Transamerica

I met a couple of friends for dinner and a movie last night...specifically, Transamerica. Besides a few inconsistencies, it was a fairly decent movie. I know it’s fiction and things are left out to create a smoother story, thus allowing drama to be created by putting the characters into basically worst case scenarios. Let’s face it, if you made a movie out of a regular transsexual’s transition, it wouldn’t be that exciting a story. Sure, there would be a few dramatic events, but the story would likely have to be told over several years.

The main character, Bree, was excellently portrayed by Felicity Huffman. She did a good job of keeping her masculine voice and finding her masculine side for the movie. The filmmakers obviously had her overdo a few things, but some of it was for comedic relief. The character was also portrayed quite conservatively, with Bree really not having tackled many aspects of transition before her SRS. Again, this is a story, and the main character was forced to deal with many of these aspects in a more consolidated and dramatic way.

Yes, I still wish a transwoman had played the main character, but she would have had to have passed very well to have had the story work the way it did. They did have a few transwomen and transmen in the story, which was definitely a positive aspect to the movie. Another difficult part of this is that many people may think all transsexuals are like this, but hopefully having other transsexuals in the movie will make them realize it was just one, and her story was told that way just for the movie. I mean, let’s face it, pretty much anything you see on TV is dramatized...CSI, hospital shows, Nip/Tuck, soap operas. They take out all of the boring stuff and consolidate it into a piece where the character has conflict to resolve.

Anyway, the movie was definitely positive toward transpeople, and was fairly entertaining.