagree with me. And, that’s fine too. But, those of us who are rallying against this film are countering the free speech of the film with free speech of our own. I appreciate that I live in a country where I do have protected free speech, and can speak out about issues that are important to me.  

Well, speaking for myselfas a black gay man, I’ve pretty much stayed away from the “feelings” argument and I’ve confined most of my critique to the issue of genre.
Hence my posting of the trailer to “Boss Nigger” upthread (also, Luna did say that this movie, in part, was a sendup to blaxplotation films, so I am comfortable critiquing Luna on those grounds alone).
Autumn has also noted some of the political context of Luna’s movie…that is, right in the middle of the ENDA fight (and don’t even let me bring up the 2007 ENDA fight, hence the lack of trust by the trans community).
As far as the “naggardly” comment, I thought that was one of the stupidest things that I’d ever heard…

I have no idea how you are going to enforce such an approach to languageIt certainly changes the way in which you were trying to argue from black and white just in the post that precedes this one.
For instances, there are trans people in the movie as far as I understand it. Do their views not count? And how does the attempt above to demonize those who point out the complexity of what you are trying turn into black and white work exactly given the fact that you admit it is not black and white?
No one is questioning your right to a point of view. But, others have the same right without being turned into bigots for voicing their differences. The “Niggardly” story was meant to illustrate how things can quickly become absurd if you don’t admit to this without prodding.
For the record, you could be right about the film. The point is to see it to find out rather than coming up with what feels more like dogmatic programmed responses rather than conversation.  

By enforce, I should have said apply definitionsas you describe it to actual language in a society. This is especially true where films are involving multiple creative forces. The idea of filmmaker as auteur maybe missing the point that multiple people created this movie. The auteur theory, as I have learned, is nice, but it does not reflect reality. So, in fact, the trans people involved with the movie were also voicing their views by being connected to the movie. Trying to parse that seems impossible to me.  Enforce is the wrong choice of words on re-reading my comment. Trying to definitionally figure out what to do here is problematic.  

I don’t question the political lack of trust, but this is a creative artistic endeavorrather than a political one. I want to judge it on the artistic merits. Does  film achieve the story the artists wants to tell? What is the story the artists are telling?  Etc. I don’t know. I haven’t seen it.
But, then a lot of other people here haven’t either. That bothers me. Again, this reminds me too much of the “gay minstrel” comments I was hearing from people who did not bother to see Bruno.
If he’s doing a send up, I mean, maybe the point is a kind of “I Gonna Git You Sucka” One would have to know the context to realize that the movie is really a satire about all the bad blaxploitation movies.  I don’t know-a gain  I haven’t seen it. I am just extremely leery of peo attacking artists without having seen the actual work, but in stead judging it based on an agenda outside of what hte movie itself is about.
ie, niggardly, which has a specific meaning, being used for an agenda that has nothing to do with the meaning of the word. One should crique something onits own terms. Look, people here may be right- but they are not filling me with confidence given some of the statement above which were “offended first” and “what is the movie about again?” second. Be offended at the actual movie after seeing it. That’s fair.  

Yeah, what make this hard for me is that this is a movie expressing anidea that apparently the director and creative team intended to achieve a different end than those arguing against it (many of whom have not seen it and thus can not tell us if it did in fact not achieve that end).  Not that seeing it will always make people see eye to eye. Cosby’s dislike of Archie Bunker (a show I thought to be brilliant in its satire of the bigot) comes to mind. I can not imagine a creative world without such works. They add a lot to understanding the bigot etc or to camp or whatever someone is trying to do creatively in ways that other genres may not.

I meantthat the controversy in DC over “niggardly” was stupid, not you…my bad.
But you know damn well that cultural products almost always have a political context; culture doesn’t happen in a vaccum. You KNOW that the division between political endeavors and creative artistic endeavors is not as clean as you’re making them out to be. YOU KNOW THAT!
That was my whole point about blaxplotation films, you had to have “good niggers” in the background (like Virgil Tibbs) in order for the “bad niggers” to be artistically effective.
Even with the New Jack City movies of the late 80′s, the Huxtable family was already there in the subconscious.

