Mainstream Movies and Songs with TGs

[LG]

One way for transexuality to become more accepted by society at large is, I believe, through music and film. But then again I can't think of very many films and songs abour or featuring transgendered people. Can you?

Here are my suggestions, in random order:

SONGS

- Lola- The Kinks
"Lola smiled and took me by the hand...And said dear boy I'm gonna make you a man...Well I'm not the world's most masculine man...But I know what I am and I'm glad I'm a man...And so is Lola..."

- Take a Walk on the Wild Side- Lou Reed
"Holly came from Miami F.L.A. ... hitch-hiked her way across the U.S.A. ...plucked her eyebrows on the way...shaved her legs and then he was a she..."

- Dude looks like a lady- Aerosmith
"She had the body of a venus...Lord, imagine my surprise..."

And a couple of almosts:

- Boys and Girls- Blur
"Girls who are boys...Who like boys to be girls...Who do boys like they’re girls...Who do girls like they’re boys...Always should be someone you really love..."

- Get Back- The Beatles
"Sweet loretta martin thought she was a woman...But she was another man..."

FILMS

- Princesa (with the transexual prostitute played by an actual transexual)

- Myra Breckenbridge (Raquel Welch as a rather unpleasant mysogynistic M2F)

- The World According to Garp (John Lithgow delivers the killer line: "I mean, I had mine removed surgically under general anesthesia. But to have it bitten off in a Buick...")

- All About my Mother and Bad Education (both by Pedro Almodovar)

- Woman on Top (Harold Perrineau looks pretty sexy as .ca Jones)

- Gaudi Afternoon (I actually guessed that Marcia Gay Harden's character was a TG before it was revealed- and Marcia Gay Harden is a woman!)

- Rock Star (Dagmara Dominczyk had a pretty small part as a preop PR girl)

- The Last Seduction (blink and you'll miss this revelation- Mike left his wife Stacy because he found out she was a preop...interesting...)

- Boy's Don't Cry (the film based on the tragic story of Teena Brandon kind of qualifies, but Teena never fully made the transition before her life was cruelly ended)

- Soldier's Girl (Another tragic true story)

- Normal (TV movie with Jessica Lange and Tom Wilkinson)

And a couple of films about drag queens:

- To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (John Leguizamo didn't look too bad)

- The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (about two drag queens and a transexual)


I haven't managed to see all these films, and I'm sure there are many others I haven't seen or can't remember(I can also remember a horrible film from the 70s or 80s with a M2F serial killer- anyone know the name so I can avoid ever watching it again?). Throw in your suggestions!

[Slither]

From the Stone Temple Pilots song Crackerman

"Trippin’ as I’m thinkin’
’bout a boy, his name was sue
He’s a man, he’s a man
Crackerman, crackerman
He’s a woman too"

[GroobySteven]

How did you miss out The Crying Game? That was a shock to me!
Also:
Ma Vie en Rose (My Life in Pink) - excellent French movie.
Doberman - another cool French movie with one of the bank robbers as transsexual.

US television:
The Golden Girls - ran for years with Bea Arthur playing a transsexual accepted by her mother and friends (although never actually mentioned!).

seanchai

[Ecstatic]

Many examples on US television; I'm sure there are others, but these are prominent:

Nip/Tuck, with Famke Janssen playing a post-op TS for most of the second season, a sexual predator who plays on the underage son of one of the plastic surgeons as a "life coach" (but with a well-played scene visiting a clinic specializing in SRS).

Ally McBeal: two storylines, one featuring Stephanie (played by openly gay actor and GLAAD board member Wilson Cruz), a transgendered fashion designer who also turns tricks to pay the bills. Ally defends Stephanie on the basis of an insanity plea based on "transvestite fetishism" and "gender dysphoria" and who is ultimately murdered by a john who, according to a cop, freaked when he found out she was a man. The second, which played out over several episodes and two distinct story arcs, featured Lisa Edelstein as Cindy, a pre-op transsexual who the firm represents and with whom one of the lawyers, Mark (played by James LeGros), falls in love but discovers he can't handle the fact that she is transgendered. The show imho is a mix of exploitation and sensitivity, which relays a conflicted message.

CSI: Ch-ch-changes episode, featuring several transsexuals in a storyline centered on the brutal slaying of a TS. Several of the TS in the show are played by real TS, which is a positive thing, and much of value is shared, though personally I thought the show over-emphasized the seedy side of the life.

