"Ticked Off Trannies With Knives", a movie by Israel Luna, is being shown at the Tribeca Film Festival, and is causing quite the stir. GLAAD, the organization that has yet to understand the English language, is leading an effort to have the film censored. Erm, make that
not shown. Apparently there's a difference.
The movie is about a group of transgendered individuals who are attacked; two die, and the other 3 go in search of revenge. (That reminds me of a Tarantino movie or two...) The movie is a low-budget "exploitation" (in this case "transploitation") movie, and is supposedly quite violent. I don't know, I haven't seen it, and I'm not likely to. The movie poster is typical of the style, with lurid imagery and a corny blurb: "It takes balls to get revenge".
Three elements are upsetting people: the use of "trannie" in the title, the depiction of transgendered life, and the violence being portrayed. The trannie thing I'm going to basically ignore (at least for now), but the violence of the movie is worth thinking about.
Violence, including murder, against transgendered individuals is a continual issue. Far too many people get beaten and/or killed simply for trying to gain their identity. Sometimes the murders and beating make it into the press, more often they don't. It is, quite frankly, extremely dangerous out there. People are upset because the movie uses that violence as a central plot line. The assumption is that the movie is glorifying the violence. From what I can tell, it is.
But is that a reason to demand it not be shown?
1) The free speech argument: this is art, a film, and GLAAD shouldn’t be trying to censor it.
2) This is a camp film, and earnest people (trans or otherwise) obviously don’t get it.
3) Earnest trannies need to get over themselves.
The interesting bit is whether GLAAD is trying to censor it, or simply prevent it from being shown. GLAAD is not seeking to ban the movie, something they couldn't do if they tried really, really hard. They are simply demanding that the Tribeca Film Festival not show it, although I notice they don't demand the Festival withdraw it from their 2010 list. What GLAAD actually wants to do, I think, is prevent its showing. That's censorship.
Damien Hirst is well known for producing some truly offensive works of art. Personally, I hesitate to call them "art"; they are more exploitive than artistic. I have long considered Grayson Perry's "Right to Life" (
detail) quilt to be extremely offensive, exploiting and echoing simplistic preconceptions and arguments. Chris Offili's "
The Virgin Mary" is astonishingly offensive to many. I don't know who the artist is, but I once saw two halves of a dead rabbit, complete with blood, displayed. It was lit in a way that it took you a moment to perceive exactly what it was. Violence is a theme in art. Let's not even mention "Pulp Fiction", or "Kill Bill" or that other Tarantino exploitation movie "Death Proof". Indeed, Mr Tarantino seems to specialize in the things.
Mr Offili's work is probably the most pertinent in this discussion. There was a huge outcry when it was displayed at the Brooklyn Museum. Rudy Giuliani, then Mayor of NYC, tried every which way to have it removed. He even went as far as (illegally) curtailing the museum's funds in an effort to blackmail the museum's management. Free speech won. The right of the artist to offend any and all was upheld as more important than any individual right to not be offended.
What GLAAD, and more than a few others, are advocating, is that this particular movie, "Ticked off trannies (etc)" be censored because it's not sensitive, and it depicts something that is all too common, but with an uncommon result. Some people are offended by this movie, and they want to control the very public showing of it. They want to deny others the right to see the movie because they are offended by it.
It's not a question of whether the movie is in good or bad taste, has sympathetic or even accurate characters, or if it has a plausible plot. I don't care if it's camp, or extreme or derivative. The question is whether one group can deny another group the right to view what they want.
Another movies come to mind. "
The Last Temptation of Christ" (Martin Scorsese). This movie was (is?) offensive to many Christians; they argued it shouldn't been shown, because it didn't depict Jesus as a the pure-hearted comic-book hero so many want him to be. Those many Christians didn't want the movie to be shown because they found it offensive.
Let's take a typical transgender problem. A lot of politicians want to deny the transgendered individual any legal protections whatsoever. They perceive the transgendered as an aberration, an offense against their god and other such nonsense. The transgender community fights such discrimination with vigor, arguing that those who seek to deny the transgendered their right to be themselves, that others do not have a right to say what anyone can do with their body and by arguing that efforts to control, dictate, how others dress or behave or pursue their lives are antithetical to the values of a free society. (Okay, I made that one up. No one argues that, although they should.)
But this group, and there's no doubt that the transgendered community is discriminated against both as a group and as individuals within that group, now want to censor someone's stylized depiction of them?
Indeed, I often write about how some transgender activist or other wants to curtail someone's right to utter offensive things. That old saw, "free speech for me, but not for thee" is getting tired. If you have a right to offend someone with your words, then they have a reciprocal right. It's simple.