Politics should not trump the point a film is trying to makeTHe idea that just because politics exist, therefore we got to live buy it in everything we do creates distortion. I have had this conversation with peo before. You expected too much by not being able to say what a thing is without expecting that thing to be everything. creative a film, even if it has political meaning, should not be denied because of that meaning. A law should be created because of the fact it will increase equality an not because (as some do) they expect that law to change the way people think. Laws are tasked with changing behaviors. Not people’s thoughts. My point of the analogy is to point how conflation. In the case of the analogy, people want laws for equality to become a way to produce social acceptance. Maybe social acceptance will occur, but it is secondary to the function of what laws do.  By the same token, advocating that films have as secondary function that is political, does not change its primary function which is to tell an interesting story from a certain POV. If that POV was intendted to offend, I would be more willing to listen to all of this. but it’s not. So, I am left with the niggardly example.

But would Archie Bunker(and I agree with you about the brilliance of the satire) and All in the Family have worked, say, prior to 1968.
Or 1964?
Would the satire have been as brilliant?
You can’t divorce cultural content from the political context.
Just like with blaxplotation (or any of exploitation film genre for that matter, coming on the heels of the 1960′s) and peaking around the time of Watergate.
That’s not a coincidence.

I agree with youthat nothing trumps freedom of speech.
but you cannot divorce cultural product from the political here and now. Art has that function (which may or may not be secondary… i.e. Birth of a Nation which technically is a brilliant film)
Uh, Pablo Picasso’s Guernica? (granted that’s a pretty extreme example).
You can’t divorce and drain the political content out of art because political content is inherent to art.

I agree completely with thatThat’s why “All in the Family” would never be on the air today. Too much over sensitivity. Remember the recent flap on here regarding the new series “Modern Family”? Isn’t it a big hit and critical success? Where’s the continued outrage? I just read a whole bunch of reviews for the show. Universal RAVES. Because people SAW it and got that it was MOCKING those stereotypes. And the public got it too.

I am not divorcing. I am prioritizing what I expect each function to do.I don’t expect politicians to entertain me. And I don’t expect my entertainment to create  political policy. One can influence the other, but what you are doing is conflating one as if it is the same as the other. A lot of people are doing that above. They offended not because of apparently having a) seen the movie or b) responding to what the movie is trying to do but because of politics in the US, which ironically apparently in its own way the movie is trying to address but in a creative way rather than in the straight black and white world of politics. Such black and white literalism makes sense in politics, but not in movies. My first writing professor would always say you be informed by politics in creating, but it can’t be the point of creating or else its not a movie or a short story or whatever you creating.

YESand people wanted to ban “Birth of a Nation” and even “Gone with the Wind.” How about the continued flap over the “Our Gang” series. DANGEROUS DANGEROUS DANGEROUS. I’ve never seen uncut episodes of the Little Rascals until they were put on DVD. The racist elements are utterly cringe inducing. But they need to be seen to show generations how far we’ve come and what the actors had to endure in order to work. It’s strange too how Hal Roach had an integrated cast whom he obviously adored, and yet allowed that kind of racist nonsense in the scripts. I wonder if he too wasn’t mocking those stereotypes and the ignorance of the times somehow?

Well, it’s not just the over-sensitivityalthough I agree with you on that.
Even the political content and the cultural and political background of “All in the Family” just wouldn’t work now. Remember, the premise of “All in the Family” comes right out of the 1960′s, really.
Perhaps after the Obama Adminsitration is over you may see something done with that harks back to that “All in the Family” material but not now.

I’m not prioritizingI’m saying that politics are always inherent in art. Art takes place within and is informed by certain cultural and political contexts.
Nothing wrong with limning out what that context is.
And who are you to say that politics shouldn’t override certain artistic creations? (I’ve never said that TOTWK should be banned or censored.)
I think that black authors had every right to question William Styron’s depiction of Nat Turner. But I think Styron had every right to write that book according to his POV and what he wanted to convey to the reader. But he did write that book in a political context.

