Japan has become renowned as a site for the production of artisanal-quality denim and jeans, which appeals to increasingly discerning cognoscenti. My analysis draws from my own experience as a trans viewer and advances my theory of trans aesthetics as a mode invested in generic hybridisation and visual spectacle with explicit ties to Gothic and science fiction traditions.
Revisiting the 2008 musical from a trans perspective highlights the film’s thematic investment in trans embodiment and demonstrates alternative modes for narrativizing trans experiences. Drawing on phenomenological practices, my presentation asks if it is possible to identify a trans aesthetic outside of traditional trans narratives by exploring how an ostensibly ‘cisgender’ musical horror such as Repo! The Genetic Opera might speak to trans viewing subjects. Not only does this suggest a broader and more diverse trans media canon, but it shifts power from trans media producers to the trans viewing subjects. has the right to categorise work as either good or bad trans objects continues, phenomenological approaches open up the field of trans media to that which resonates with trans viewers. But what if film and television moved beyond this painful framework to consider different forms of trans embodiment? As cultural debates about who has the right to author trans media, who has the right to profit from it, and who. Mainstream media have long sutured trans identity to tragedy, a trend epitomised in the tragic deaths of Brandon Teena in Boys Don’t Cry and Rayon in Dallas Buyers Club. Finally, Euphoria illustrates the crucial role of showrunner-auteurs for HBO and, more specifically, the function of transgressive trans characters in Sam Levinson’s auteur brand. The show’s stylised aesthetic, represented through hyper-mobile cinematography and surreal lighting, reflects this transgressive approach while also highlighting the show’s hyper-subjective framing.
Euphoria breaks new ground by offering a new aesthetic treatment of trans identity that invokes Gen-Z’s ubiquitous use of social media, creative application of makeup, and nuanced approach to gender and sexual identities. While HBO utilises both cable and VOD streaming services, its recent investment in trans discourses is in part a response to Netflix and Amazon Prime’s successful trans programming and indicative of the competitive value trans content offers content producers in the multi-platform era.
Where HBO differs from Amazon’s Transparent and Netflix’s OITNB is in its investment in a new type of trans representation that disrupts the cinematic and television tradition in which trans characters remain closely associated with tragedy or are relegated to the recent past. While television shows Orange is the New Black and Transparent have made headlines for their inclusion of trans performers and their debatably authentic takes on trans experiences, Euphoria signals anew era in trans representation, one that is defined by a ‘cool’ trans aesthetic that epitomises multi-platform television’s investment in trans as an edgy brand marker.
0 kommentar(er)
