Welcome to Trans Tuesday! This week we’re talking about the dream (THE! DREAM!) and pools and makeup and self-discovery and, if we’re lucky, self-acceptance in THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF REAL GENIUS, part 3!
As a reminder, you need to have the context from PART 1 about writer PJ Torokvei and the time this movie was written and filmed in.
And of course, PART 2, where we began examining the allegory itself, which includes all the setup you need that makes the rest of the allegory work.
19:40 – Mitch is in a sweater… and then falls into a pile of ice. He was somehow prepared for what was waiting for him, without even knowing it, just from one conversation with Chris. But look at Chris now… still not dressed how you’d expect. He’s prepared for the cold! But not conforming.
20:24 – While Chris is listing off his jokey problems, did you catch the, uh… gender nonconforming one? “We had one entry for the Madame Curie look-alike contest, and he was disqualified later.” Do you see the transness baked into this movie? Right under the surface?
22:28 – Kent, king conformo, calls Mitch and Chris “degenerates,” even while he was the one found naked and alone with a bowl of Jello. So there’s something “off” about Kent, even though he’s the most adamant about being who Hathaway and society want him to be. Again, he’s a self-hating trans person, and seeing those who’ve embraced their true selves and found joy disgusts him (because he’s disgusted with himself for not having the courage to do the same).
22:31 – Even when sleeping, Mitch conforms to the “dress code” of men, pants and a shirt with a collar in man-coded colors. He then sees Hollyfeld again, and checks the closet more thoroughly but still can’t find him.
24:19 – Look how Chris sleeps. Almost naked, comfortable with himself, and still not conforming to what society expects. In every aspect of his life, he is true to himself.
24:36 – Jordan finds Mitch in the men’s bathroom. Even here, in a place only for men, he cannot escape the woman that captivates him. What do you think that means? She made him a sweater, the thing he was wearing when they met, that prepared him for the world outside. She is helping him with that preparation.
25:08 – Jordan tells him if he ever needs to talk she’s only a couple doors down and never sleeps, so she’s always there for him if he needs her. This is, sort of, waking up to the real you inside and knowing the real you is always in there. Always. Whenever you need her.
25:49 – Chris: “Was it a dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?” Mitch laughs, says no. Chris: “Why am I the only person that has that dream?”
This dream is one of the most trans things about the entire movie. He sees himself in fancy robes (not naked like everyone else), is atop a pyramid (he’s a focal point), and naked women are throwing pickles at him.
In the present, pickles are a thing with many trans women. A common part of HRT for many of us is testosterone blockers, which deplete the salt in our bodies.
And so the body craves more salt, and that leads to pickles. It’s such a thing we make constant memes and jokes about it. Did HRT in the 80s do the same? Does the “trans women and pickles” thing stretch back that far? I don’t know. It feels unlikely, since community with other trans people was much harder to find back in the 80s, due to the lack of internet but also the way we were often required to hide our transness and socially isolate ourselves (see TRANSMEDICALISM for more).
And one horrid side-effect of that (or maybe even part of the intended effect, if you think about it for a few minutes) is that we were almost entirely unable to form communities, or a shared culture. There very much is a trans culture now, and trans subcultures in trans women, trans men, and nonbinary people. And that allows things like memes and jokes specific to common experiences to emerge. Back in the 80s, that would have been impossible in more than very small in-person gatherings, which were also likely few and far between and difficult to locate, if they existed at all.
So my gut says pickles being here is a coincidence, and probably only because “pickle” is a funny word, but… what does naked women throwing small, phallic objects at a person dressed differently from them, who has been elevated to a place of prominence and focus (a cis white man), say to you metaphorically?
Because it very much reads to me like someone’s subconscious trying to tell them they’re a transgender woman and not a cisgender man. “Look at us, naked and honest with ourselves, with nothing to hide, throwing away a phallus that we do not want.”
You do not need to have or want bottom surgery to be a trans woman, but at the time this movie was made? You absolutely did if you wanted to transition.
So when Chris asks, “why am I the only one who has that dream?” it speaks to how it must have felt to realize your transness back then.
We had little to no cultural footprint, and most people had likely never met or even heard of trans people back then and knew nothing about them.
So realizing you’re not like everyone else, and not the gender you were assigned at birth, very likely made you feel extra isolated and alone. Like you were somehow the only person like that. This entire dream screams transness all the way through.
Mitch: “Did you know there’s a guy living in our closet?” Chris confirms he sees Hollyfeld too, and is well acquainted with him, knows his name. Mitch asks why Hollyfeld keeps going in the closet, and Chris responds by asking Mitch why he goes into the closet.