We just disagree about what films are suppose to doThus, probably why some of you are offended and I am open to seeing what the film does. I am not looking at it as if I expect it to solve the political problems of the day. I can’t be offended by a story that’s trying to convey the exact opposite of what people here are offended by although it does so in an unexpected way. It would be like being angry at I am gonna git you sucker or Archie Bunker or Borat or Bruno. To do so, requires me to ignore the POV that the artists are trying to convey.  I won’t do that. I will say whether they fail at their intent. But that’s different from being angry at them for attempting it.

YesPolitical context always surrounds art. And good art understands the political context it is operating in and uses it for some strong artistic purpose. Great art takes the political context and uses it for strong artistic and political purpose.
Hell, even offensive work relies on the political context to survive. The “humor” of offensive bad work comes in the reliance of common stereotypes of the time and a trust that the media backlash will be enough to provide publicity for your mediocre work with people who want to see a despised minority group being told to shut up but not cause right-thinking people everywhere to call offsides.
Birth of a Nation worked in the context of its political times, if it was released today, few would bother seeing it because the premises would be too offensive for even most white people to stand and enjoy any elements from.
Trying to remove a work from any cultural context is a pretty impossible ability. If someone was able to divorce any political context from one’s work without rendering their work entirely sterile, they would still be bound by the artistic culture contexts. Plot techniques, etc…
Further to bruhrabbit directly, I see and comprehend what the artist is striving to do and I as an artist among other things can see how unlikely it is by the trailer that the artist could possibly succeed at them.
In this way it is not only “bad art” (deeply offensive art), but also bad art (fails to accomplish its stated goals) though we’ll have to wait and see if it is unredeemable bad art (also fails to provide secondary unintended positive goal or effect).
I can tell this, or rather, I can see numerous red flags that this is the case because of deep clues in the artist’s understanding of the focus of the film. He has little interest in trans culture other than a superficial appreciation for drag (as enjoyed from the perspective of gay men, i.e. “whacky” costumes, parodies of femininity, and “fierceness”) and that comes through in red flags in his trailer and promotional materials. He callously uses trans icons as set pieces, has his actors performing a parody of trans behavior in the pre-”whacky” phase when they are supposedly just “normal”, and refuses to accept his character’s earnest femalehood, and a lot more. A lot more which also includes a complete failure of an understanding of the point of camp. Camp is a down-up weapon based on self-reclamation and focusing the joke entirely on the close-mindedness and lack of variety of the dominant groups. Luna seems to like the pretty costumes and cheap cinematography.
And those who have seen the whole film from the trans community have said that these elements haven’t been mitigated.
There is also the fact that the political effect does need to be discussed in as much as the existence of this movie has already caused real damage to the coalition between gay men and trans people. It has already affected political realities as a creation of culture and we have to deal with that along with the political effects we see it contributing to as a film that exists, such as continuing to sell the idea of all trans women as drag parodies (something which already by the existence of promotional material) is having negative political effects.
As a piece of culture, I’m offended simply on the merit of craft. It’s not well-made, it doesn’t understand its political context, its subject matter, its chosen genre, and at least in the trailer any understanding of comedy other than tired reliance on stereotypes without engaging in John Waters-esque subversion. The full piece could prove these statements wrong, but in that case, they need to fire their PR person, because they suck at their job.  

The difference is that if the filmakers in this film are to be believedthere intent is to create a film about empowerment whereas the films you mention were written without self awareness of bigotry.  

I should add that they bigotted content still should be seen

HmmThat’s an interesting way to approach a film. I mean, I understand understanding what they are trying to do, but what the film ends up as is more what they end up doing. And if they lack the skill, focus, or awareness to pull it off, what ends up can vastly differ from what they tried.
In your example, Archie Bunker tries to skewer right-wing viewpoints and largely did so in the construction of the show, though of course Colbert disease did ensure that the right-wing didn’t get that they were being satirized. Whereas Bruno tried to skewer homophobic attitudes, but Sacha’s competing interest in a B-story mocking reality TV culture ended up making the joke more on Bruno than straight-America.
Or in shorter, oh I see what you were trying to do, too bad you sucked too bad to do it, huh?

