Her Campus Helsinki reviewed the most thought-provoking movie of the winter season: The Danish Girl directed by Tom Hooper. In a nutshell, The Danish Girl is inspired by the fictional novel of the same name written by David Ebershoff, about the lives of the Danish painters Lili Elbe – one of the first known recipients of sex reassignment surgery – and Gerda Wegener, her wife. The movie has generally gained widespread positive acclaim particularly for its ‘sensitive’ handling of a difficult subject matter for cisgendered* audiences with little knowledge of trans- or intergender topics. But there’s another, far darker story behind the pretty picture painted by the director.
First of all, while watching the movie, one asks a simple question related to the cast of the movie: why on earth would the director and producers choose a cisgendered man, Eddie Redmayne, to star in the main role as a transgendered woman? Why should a transwoman be always played by a male actor? This pattern in Hollywood movies emphasizes the stereotypical attitude which sees transwomen automatically as overly masculine. By choosing yet another actor to caricature a transwoman, we, the viewers, get a clear message of the cissexist attitude that dominates our media: to become accepted by the surrounding society, a transwoman is to erase every aspect of her physical being. Oh, Hollywood, isn’t all trans beautiful?
This seems to be a common theme in Hollywood’s acclaimed movies such as Dallas Buyers Club (2013), in which Jared Leto played yet another transwoman with a tragic destiny – and who by the way, won the Academy Award for the Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal. By repeating the same tragic destiny over and over again, these Hollywood films give the audience masses a completely unauthentic image of transwomen around the globe. Transpeople are unique just like each and every one of us with different life stories and experiences, both happy and sad – why choose to only focus on their plight every single time?
It seems like Hollywood’s movie machines cannot imagine a transgendered person without there being a tragic, Oscar-worthy finish in the end. To top it all off, the historically inaccurate The Danish Girl (loosely inspired by the real Lili Elbe’s journals) contains a scene where Lili declares her intentions to become “a real girl,” which cannot be interpreted in any other way than meaning that transwomen are no more than artificial – something the real Lili Elbe would no doubt never utter. This is the clearest example of the cissexist attitude which dominates the scenes of the movie from the very beginning to the end: transgender experiences and representations are complex and transwomen are no less than real women, but the rather absolute way with which it is portrayed in The Danish Girl suggests otherwise. It’s high time to admit that even though the cast and writers possibly had good intentions, the results speak for themselves: in essence, The Danish Girl isn’t a story about a woman, but rather a story about a man trying to become a woman, and ultimately failing to do so.
But does it even matter who plays the role if the actor is good at his or her job? If you’re going to represent the trans community in front of an uninformed audience with a story that’s loosely based on a fictional novel about a transwoman’s life – and market it as a “true story” – you have to understand that your movie might have a huge impact on the way people see and possibly treat an already vulnerable and misunderstood minority. It all comes down to giving voices to a minority that can’t talk for itself – and choosing to give that voice to a cisgendered male is another voice lost from the exceedingly talented transgendered actors such as Laverne Cox, Calpernia Addams or Candis Cayne who could have given us a more authentic interpretation of the trans experience in a historical context.
So what’s our verdict after watching The Danish Girl? It’s certainly a conservative and heterosexual take on the subject matter that seems subtle and even respectful at first. But behind this façade lays a hidden story that reveals the rampant transmisogyny in the media. We are living in the year 2016 – a year when in Finland trans people need to get government forced sterilizations before legally getting their name and social security code changed in the official documents, a year when transwomen in Hollywood movies are still played by men pretending to be women with a harsh makeover and an ambitious wig. Sure, The Danish Girl is a “true story” – but one of transmisogyny that dominates our movie screens without us even noticing it.
*Cisgender is a term used for those whose experiences of their own gender agree with the sex they were assigned at birth.
Source of the poster photo: http://pop-break.com/2015/11/30/film-review-the-danish-girl/