elisi | The Danish Girl

Excellent review of The Danish Girl. Long, but very informative and indepth.

This is the beginning:

To my cisgender friends, I ask that, even if you would not normally do so, you please read this. This film was made for cisgender people, so I feel it important that I write this for cisgender people. I would not normally watch this movie, but it has been a subject of some discussion on this site in a way that has compelled me to watch it in order to discuss it credibly. I do not imagine what I have to say will be definitive or particularly more substantial than what other trans folks have said, but I have a voice here that some listen to, even if only briefly. I might as well take advantage of that. I know that many of you prefer not to read things about films you haven't seen, so let me say the important things first:

1. Do not watch this film. It is not merely bad, but harmful.
2. If you discuss the film, refer to Lili only as Lili and she/her.

If you are inclined to read further, I will explain why.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh boy...that bad, huh?

I think it's probably a lovely movie if you don't know anything about the issues...

I won't see the movie. I listened to an interview with a woman writer on Q, sorry, can't remember her name but she is transgender(ed), and is writing a series about a transgender woman, again, sorry, I don't pay attention to names, it was on CBC radio, and she said she respected his performance from an artist point of view but not from a political point of view. She said whenever you have a man portray a transgender woman you cement the image of "really it's a man" in the viewers mind. Which makes sense.
As for the woman's wife being a controlling bitch, she sounds like a friend I had in high school. :p She basically "taught me" to be what she thought I should be as a girl, right down to clothes and who I took for a lover. But she was just a psycho. I am a woman but as a young woman I was ripe for manipulation and guilt burden as I had no boundries and no self-esteem. Nothing political about that.

She said whenever you have a man portray a transgender woman you cement the image of "really it's a man" in the viewers mind. Which makes sense.
*nods* But I think they were more concerned about publicity/Oscars than staying true to the story, by, say, casting someone transgendered to play the role...

As for the woman's wife being a controlling bitch
Although that might also be the film rewriting the truth, and making her VERY STRAIGHT. :( (Sexuality is a spectrum. I know people who would always have considered themselves perfectly straight falling in love with someone of the same gender.)

I am a woman but as a young woman I was ripe for manipulation and guilt burden as I had no boundries and no self-esteem. Nothing political about that.
Sorry to hear about that. And as you say, sadly there are people like that.

I think this review put everything I was feeling during the movie into words. I knew it wasn't right, that something was just wrong, but I couldn't quite articulate why it was wrong, other than it was a story told by cis people for cis people.

I have no plans to watch it, but am glad to be informed. And am grateful to LJ/fandom for having taught me about the issues beforehand, and to look out for them.

I saw this with my dad because he wanted to see it and my mum didn't. The performances were good but I felt the film was far more about Gerda than Lili. It was all about her confusion, her pain, her burden. By contrast, we didn't get much from Lili's POV. It was looking at transitioning from the outside, not the inside, and I felt it was a very conventional film trying to tell an unconventional story. I felt the point would have been made much better if Lili had been played by a woman from the outset because then it would have shown the audience how ridiculous it felt to have everyone insist that she was male just because of her clothes. Basically, they took a unique, unconventional story and shaved off most of the unconventional parts.

I felt it was a very conventional film trying to tell an unconventional story.
Oh, that sounds like a very good description.

I felt the point would have been made much better if Lili had been played by a woman from the outset because then it would have shown the audience how ridiculous it felt to have everyone insist that she was male just because of her clothes.
I found some photos of her (see most recent post) and she did not look masculine before her change.

Basically, they took a unique, unconventional story and shaved off most of the unconventional parts.
= Hollywood :(

I saw the photos and yeah, she does not look masculine even before the transition. But then the movie wouldn't even touch on the subject of someone being intersex.

But then the movie wouldn't even touch on the subject of someone being intersex.
It would confuse the poor ~~little straight cis-people~~ normal who can only work in binary. /Hollywood thinking

I wrote a review of the movie Albert Nobbs, based on a true story of a man who was discovered, after death, to have been a woman all along.

You can check it out here: http://urb-banal.livejournal.com/443938.html

I still won't go to see the movie but I have to say also, there are enormous differences in what gender signifies and how we judge it depending on the time and culture we are viewing it in. Largely, to be a woman historically (and in many cultures even today) meant that you were likely to have very few freedoms and were to be "dressed up" in some fashion that could be easily identified even from a distance. I have no doubt that many people would have slipped from one cardboard cut out to another because it was so ingrained as to the silhouette of each sex that once a person took it on it was fact in the mind of the observer.

It makes more sense for a woman in those times to play the part of a man to gain independence and freedom and yes even some sexual autonomy regardless of whether she has been born with male genitalia as so many women died then in poverty or childbirth or domestic violence.

It makes more sense for a woman in those times to play the part of a man to gain independence and freedom and yes even some sexual autonomy regardless of whether she has been born with male genitalia as so many women died then in poverty or childbirth or domestic violence.
*nods* Might have had nothing to do with being trans, just wishing for more freedom. And if I remember rightly a pope was once discovered to be a woman - because she went into labour!

Hadn't heard of this movie, but excellent insight into transgender narratives in mainstream cinema. I agreed with a lot of it and the details included really struck me (now that I've given it some thought, the depiction of LGBTQ characters in mainstream media is the very definition of 'performance' the reviewer discusses). Thank you for sharing this.

Glad you liked. And I'd heard that the trans community were very unhappy with the depiction, but this goes into all the reasons and explains why.

Sometimes I dread to think how uninformed I was before I found fandom.

Hmm, I actually know someone who was recommending it to people. Never watched it though.

I think the best description might be from another comment above:

'I felt it was a very conventional film trying to tell an unconventional story.'

I think if you watch it with no knowledge of the issues (or of the actual facts of the story) it probably comes across as a nice story.

The Danish Girl

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Albert Nobbs

Re: Albert Nobbs

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