For some, such as GLAAD, and Lisa Harney over on
Questioning Transphobia, it's all about how the transgendered woman is depicted. Although Ms Harney does make a rather odd, and irrelevant, claim about "ownership of trans women's lives". For others, it's about how a "cis" (the producer is, irrelevantly, a gay chap) person had the temerity to produce such a story. (That one seems to be quite popular.) Astonishingly, they are arguing that only transgendered individuals can produce stories that have some aspect of being transgendered depicted. Some are also upset about the "trannies" in the title. The argument is that it's a pejorative and should not be used. I think Israel Luna, the producer, used the word quite deliberately: it wouldn't be quite the same as "Ticked off transgendered women, with knives". He obviously went for the controversial, and for the shock value of "trannies". The title is certainly in keeping with the kitsch-ness of the movie. Interestingly, GLAAD wants anti-transgender violence to be depicted in certain ways:
Films like Boys Don't Cry and A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story have graphically portrayed the murders of transgender people. In a serious dramatic context, such depictions convey the tragic reality of the violence that many transgender people face. But in this film, repeated shots of a baseball bat covered in clumps of hair and blood are grotesque - and serve only as horror movie-like gore. Depictions of violence and brutality are immediately followed by ridiculous scenes that make light of the horrific crimes that have been committed. There is nothing funny about the murders of countless LGBT people who have fallen victim to hate-motivated violence.
No, there is nothing funny about the murder of anyone. Hate-crimes are particularly offensive. There we have agreement. "A Girl Like Me" was a serious movie, about a heinous crime. I haven't watched "Boys Don't Cry", so I can't comment on it. I generally avoid horror movies, especially the blood-and-gore kind that are so popular, these days. While I find them lacking in anything except contrived shock, I would never seek to prevent others from watching them. GLAAD, and others, are eager to control what others can view. Because they find what others are viewing is offensive to them.
How Mr Luna, the producer, decides to depict one group or another is for him to decide. He's the one using the story to make a statement. Whether the results are good or not is irrelevant; the marketplace has a strange idea on artistic quality, but it will decide if the movie is entertaining or not. The critics can tell us if it's artistic, camp or banal. You can decide if it's art, camp or banal, too. Mr Luna is not claiming "ownership of trans women's lives" as Ms Harney strangely alleges; he is not depicting violence to make anyone happy. He's using a particular form of storytelling that is guaranteed to cause offense; indeed, it solicits it!
I sort of fall into the first camp of Helen's list, I think this movie is protected by the first amendment. Sure it's obnoxious, and it's exploitive. I don't know if it's in bad taste, and frankly that's not important. What I do know is that once you start to censor something because you find it offensive, it's not that long before "Uncle Tom's Cabin", "Huckleberry Finn", "Catcher in the Rye" and even Shakespeare start to be censored. Because there's something in any of them that someone finds offensive. Seeking to censor someone's expression because you don't like it, and yet trying to ensure that speech you do like is protected is hypocritical. I am particularly appalled by the efforts to demand certain, sympathetic, depictions of transgendered individuals. How dare these people try to forbid anything but depictions they approve of! How dare they.
If people want to, let them protest it the old-fashioned and the new-fashioned way: by turning up with placards, and by launching Facebook groups. That's free speech - you get to protest the movie, and others get to decide if they want to see it, or not. "You" do not get the right to determine what others can see simply because you're offended by what they want to view.
The Festival's organizers should continue with their showing. If the movie has merit, it'll be noted. If it doesn't, it will also be noted. But the marketplace is the venue to decide these issues. It is not for some offended group to try and control artistic expression, lest offense be caused. If we ban artists, writers and movie producers from offending us, we ban free expression. All free expression. And that is why I applaud both the protest, and the showing of the movie.
Just don't try to prevent me from seeing it if I want to. I do not want you telling me I can't see it, because you find it offensive. I will make up my own mind about the movie, thank you very much. Mr Luna has a right to make the movie, the Festival has a right to show it, and I have a right to see it. You have a right to protest it. And you have a right to protest my defense of free speech. You do not have a right to tell me what I may say because you find it offensive.
Carolyn Ann
Another update: After a little more reading, I can't but think that Mr Luna, the director/producer of this movie, is a bit inept. Every time he's interviewed or makes a statement, he somehow manages to say exactly the wrong thing. Which, of course, simply annoys others even more!
And to clarify: I don't like the topic of the movie, I've never liked that particular form of storytelling and I still think that none of that is relevant to Mr Luna's right to make and show this movie.