You don’t think people are aware enough nowto be able to judge the movie in question? The fact we are sitting here discussing it, and that there are all these sensibilities as to what the filmmakers say they were doing would tend to prove your argument false I would think.
If your point, on the other hand, is that not every one will get it- well that’s true. And that was true in 1968. Bigots are not going to get when you are satirizing them. Hell, there are people who participated in Borat (the white guy who said he wanted to own slaves) who were completely out of whack with the reality that they were racist or bigots.
The ability of everyone to be on the same page can’t be the standard or else the standard is the lowest common denominator. It is like the parent who wants to child proof society by making films or shows that only a 5 year old can watch. That may be great for the parent, but it is not so great for society.

No some people at the time didn’t get that it was mockingThat was Cosby’s argument against it. That some didn’t get it.  

I see people less rather than more likely to handle raceafter Obama because Obama does not address race in this society.  

UhI believe the point of several of us isn’t that Luna wasn’t intending to make an empowering trans movie. We know that that’s what he was trying to do. We just can tell by the clues given in the promotional materials that the likelihood that he had the awareness and education to succeed rather than doing the exact opposite is very slim at best and none at worst.
I’m accusing this work of being something of a 5-year old’s level of sophistication, absent of any intelligent biting commentary, any genuine understanding of the focus of his story, the genre he is working in, and numerous other elements.
I’m saying on the point of craft I am also offended as an artist that this is a bad movie that shows every sign of epically failing in its intended mission.
And unfortunately as a trans person, the ways it is epically failing in that intended mission (in if nothing else the promotion and artistic defenses) are ones that in the political context the film exists, deeply politically toxic to my existence for many of the reasons Autumn has pointed out in earlier threads.
Also, again, good art stands aside political reality? No, it doesn’t. Great art takes political context and folds it into a delicious pretzel. The greatest stories take the existing world and make people re-examine their preconceptions, that which they take for granted and greatly exploits the contexts of the time or better yet universal political contexts.
But completely separate? That work is going to be a pile of shit, especially if it purports to be a cultural critique or satire. And camp is at its fundamental root a social satire and an act of reclamation.
So, outside of political context? Camp cannot be good. Ever.

I never said that they could “handle race”more or less.
While I agree with you that Obama doesn’t address race (unless he absolutely has to!) in today’s society, his very presence in the Presidency means that race has to be engaged.
I never said that Obama personally had to do the engaging now or in his post-presidency.

Now I’m liking the turnthis whole conversation has taken on!

Where did I say that it shouldn’t be seen?

You have a lot in common with Christianists.

His presence changes nothing regarding the underlying issueif anything, it makes it worse. Do you know how any people of color I have heard given him a pass because he’s black? I could count on white bigots to be racist so the Birthers were no surprise to me. The whole “give him a chance” because he’s black however is a bit surprising. I give him the same change I give anyone who has my life in their hands regarding policy.  

The comment was not written in opposition to what you saidIt was me adding an additional thought  of what I think on the subject.  

Well, there is the William Styron example that I pointed out. The story of Nat Turner is ALL about empowerment.

I’ve seen LOTS of movies in my lifeSome were required in classes, some I screened on my own. I can recall many that outraged me and some that spoke to my own life. I’ve certainly experienced depression after a movie and wondering why attitudes, biases and stereotypes refuse to die. But never ONCE have I allowed a movie to so appall me as to advocate having it taken from a film festival lineup. Not once. Ever. I’d rather SEE something putrid, offensive and outrageous than NOT see it. Or not let others see it. I wish those advocating to have this film taken from Tribeca could see this. I’d be impressed if anyone could do a diary about how disgusted, repulsed and appalled they are by this movie, while advocating that as many people as possible SHOULD SEE IT. I understand the anger, and I understand the pain. I am a lesbian and I am a woman. I get it. Really I do.