Of course Chris knows Hollyfeld, he knows what it’s like to be in the closet before coming out or self-accepting, and at one time that was his potential future too. His directly asking Mitch why he goes in there is another huge clue to what the movie’s trying to tell you with its trans allegory. Why are you hiding yourself?
27:32 – In the “going to school” montage, we see Mitch is trying to figure out why there’s a guy in the closet. He’s looking at him through a reflection. A reflection. Mitch is seeing what his own future is going to be, pretending to be a cis man in a closet. And it’s miserable.
I’ve talked so many times about how REFLECTIONS AND PHOTOS affect trans people, and they’re also heavily used in the allegory of The Matrix movies.
27:41 – Mitch tries to follow Hollyfeld out the door, but as soon as he opens it Jordan comes in. What will prevent him from following in the path of that potential future self, and a life in the closet? Paying attention to the non-conforming woman he can’t get away from.
28:11 – Mitch starts dressed in his suit, ultra-male. Then he’s dressed just like Hathaway, trying to be like him. Trying so hard to be cis, to be accepted.
But then his clothing gradually starts to get more casual, and then he’s even wearing the sweater Jordan made him. He’s moving along the path!
28:34 – While everyone else is recording the lectures, Mitch is still going to class. He’s not conforming, which follows along with his style of dress loosening up. He’s already starting to do what he thinks is right, and not what society expects.
28:57 – Mitch drops his papers and Hollyfeld helps him collect them, they share a moment of recognition. Is this Mitch finally realizing they’re not so different, that this could be the future that awaits him?
The song that plays over the montage where Mitch becomes more of his true self is “I’m Falling,” credited to The C.S. Angels, who were only called that in the US, and were The Comsat Angels everywhere else. Have you listened to the lyrics of this song? ‘Cause… uh. Phew.
I never thought this could happen
I never thought I could feel this way
Until this strange reaction today
You give me a new sensation
In a place that has no name
Something tells me I’ll never feel the same
Now it’s all changed
What have you done to me
I’m falling endlessly
I began to slip, I did not know what was coming next
Even so I was not prepared for this
I used to think nothing mattered
Now I see possibilities
You showed a new direction to me
And it’s all changed
If you don’t think that reads like a trans awakening, I don’t know what to tell you. Now PJ did not direct this movie (or produce as far as I know), and most likely had no choice over the use of this song.
Further, it does not appear that any of The Comsat Angels are trans (though referring back to TRANS HISTORY 1 and 2 you never know who is trans and doesn’t know it yet, or who is trans and can’t be out, etc).
But what I think is more likely is this coincidentally perfectly fits the theme of Mitch’s trans awakening because any kind of moment of deep self revelation in any human shares a lot of similarities. Again, trans stories are human stories. We’re all connected.
So I don’t feel that song was likely picked because of how trans it reads, but rather the trans allegory of awakening and self-acceptance so closely matches so many other awakenings that we humans go through, cis and trans alike.
30:24 – There’s a shot from inside the closet. Here again we see the skeleton inside. It’s there, haunting Mitch. Living in the closet is indeed a kind of death. A death of our true selves, a waking death that keeps us from truly living our lives.
32:35 – Hollyfeld lives in the closet alone. It’s dark, it’s dirty, it’s filled with cobwebs, it’s a lonely existence cut off from the world. His autograph machine is filling out contest forms, he has to game the system to find a way to exist in the world. Trans life in a nutshell, because society makes it so difficult for us to exist (thanks to bigoted Republican gas station hot dogs).
33:18 – Hathaway wants to know what that smell is. He hates the popcorn. Here’s something that brings Chris joy and is barely a minor inconvenience to Hathaway, but it must be eliminated because he doesn’t like it.
In my book on The Matrix, in the first movie I discuss Agent Smith’s speech about the smell of humans. It’s an inconvenience he wanted removed, because his inconvenience was more important to him than our right to exist and be happy.
And Chris tosses the popcorn aside. He may have self-accepted, but he’ll also do what he has to in order to be “accepted” by people who don’t really even care about him. So part of him, in some small way, is still conforming.
This speaks to things like trans women in the 80s having to pretend to be attracted to men, even if they weren’t, just to be “allowed” to access medical transition care. And as we know from that article after PJ’s death, she was not attracted to men. Did she have to pretend like she did to access her care? Did she refuse to lie and thus had to wait to access care until cis gatekeepers got their shit together? We don’t know. But it was clearly on PJ’s mind in the early 80s.
34:06 – Hathaway talks about his wishes for what Chris would become and says “…and then-” Chris cuts him off with, “I got a haircut.” Society wants us to be cis, but trans people go and change our presentation to suit ourselves instead. Do you see how this is so very trans?!
35:53 – Hathaway says Chris’ attitude is “distracting Mitch” and it is therefore a problem. Stop showing Mitch that he can be trans too!