In music, there's Cyndi Lauper's song "Ballad of Cleo & Joe" about a TV who lives as Joe by day at work but lives for stepping out at night as Cleo:

"And he works his body just to be somebody. There's a woman in the mirror looking like a dream. And he works his body...and he feels somebody...and the working boy becomes a dancing queen."

[fgbz99]

In 2001/02 CBS ran a series starring Richard Dreyfus called the Education of Max Bickford. Set in a small town University, Max's best friend Steve returned from a sabbatical as Erica (Helen Shaver) after SRS. She was portrayed very positively.

[Ecstatic]

fgbz99, how could I have forgotten that one? Thanks! Any others?

[wbilly]

A list (which includes some already mentioned)

As Girls Go - Suzanne Vega ("99.9" album, 1992)

Boy or a Girl - Imperial Drag
The overall message could be about any relationship headfuck but seems to be about an attraction to a TGirl, with gender bent phrases like "Do you feel misunderstood?.......I feel straight but I'm not so sure" and the title question "Are you a boy or a girl?" Eric Dover and his Imperial Drag are a wonderful and talented throwback to the sound of the glam rock epoch.

Diamond Dogs - DavidBowie - Sex ch-ch-changin' is the theme here "with your silicone hump and your ten inch stump"

Drag Queens in Limousines - Mary Gauthier -

Dude Looks Like a Lady - Aerosmith -

I Wanna Be a Beauty Queen - It was theme song for British film of same name.)

Lady Stardust - David Bowie - the serene song of the Ziggy Stardust epoch;

Lola - The Kinks - Lola

Now I'm Your Mom - Talkingheads song about a parental sex change. It's on the album "Uh Oh" sung by David Byrne.

Rebel Rebel - DavidBowie - the ultimate gender bender song that went so mainstream that many people mistakenly overlook its transgender topic as just a glam-rock tune;

Secret Girls - Sonic Youth -

Sweet Dreams - Annie Lennox - a song about pansexual freedom

Sweet Transvestite - Rocky Horror Picture Show -

Take a Walk on the Wild Side - Lou Reed -

Two Headed Sex Change - The Cramps -

Last but not least: The Lumberjack Song - Monty Python

Movies:

Hedwig & The Angry Inch (better as a play)
Dressed To Kill - Michael Caine as a cross-dressing killer
Bird Cage - Gene Hackman!
Psycho - Norman as Mom

[TrueBeauty TS]

Silence of the Lambs. With one of the creepiest/funny lines ever.....

"Would you F*** me? I'd F*** me."


Creepy

[Hugh Jarrod]

There was a real good episode of CBS's cold case files (not the A & E show) about a transgendered love affair and it was done real well. CBS also did (as someone mentioned) the 100th episode with Cassandra a bartender at Diva's in San Francisco. I thought the aformentioned Princessa was good, their was an episode of Girlfriends with Dania/Nikki although it was somewhat negative kind of an Ace Ventura thing. At least they got a real T though. Also mentioned the Crying Game was a very good film. The thing for me is how many of the mentioned films above are actually about drag queens and not transsexuals, there is a difference. We have to wait for The Chick Magnet to come out, and let's hope they don't cut the beautiful Dannielle Foxx out of Ms. Congeniality 2.

[LG]

seanchai wrote:

How did you miss out The Crying Game? That was a shock to me!

Whoopsie! The obvious one (and a pretty good film too) and I did mean to include it, but then it slipped my mind.

With regards to the Golden Girls, if it was never actually mentioned, how can you tell? As for all the other TV series, I've never seen most of them (I live across the pond) but I'll check them out on DVD.

Notice also I haven't included cross-dressing films or songs, because there are too many to mention: Mrs Doubtfire, Tootsie, Some Like it Hot, and songs like I'm a Boy (by the Who) and The LumberJack song by Monty Python.

A few more I've come up with:

Flawless (actually about a drag queen)
Just like a Woman
Orlando
M. Butterfly
Farewell My Concubine

There's also a bunch of body-switching films where women enter male bodies and vice versa, such as Switch, Prelude to a Kiss and others.

But from the poll I can see that we all agree that the entertainment industry's portrayal of TGs has, with the exception of mostly arthouse and foreign language films, been pretty negative...