For those who are curious- this part is very much the Christianistmind set of demonizing with nothing but what you feel without regarding to anything else:
“We know that that’s what he was trying to do. We just can tell by the clues given in the promotional materials that the likelihood that he had the awareness and education to succeed rather than doing the exact opposite is very slim at best and none at worst.”
You k now all of this without actually having watched the movie.  

Oh, that frustrates me to no endabout Obama, we’re agreed on that.
And, yes, I think that far too many people of color give him a pass. (Oh, I have stories about that!)
And that, in and of itself, is an engagement on race.
That’s why I said that a lot of the race engaging won’t happen out until after his Presidency.

We’re agreed on thisI’ve seen “Birth of a Nation” a couple of times based on exactly what you said.

“Birth of a Nation” and “Gone with the Wind” yesbut my own personal jury is still out with Hal Roach and the Our Gang series. The more I see the episodes and the more I read about the series, the more I wonder if Roach wasn’t mocking racism and stereotypes, but perhaps was not sophisticated enough to get that message through.

Wait until we all see this movieand find out it’s just a worthless piece of shit to be forever relegated to the half price DVD bins.

Support that, please, w/othat is, without relying on a false comparative.
For one, the mindset they have is improperly described by you here.  For another, to describe it as something exclusive to Christianists is creating a guilt by association type of idealism which is patently false — a few moments in the archives of Queerty and The Advocate can derive the same sorts of statement historically, and thusly could easily be said to be an LGBT or even Liberalist POV.
So that argument is pretty foolish to make.
In point of fact, given what is just shown in the Trailer, yes, we can tell all that about the film, because we’ve seen the trailer and the Trailer alone has those things.
Or do you feel that the trailer will have absolutely nothing to do with the film, whatsoever?
If so, given statements by the director and cast, then you are making an error.
If you are failing to understand that just those relatively few moments cut from the film itself lack those things, then you are making an error as well.
So let me repeat this so that you can understand it, and this entire “you havent’ seen it yet” wa wa bullshit can die quickly.
We don’t have to see it.
We can see the trailer.  The trailer is created from the film.  THe trailer alone, in and of itself, all by itself, has all the issues that have been raised.
Just the trailer.
By itself.
As a writer, studying the trailer reveals key plot points and scenes which determine directionality.  To make the film without those key plot points would be deceptive on the part of the Director in the extreme, which is a lose since it will further associate deception with trans people.
SO they are present in the film, unless you want me to think the director is now making a film that’s even worse than we are seeing it from the trailer alone.
And that means that the film, itself, has those things in it, is that problematic, and that we can, indeed, see all of that without having to see the film itself.
Wow.
See what logic and perspective can do for ya?
Now, please, take this whole bullshit “you haven’t seen the film” argument and tuck it someplace unpleasant.
Thank you

I am not going to even try to argue with you given how you behaved above

YupWhich is why I didn’t sign the petition. It’s here, it got accepted, somehow and it will have marginal though unfortunate impact. But it’s worth commenting on the impact and why it’s not only bad as an example of film craft, but also on its offensive elements.
I mean, already, we’ve got an unfortunate subsection of gay men using it as a tool by which to dismiss, demean, and call for the silence of trans commentary and voice on something as basic and elemental as how culture depicts us.
That’s a negative effect we’ll have to deal with already, much less the crap we’ll have as this being a poorly made drop in the vacuum by which people will reinforce negative ideas of trans existence.
I’m not sure I agree on encouraging people to see it. It’s not originally offensive.
I do agree on using it as a teaching example. Cause, there’s so much just in the trailer that can be used in a “how not to make a trans movie at this time” hour long lesson.
Though I’m sure it’ll have a positive response. How many trans people are going to go, “if that pile of crap can get into a film festival, why shouldn’t I pick up a camera and give it a try?”
Or at least, I hope so.