Chris mentions he’s leaving school soon, but Hathaway reminds him he can’t graduate without passing Hathaway’s class. Hathaway is the gatekeeper and will prevent Chris from moving on in his life if he doesn’t get what he wants.
Again, cis people are the gatekeepers of everything trans people need in this world… access to HRT or surgeries, legal name/gender marker changes, equal rights, living our lives without cis violence, and more. The Matrix also talks about this a lot. Directly.
You can read about my own experiences with cis gatekeeping and how I had to “prove” I was a woman just to begin medical transition in TRANS KIDS AND THE INTAKE EXAM.
38:59 – Mitch is getting frustrated, so Chris uses the work to lead Mitch to freedom, relaxation, a party. Joy. Chris believes that by working within the system (even if it means tossing his popcorn away… pretending to be attracted to men, for example), you can achieve what you want. And back then, that wasn’t wrong. It sucked, but it was what you had to do.
40:24 – Even though Chris has jumped in the water and is soaked, and is hitting on women… he has not taken his shirt off! Like Neo wouldn’t in The Matrix. Like I wouldn’t if I could at all avoid it for all my life pre-transition, even when swimming, because my flat chest spiked my dysphoria.
40:28 – A lady in a bikini is going to eat a cheeseburger, and Chris tells her to stop. “Don’t you know that eating that can give you large breasts?” Is this is a joke, or is it something more? Put a pin in it for a bit.
40:48 and 42:08 – Not only has Hathaway conformed and been rewarded for it, but he’s found a way to still wear makeup within the acceptable bounds of society for men (being on television). This is kind of what Chris is doing, but to more of an extreme.
Hathaway wants Chris to “be himself,” but only so much as it still fits within the bonds of the cis binary laid out for us. But note this is a false option, as even Hathaway can’t get away with it as we’ll see in a minute. You can see this also in THE TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW where there are tons of motivational posters and slogans about being true to yourself, that all of us are bombarded with for all our lives. But as soon as trans people do that, society says “no not like that.”
Also in here, note that Kent directly sells out Mitch and Chris, literally turning on trans people like him to gain favor with the white cis men in power. Thanks so much, Caitlyn Jenner and Brianna Wu, may you step on a lego with bare feet every day for the rest of your lives.
42:49 – Despite wanting to enjoy himself, Mitch is apart and alone even at a party full of people. Again like Neo in The Matrix. Like me at every party or social gathering for my entire life until I transitioned. Because to be perceived means having to put the mask back on, to be seen as and try to play the part of someone that it hurts us to be.
42:42 – Jordan arrives and Mitch lights up with a smile. There’s definitely something to this non-conforming woman he keeps seeing.
43:22 – Jordan has gotten Mitch more into the party than before, but he wants to know why she’s not “necking”. Her emphatic reply: “I’m not gay.” To me this speaks to the way our sexuality can confuse our understanding of our own gender.
This calls directly back to the letter about PJ Torokvei, and her saying she couldn’t be a gay man because that’s not who she was. See SEXUALITY IS NOT GENDER.
Jordan explains how she’s “different” and guys are a little afraid of her (remember Mitch saying other kids were intimidated by him?), and if she stopped to think about it she’d be a little upset.
Also note that Jordan brings a breathing apparatus. To help Mitch breathe underwater. In my essay on GENDER DYSPHORIA, I described it as like… drowning.
In my INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR MAYA DEANE, author of Wrath Goddess Sing (my favorite novel ever), we talked about the metaphor she used for dysphoria… being trapped at the bottom of a well.
Jordan, the non-conforming woman, provides Mitch with the relief he needs from gender dysphoria. Do you see what this is telling Mitch, here? Non-conforming womanhood can provide the rescue he needs!
Hathaway then arrives to remind them of their obligations (to cis society) and chastise Mitch for even a moment of finding himself, for being happy. And look what spending time with nonconforming femininity has gotten Mitch, and how embarrassed he looks (which is just how society wants him to feel).
Again, this is something The Matrix dealt with several times, especially in Resurrections. You have obligations to cis society, so abandon this trans nonsense and uphold the binary like you’re supposed to. They want us to believe there’s no joy to be found in accepting your transness.
44:54 – Here Hathaway gets called out for wearing makeup, since this is a thing men aren’t supposed to do. Even within the bounds of society and “I have to do it so I don’t get washed out by the lights on camera,” you still get made fun of for it.
This is showing you it’s a false choice. Tossing away the popcorn to appease the cis binary won’t actually make them okay with you. You’re still an outsider and an outcast. And PJ knew it.
Next time we’re going to wrap up with Mitch’s final outcome, you’ll see where he ends up and the remarkably beautiful message about trans people that Real Genius has waiting for you.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com