Trans-fem Video Artists That Changed Me in 2024
December 10, 2024
This year, 2024, has been an excellent year for trans fem video artists. I’m sure other years are also great, but to me, this year is special. I have had the pleasure of seeing three incredible video projects spearheaded by transfem artists that have changed me.
I Saw the TV Glow
I Saw the TV Glow is a horror movie that follows Owen, a teenager who falls in love with the tv show The Pink Opaque. He sneaks off to watch it on Saturday nights with his friend, an older teen named Maddie. The Pink Opaque is heavy with refferences to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The atmosphere of the movie is claustrophobic, the weight of nostalgia is oppressive, and the story is unflinching. The run time of the movie is only an hour and forty minutes, but the slow, deliberate pacing, and the entrancing music make it feel much longer. My friends and I went to see it in theaters, and when we left I felt like I had just walked across the bottom of the ocean and found myself wet and cold on a rocky beach at sunrise.
I find this movie hard to describe so here are some statements about it:
- It is beautiful.
- When I say unflinching, I mean that lots of stories fail in the last 10 minutes because the creator (or someone) is uncomfortable with what the ambiguous ending implies, so there is a release of tension: a gratuitous fight scene, a monologue, an explanation, a return to order. I Saw the Tv Glow does not do that – it doesn’t flinch. (More on this in another post because I have so many examples, and it has me frothing.)
- It is hopeful. And that makes it all the more crushing
Often, when it comes to queer media, I see people insist that the meaning of the movie, book, art, is “it’s gay”, or “it’s trans”, in a way that closes the door on further interpretation, and deeper meaning. Ignoring that they are trans stories by trans creators would be to miss something vital, but an insistance that that is all they are does incredible artists a great disservice. I mention this because I think it is particularly relevant to this film. If you decide to read reviews of the movie, ignore anyone insisting that the entire meaning of this movie is trans, there is so much more there, and queerness is as much the evidence as it is the argument.
I’ve included links to interviews with the director Jane Schoenbrun, she talks about the things she’s trying to explore with the film. I’ll pull a quote from one of them here, because I think it does a good job conveying the way in which this movie speaks to trans experiences:
Interviewer: There have been a lot of conversations about the idea of representation in movies, but it’s very different to talk about people finding themselves in movies, TV, and art generally, and seeing things they may not realize are part of themselves until they see it on screen. I think I Saw the TV Glow is incredibly adept at showing that feeling.
Jane Scheonbrun: I think on a very simple level, the concept of representation, the shallow identitarian representation, feels like mostly a tool of the oppressor. It’s like, Who is the audience that is for? I’m not sure that it’s for me, and trans people. We know we exist, you know? It’s for some kind of imagined idea of equality that will never actually exist, because we live in, like, a fundamentally evil, white-supremacist, capitalist hellscape.
But the idea of art creating possibility — or putting language to possibility — that previously felt either undefined or unimaginable feels to me like a form of representation, if you could even still call it that, that I could get behind. The idea of, like, a queer coming of age as something that’s inherently about creating unrealized or previously unrealized possibility, both on a personal and political level, and a piece of art that is speaking very honestly and personally about everything, that’s both liberatory and terrifying and difficult about that. I’m proud to have made that.
- https://a24films.com/films/i-saw-the-tv-glow
- https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/interview-jane-schoenbrun-on-i-saw-the-tv-glow/
- https://www.polygon.com/24158543/i-saw-tv-glow-jane-schoenbrun-interview
The People’s Joker
The People’s Joker is a trans coming of age batman parody. The style of the film is a collage of art, and aesthetic by like, 200 queer artists who contributed to the project. It’s loud, and jarring; watching it felt a little like being sand blasted. I loved it.
In the film, young trans woman Joker the Harlequin moves to gotham city to become a comedian. When working for the only legal comedy show around doesn’t work out, she starts her own anti-comedy club. Shennanigans ensue, there’s an abusive T4T relationship that hits like a punch to the gut, because while it sucks, it is also at times tender an important. There is a beautifully 2D animated fight scene with Batman himself. There is an Alex Jones like tv personality who only ever appears as a 3D animation with a fucked up anti gravity shirt. I’ve cried, and laughed everytime I’ve watched this thing because it really is a work of art.
