Towards the end of Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill (1980), after the killer, Dr Elliott/Bobbi, has been caught and safely locked away, there’s an exposition scene, similar to a scene at the end of Hitchcock’s Psycho, where a psychiatrist explains just what made Elliott/Bobbi kill. “He was a transsexual,” says Dr Levy. “About to make the final step but his male side couldn’t let him do it…..Opposite sexes inhabiting the same body…..Elliott’s penis became erect and Bobbi took over trying to kill anyone that made Elliott masculinely sexual.” In the next scene Nancy Allen’s character goes into salacious details about “transsexuals” and what’s involved in changing their bodies - “hormones”, “penectomy”, “vaginoplasty” – all done, no doubt, to titillate the audience. Okay, so subtlety isn’t something we expect from De Palma but the trans character as killer is a well word trope in movies. Other examples include Wes Craven’s Deadly Blessing, the Sleepaway Camp series, William Castle’s Homicidal and, of course, Silence of the Lambs (1991).
In the multi-Oscar-winning film by Jonathan Demme we encounter another transgendered serial killer. This time, Buffalo Bill – so called because he skins his victims – is played by Ted Levine. Although the movie points out at one point that Bill is not a true transsexual, nonetheless in the mind of the audience he is. The issue is compounded when we are treated to a scene where Bill puts on makeup, tucks his penis between his legs and dances to around the room to music. It’s meant to engender disgust and ridicule in the audience.
Another well-worn trope is how cisgender heterosexual characters (usually men) react when they discover that another character is transgender. This is normally used for comedic effect. Films like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), The Naked Gun 33 1/3 (1994) and The Hangover Part 2 (2011) all make comic fun of the disgust the male protagonist feels when he finds out another character is trans. This ranges from vomiting in revulsion (Ace Ventura) to cries of disgust (The Naked Gun) and all three of them make the inevitable penis jokes. Many of these films also conform to the stereotype that trans women are somehow trying to trick otherwise straight men into going to bed with them. Even a film that takes its transgender character seriously like Neil Jordan’s The Crying Game has a scene where Stephen Rea vomits after discovering the woman he’s attracted to is trans. This scene occurs immediately after the inevitable penis reveal which is meant to make us sympathise with Rea’s character. She has a penis. She tricked him. In Crocodile Dundee the sexual assault of a transgender character is played for laughs because our hero was tricked into thinking she was a “real woman”.
It’s not all bad, though. There are some serious films out there that treat trans characters sympathetically. 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry tells the true story of Brandon Teena about a trans man who was brutally raped and murdered after he was discovered to be transgender. It won an Oscar for Hilary Swank’s portrayal of Brandon. A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story (2006) is a television film that tells another horrific true story about the murder of a transgender teen, again after it was discovered she was trans. Another film in this vain is Soldier’s Girl (2003), also a true story which deals with a horrific murder only this time it’s the boyfriend of a trans woman who is murdered by a fellow soldier because of his relationship.
TRANS REPRESENTATION ON SCREEN
WORDS: AOIFE MARTIN
24 CinÉireann / January 2018