No, I infer all that without seeing the movieSee, I’m an artist. Not in cinema, but I’ve written some screenplays and I’ve done a lot more plays and stories. Furthermore I have a strong backing in sociology and feminism among other things. I also have a good eye for picking up red flags in works which often saves me from watching something that just ends up pissing me off.
Now, that said, let’s help explain what that sentence I wrote is saying, cause it’s not what you think it does.
“We know that that’s what he was trying to do.”
would be in reference to the statements above it in my original paragraph. We know what he intended. He’s told us what he’s intended. That’s stated fact unless he was actively lying about his intent.
“We can tell by the clues given in the promotional material that the likelihood that he had the awareness and education to succeed rather than doing the exact opposite is very slim at best and none at worst.”
There’s a very clear word in that sentence. Likelihood. I’m fully willing to admit the possibility that my inference is complete off-track in regards the completed work. However, my inference based on multiple factors the likelihood that he will pull it off is unlikely.
Now why did I infer that? Well, chief among the reasons would be the elements I’ve discussed multiple times. The approach, tone, and callous uses of phrases and icons without meaningful justification or explanation are one piece of the puzzle as are the myriad of red flags in the trailer that show trans culture entirely through a superficial gay male understanding of it and using predominantly gay male genre methods to present it. Not a problem on its own, but it’s a factor in context.
This especially becomes relevant when you listen to his own words. He describes how he decided to tell “our story” because he thought gay men were played out and thought we would bring more impact to the story. However, he has very little interest in listening to trans people or understanding them. How do I infer that last bit? Well, his response to trans criticism of his film shows him utterly baffled, unable to foresee how it could happen and he talks about his friends in the drag industry as if unaware that there could be any other form of trans. These pieces of evidence provides additional datapoints by which I can use.
And those datapoints paint a line that pretty much says that given the red flags, disinterest in trans culture or criticism, and his emotional desire to tell a gay male story add up to Luna being very unlikely to succeed in his desired task.
A line not much harmed by the fact that the trans person who has so far seen the work backs up that inference.
Now, it’s wholly possible that this line will turn out false, but it’s definitely an inference based on solid evidence and history.
That’s where I’m coming from.
But where you’re coming from? I dunno, you seem to be really emotionally invested in dismissing our critiques and worries, you’ve ranted against PC culture and the courtesy that is at the heart of it, and you’ve been utterly dismissive of the way the promotional material has already affected us (and that means something, even if the work turns out to be the best trans movie since Boys Don’t Cry, it’s promotional work is deeply offensive and antagonistic to its target audience. The PR director for Luna Entertainment needs to be very fired if this work is completely 180 degrees from the rest of the work).
I don’t know where you’re coming from.

OMGnow I get a *tone* argument, on top of basic and puerile poor thinking!
As if I didn’t see that one coming, no less.
Understand something — say that you won’t argue with someone on the basis of how they behave is actually a means of saying “shut up” and of actually running away from the conversation.
It is cowardice, not a high road.
The high road would overlook the tone and deal with the logic or lack thereof in a response.
All you’ve done in doing that is the metaphorical equivalent of “wah!  You yelled at me, I’m taking my ball and going home!”
As for my “behavior”, it was perfectly calm and reasonable in the above.  I just added in a few words to spice it up a bit and see if you would, indeed, chicken out and call a tone argument.
Let me explain something to you:
You saying that I shouldn’t be angry about this is an extremely privileged thing to say.  You are actively oppressing me here.
Which, oddly enough, is the same thing we are talking about in the film.
And now we can all see how it is that trans people get ever more angry. People do stupid things, then defend those stupid things, then tell us they won’t argue with us because we are angry over their doing a stupid things a way to “make that mean old tranny” look bad and utterly avoid and derail the whole thing away from the stupid thing they did.
And they think we forget, or, since they never bothered to learn what it was they did that was stupid int he first place, the do it again, and the same result happens and this time we are even angrier.
That’s not the trans peoples fault for being angry.
That’s the fault of the people doing the stupid thing.

