This blog and site is still under construction! For now, I'll leave you with one of my favorite recent video essays: Transgender Horror: A Visual History
I watched this a few days ago, and it really stuck with me. I really love Logan's attention to detail when considering which films to include. I've seen plenty of trans film lists that have things on them with unintentional trans subtext, yet ignore indie and short films with textual representation. I'm delighted by all the indie films I got to learn about through this video.
I also really love how he included films regardless of the tropes/harmful content/messy content/etc. I want to see trans figures in media remembered, archived, and studied. It's a part of film history, and the choice NOT to exclude these films is an important one to me.
The part of the video where he states “We aren't being transphobic, we're just using all the dog whistles that signal that we are.” really hits the nail on the head with how some directors and writers are.
Logan brings so much welcome nuance to the conversation about interpreting films according to the text, versus what audiences actually take away, versus personal interpretations that can differ from both of those things. As a trans person, I often see myself in characters that are imperfect representation, and being able to think on that, find empowerment in it, and understand it is wonderful.
Also I love his inclusion of Texas Chainsaw. Indeed, as he says in the video, it's a franchise that's bad sequel after bad sequel. (And they're all my favorites.) I'm also always happy to see Child's Play mentioned in the context of trans horror. (Nica + Chucky in the recent TV show is amazing.)
I'm totally going to add a few of these to my watch list (Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Sleepaway Camp, Sonny Boy, Bit, So Vam). Overall, amazing video, incredibly well researched, fabulous work.