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Change of gear

Kevin Zegers as Toby and Felicity Huffman as Bree in Transamerica
  • Posted at 5:00pm
  • 21 August 2008
  • by SloanFreer-RT

Is it possible for the Hollywood mainstream to take a mature approach to portraying sexual identity issues? Sloan Freer weighs up the evidence.

Playing a pre-op, male-to-female transsexual may not be an obvious career choice for Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman. But in road movie Transamerica (Wednesday Film4) she proved her versatility with a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe.

Like The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert before it, writer/director Duncan Tucker's colourful indie film married acerbic comedy with a poignant exploration of complex sexual identity issues. It was a winning combination that clearly illustrated the continuing disparity between independent cinema and mainstream Hollywood when it comes to looking outside social norms.

While Hollywood has long exploited transgender themes for quick titillation, it's remained reluctant to really sink its teeth into such topics for fear of alienating audiences. This has been a gain for indie cinema, resulting in powerful fare like Kiss of the Spider Woman and Neil Jordan's mesmerising The Crying Game.

Each demonstrates the rich human drama inherent in their once taboo subject matter. Interestingly, both won Academy awards, as did Boys Don't Cry (Monday Sky Movies Drama) in which Hilary Swank was superb as real-life transgender teenager Teena Brandon.

Sadly, the Oscar voters are not representative of Hollywood at large, where "gender-bending" is still played pretty much for laughs. For every sympathetic rendition, there is a litter of camp caricatures, apparently only existing as an excuse to see male stars looking ridiculous in women's clothes. At least back in 1959 Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon had a smartly amusing narrative to support their donning drag in Some Like It Hot. Which is more than you can say for the Wayans brothers in White Chicks (Friday Fiver).

What Hollywood does do well is the Shakespearean-style concept of heterosexuals cross-dressing to gain entry into an otherwise closed world. Think Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie or Robin Williams in Mrs Doubtfi re. And then there are the ladies masquerading as boys, such as Amanda Bynes in the Twelfth Night-inspired She's the Man (Monday, Thursday Sky Movies Family).

Even so, I'd love to see the big studios follow the example of Transamerica and start giving more thought to their gender-bending characters. If a TV show like Ugly Betty can do it, how hard can it be?

**

Andrew Collins is away.

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