Below I’ve linked some interviews with the director, Vera Drew. They might contain spoilers, but I think listening to her talk about the process of making, and releasing the film is worthwhile. It is, by her own admission, an autobiographical piece, and it’s release was complicated by Warner Bros losing their shit. Luckily, The Peoples Joker very squarely falls under parody, and fair use, so Warner Bros bitching and moaning didn’t ammount to much other than another editing pass of the film.
I used to have a friend, and I think even if she didn’t enjoy this movie, she would have had lots of things to say about it. We aren’t friends anymore, and that is definetly for the best, but I almost wish this had come out before we stopped talking so I could have heard what she had to say…
- https://www.thepeoplesjoker.com/
- https://thequeerreview.com/2024/04/13/interview-the-peoples-joker-filmmaker-vera-drew/
- https://www.them.us/story/vera-drew-the-peoples-joker-interview
Rose Garden
The Rose Garden, by John Jarboe, was an installation piece at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia about the artist’s relationship with the twin she consumed in the womb. Videos of text, and songs performed by the artist were embeded in distorted domestic environments. Some of them played out loud, some played into headphones. Every piece of the installation was lush with detail, rose petals, and interactivity.
The exhibition had timed entry, so there was a waiting space: a small but comfortable room with a description of the project, and the artist, and a bowl of green vegan chocolate fetuses. We were invited to eat one, and start the exhitbit from the same place as the arist - having consumed a fetus. Before entering, each group took a teacup (filled with resin and a rose obviously). When we placed the tea cup on the pedestal outside the double doors leading to the exhibition space a video started playing, projected on the double doors, and the artist invited us to step into her wet, open mouth.
Inside the space, it was dark, and you could hear the echos of the videos playing for the people ahead of us. Below is an image of the exhibition pulled from the fabric workshop museum’s web page about the exhibition.
A part of me wants to describe everything I remember about seeing this in excruciating detail, but even if I did that, I know for a fact I would be unable to make you feel what I felt. There’s a reason people make art instead of just saying exactly what they mean. Some things defy simple explations. Instead I’ll include some of my reflections on what the piece meant to me.
One of the most striking things about the installation, was the way that different people interacted with it. I went twice, and I took my sweet time with each piece. I opened drawers. I picked up the can of campbells soup, turned it over in my hands, and examined the pun laden changes the artist had made. I looked under the bed, and peered into the grandfather clock. Other people skimmed over the surface. They walked through, tea cup in hand. They paused to listen to the songs that played out loud, but they didn’t put on the head phones. Instead they gazed at the slow video projected on shower curtains, then averted their eyes and moved on. Others still, listened, and watched, but they didn’t touch. When they did, it was with a light hand, and a sheepish half smile to their friends.
I think these different ways of interacting with the pieces struck me because it felt emblematic of the ways people can engage with queerness. You can walk by it, never focusing your eyes long enough to see it. You can dip a toe in, and decide it isn’t for you. You can watch it, be a part of it, but still by and large follow the rules set out by society. Or, you can transgress those rules, immerse yourself deeply, and be changed by it.
The second to last piece of the installation was an overwhelming room filled with the moment John Jarboe imagined eating her sister Rose in the womb. To leave the room, you had to stand, walk over to the heavy double door, and Push. And on the other side, was the green room: a comfortable sunny space, with soft, rose and fetus themed pillows to sit on, a plush white and green rug, and various sofas around the edge where you could sit to watch the last video piece. They offered refreshments: rose flavored hard candies, and rose lemonade mixed with the dried, crushed rose petals. It was a space by and for queer and trans community and served as the venue for various events during the run of the show. It was probably the most pleasant room I’ve ever been in, and after the visceral experience of the rest of the exhibit, it was a healing experience to be in such a comforting space created for people like me.