Are you sure it’s not the fault of the…Patriarchy?
Dum dum dum.
Sorry, I’ve got a desperate need for silliness.

Strange that a “black gay guy”who grew up poor would bring out the “you shouldn’t be angry” argument (as if occupying spaces of marginalization in other aspects qualifies him as an expert on this one).
Wow, even I know better than that.

Not reallyTone arguments are far too common a thing to really say that someone who is marginalized wouldn’t use them
They don’t realize they used a tone argument, though — and, as a result, they don’t realize the privilege that’s inherent in a tone argument and the privilege they have.
And that’s really common among members of marginalized groups When there is a disparity of privilege and an intersection involved.
Tone arguments are simply a way of saying “shut up and know your place”, and I’m not exactly the sort one ever gets to do those things, lol.

Nah.To paraphrase…
They Can’t Handle the Patriarchy!
(replete with full on impression of jack, hair line and all)

c/pIn point of fact, given what is just shown in the Trailer, yes, we can tell all that about the film, because we’ve seen the trailer and the Trailer alone has those things.
Or do you feel that the trailer will have absolutely nothing to do with the film, whatsoever?
If so, given statements by the director and cast, then you are making an error.
If you are failing to understand that just those relatively few moments cut from the film itself lack those things, then you are making an error as well.
So let me repeat this so that you can understand it, and this entire “you havent’ seen it yet” wa wa bullshit can die quickly.
We don’t have to see it.
We can see the trailer.  The trailer is created from the film.  THe trailer alone, in and of itself, all by itself, has all the issues that have been raised.
Just the trailer.
By itself.
As a writer, studying the trailer reveals key plot points and scenes which determine directionality.  To make the film without those key plot points would be deceptive on the part of the Director in the extreme, which is a lose since it will further associate deception with trans people.
SO they are present in the film, unless you want me to think the director is now making a film that’s even worse than we are seeing it from the trailer alone.
And that means that the film, itself, has those things in it, is that problematic, and that we can, indeed, see all of that without having to see the film itself.
Wow.
See what logic and perspective can do for ya?

bruhrabbit3, two problems in your argument.This “creative artistic endeavor” has political consequences. I pointed this out in my first post on this film, so I won’t rehash it here.
Secondly, “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka” was a take on a black exploitation films by a team of African American artists, including the screenwriters and director. That film wouldn’t have worked as well if a white director and white screenwriters were the filmmakers of that film.
So, as I also pointed out in my very first post on this film, Israel Luna doesn’t identify as trans, and he’s the screenwriter, director, and producer for this film. And, as others have pointed out in this thread related to the comment thread for the “Planettransgender…” Dallas Voice article, Luna was dismissive of real trans people’s concerns with the use of the term “tra**y.”
I have no sympathy for Luna. He wants this publicity, apparently feigns surprise at the backlash, and doesn’t care about the political consequences of making and distributing the film he did.
And, of course, the political consequence of this film is that trans people are seeing a number of gays defending this film that uses and antitrans epithet in the title, and that exploits the deaths of trans people to market the film. And, they watch some gay and lesbian community members say trans people are humorless, oversensitive (see Donica and others in this thread, as examples of saying the trans community members who are commenting on this film as “oversensitive”) — telling trans people that they’re getting riled up over nothing and are fighting the wrong battle. Trans people seeing that are seeing their concerns dismissed again — that doesn’t build community trust between the gay and lesbian subcommunities and trans subcommunity of the LGBT community.
And, this is at a time when ENDA legislation is being discussed — trans people remembering the 2007/2008 ENDA debacle that saw the HRC comes out in favor of a less than fully inclusive ENDA. Trans subcommunity members of the LGBT community already have a trust issue with gay subcommunity members, so this intra-community debate over the concerns of many trans subcommunity members with this film being dismissed by many gay and lesbian subcommunity members is fueling the lack of trust between subcommunities when the LGBT community needs to be working together on fully inclusive legislation.
There is no time where the kind of film Luna has made is not going to have political consequences — we don’t live in such a stovepiped world. As Kevinchi pointed out in this thread, this film does have political context…it wasn’t made in a political vacuum of human experience.
You appear to be saying, bruhrabbit3 that politics shouldn’t be a key component of the discussion of this film. But, it’s naive to think it wouldn’t be, especially considering the exploitive marketing of this film found in its trailer — marketing that actually has political context and consequence. A a piece of fully inclusive federal hate crime legislation was just passed into law late last year — that legislation and hate crime violence credited to antigay, antitransgender hatred and prejudice are part of the political context for this film. This film is focused on subject matter that many in the LGBT community consider to be political subject matter; there is no doubt in my mind that the film has political context. And therefore not surprisingly, LGBT politics are going to be part of the discussion of this film.
Whether or not folk feel that this film and the trans issues should be something the LGBT community focuses on or discusses, it already is an issue members of the LGBT community are focusing on. This is no doubt because the issues raised about this film are important to that number of LGBT community members who are speaking out against this film, and signing the petition to have the film removed from the Tribeca Film Festival line-up.

