The Spaces Between: Non-Binary Representations of Gender in Twentieth-Century American Film
type: CreativeWork
description: This dissertation examines the intersections among discourses of feminism, transgender studies, queer theory, film studies, and social activist practice. I address the question of how transphobia as a set of beliefs and behaviors is illustrated in four late-twentieth-century films, three produced in America and one originally released in Australia but later acquiring a significant following in this country. I define transphobia as the "fear of a transgendered person and the hatred, discrimination, intolerance, and prejudice that this fear brings" (Laframboise 2002) and transgender as a broad term that can apply to persons, behaviors, and filmic images, a "self-conscious politicization of identity that activates an investigation of gender relations within different s socio-spatial regimes" (Brooks 1) and "clearly disrupt[s] hegemonic notions of a stable trinity between sex, gender and sexuality" (Jennings and Lomine 146).I provide brief histories of feminist and queer theories to illustrate these fields' insufficiency in accounting for transgender experience and trace the establishment of transgender studies as an explicit field of study. Then, I examine works by transgender studies theorists and activists to explain the progression of thought that led to these writers' call for abolition of the binary gender system. In the following chapter, I trace the theoretical moves from a feminist theory of film to a queer theory approach to film, again pointing out the limited perspective that explicitly feminist analysis of film has frequently offered. Finally, I demonstrate the ways in which each film conforms to and/or defies heteronormative ideals of gender and sexuality and upholds the binary gender system. I suggest that ongoing efforts in transgender and other kinds of social activism might eventually bring about a postgenderist society wherein gender "roles" are no longer forced upon individuals, but may be adopted (or refused) by choice. To this end, I outline six cr…
abstract: This dissertation examines the intersections among discourses of feminism, transgender studies, queer theory, film studies, and social activist practice. I address the question of how transphobia as a set of beliefs and behaviors is illustrated in four late-twentieth-century films, three produced in America and one originally released in Australia but later acquiring a significant following in this country. I define transphobia as the "fear of a transgendered person and the hatred, discrimination, intolerance, and prejudice that this fear brings" (Laframboise 2002) and transgender as a broad term that can apply to persons, behaviors, and filmic images, a "self-conscious politicization of identity that activates an investigation of gender relations within different s socio-spatial regimes" (Brooks 1) and "clearly disrupt[s] hegemonic notions of a stable trinity between sex, gender and sexuality" (Jennings and Lomine 146).I provide brief histories of feminist and queer theories to illustrate these fields' insufficiency in accounting for transgender experience and trace the establishment of transgender studies as an explicit field of study. Then, I examine works by transgender studies theorists and activists to explain the progression of thought that led to these writers' call for abolition of the binary gender system. In the following chapter, I trace the theoretical moves from a feminist theory of film to a queer theory approach to film, again pointing out the limited perspective that explicitly feminist analysis of film has frequently offered. Finally, I demonstrate the ways in which each film conforms to and/or defies heteronormative ideals of gender and sexuality and upholds the binary gender system. I suggest that ongoing efforts in transgender and other kinds of social activism might eventually bring about a postgenderist society wherein gender "roles" are no longer forced upon individuals, but may be adopted (or refused) by choice. To this end, I outline six cr…
author: Pawlak, Wendy Sue
language: en
keywords: LGBT, transgender, English, cultural studies, film representation
date published: 2012
date modified: 2026-07-24T00:56:46Z
provider: University of Arizona
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: The University of Arizona.

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/10150/238611