Strange that you think you can paint everyone with the same brushyou know what makes me angry: People who tell me what I should or should not feel.

Strange that you think you can paint everyone with the same brushyou know what makes me angry: People who tell me what I should or should not feel.

Strange that you think you can paint everyone with the same brushyou know what makes me angry: People who tell me what I should or should not feel.

And for the record, this is about the fact thatgthe other peo have debated this person to no end. It is not about tone. It is about futility of debating the person. If you had bothered to ask, you would know that. but instead, you decided to take on yourself to know what’s inside my head.  

Some thoughts from a Comedy ProfessionalSo, I’ve seen a lot of comments in this thread basically accusing trans people of being humourless and overly critical.
I have performed and studied comedy most of my life. I trained in improv and sketch comedy at The Second City in Chicago and performed regularly at The Second City Studio Theatre in LA.  I was also the Showroom Manager at The Hollywood Improv and have worked with many nationally known (and often highly offensive!) comics.  I know what works and what doesn’t and why.
I have also worked as a Director, Teacher, Producer and Independent Filmmaker.  Plus, I love movies!!  All kinds, even some really “bad” ones!!!
I am also, as it happens, a transgender columnist, activist and Pageant Queen!!  I’m comfortable with controversial subjects.
With all that in mind, I have reviewed all the info available, including sources friendly to the film and the trailer.  Truth to be told, I kinda wanted to like it.
After much careful thought and analysis though, I came to the conclusion that this is exploitative of and inexcusably insensitive to the very community that the filmmaker is claiming to represent.  As Z-Grade trash, the movie might be excusable, even fun on a purely visceral level.  But that’s not enough for Luna.  He says over and over that his is a movie that represents the feelings of transgender people and issues close to our heart.  He claims to represent US.  Therefore it is only appropriate that he be judged by those merits.
For more of my reasoning for this opinion and thoughts on the movie please read my blog “TransProviser”:  http://transprov.wordpress.com…

Really?Oddly enough, there are plenty of people who have debated me — and even won.  Pam, for example.  Bil Browning.  Several College students.
Even here.
That’s a falsehood — to debate me requires only effort.  And one can win and one can change my mind.  It’s often surprisingly easy, I’m told.
So what you are really saying here is that you feel that debating me is worthless because you’ve read how other people — who invariably do the same thing you’ve done and made it about me, personally — are slowly but surely put through the ringer because they make various accusations and decisions about me, personally, without any knowledge of me.
You know how you get around it?  You stop worrying about what you think might be my motivation and you take what I write directly.
So, given that was in your head, what you are saying is, in the end, that you are preferring to be cowardly rather than actually face me.
And none of that is actually a defense against the actuality of what you said which was a tone argument, plain and simple. And tone arguments always have, as their basis, the shut up and know your place rule.
And that comes from seeing what’s in your head because when you write, you take what’s in your head and put out there.

If the movie were aboout gay soldiers deserting to have sex in toilets as they marched on a maneuver through the Castrothere would be no end of screaming.