Welcome to #TransTuesday! I wanted to do this one last week, but had to prime you a bit (you’ve been primed and didn’t even know it!) for: THE UNINTENTIONAL (?) TRANS ALLEGORY OF THE TWILIGHT ZONE’S NERVOUS MAN IN A FOUR DOLLAR ROOM.
I’ve been a huge Twilight Zone fan all my life, but only recently saw this episode for the first time. In just catching them whenever they were on tv, or during those New Year’s marathons, it just never crossed my path.
And I was instantly struck by it, and how deeply it speaks to the trans experience. But I want to caution you that this isn’t like my Matrix trans allegory threads, because this was very likely unintentional. My book on it, should you be so inclined to check it out, is BEGIN TRANSMISSION: THE TRANS ALLEGORIES OF THE MATRIX.
So I’m calling this an unintentional allegory, yet I put a question mark in the thread title. Why? Well I also said you had to be primed first, by which I mean it would be good if you read the TRANS HISTORY essays.
From those, you know that spotting trans people in history isn’t always cut and dry for a variety of reasons. And you know why that is. But that still doesn’t explain the question mark in the title, does it?
See the thing is that we have no way to know if anyone involved with this episode was transgender. Nothing I’ve ever seen or read about Rod Serling (who ran the show and wrote this episode) suggests he was anything other than a cisgender man.
If you’re interested, I did something like this before about THE UNINTENTIONAL (?) TRANS ALLEGORY OF THE LITTLE MERMAID‘S “PART OF YOUR WORLD.”
There are apparently some reports of possible homophobia on Rod’s part in biographies I’ve not read, but those are apparently also mentioned without any kind of source so they’re suspect at best.
What we do know is that Rod was very progressive in his views, and would today EASILY be described as a “social justice warrior.” That’s part of why I’ve always loved him, outside of the fact that he’s just a great writer.
Is it possible that despite that he was still homophobic/transphobic? Certainly, especially given the times he was raised in and what society told you about gay and trans people back then.
I will remind you that I myself was raised to believe being anything other than cisgender and heterosexual was wrong. We all have these biases, whether explicitly put into us by those who raised us, or implicitly put there by simply existing in a discriminatory society.
So it’s possible that Rod knew some trans people, and wrote this to specifically speak to their experience. But given what a small percentage of the population we are, and the incredible stigmas we faced in the early 1960s, it’s just as likely that it’s coincidence. Maybe.
How could that be? We’ll discuss at the end. Let’s talk about the episode first. (I encourage you to watch it and form your own thoughts, it’s season 2 episode 3, streaming on Paramount+ and also I think on Amazon Prime). You’ll be able to follow if you’ve not seen it, though.
The episode is about Jackie, a man in a very small, enclosed space, waiting for the job George is going to give him. Jackie’s worried, and doesn’t want to do the job, but feels he has no choice. In terms of the allegory, George represents our heavily binary-gendered society.
This episode utilizes something Twilight Zone never did before, and possibly never did again: overhead shots. They’re very unusual for this (or any) show, used to convey how small Jackie feels inside his tiny, oppressed space.
0:30 – Jackie’s biting his nails, so right away you know something’s wrong. I mean the title also gives it away, but here you’re seeing it in action. He’s deeply bothered by something.
0:50 – He’s been waiting for George’s call. Note again how he says the room he’s trapped in is hot and stifling, he feels the weight of it bearing down on him. This is very much what it’s like to have gender dysphoria and not know it.
1:30 – Jackie’s worried about what George is going to ask him to do, and doesn’t want George to think he’s not up to it. He’s worried about how he APPEARS to George. What will society think of him? He craves George’s acceptance.
02:24 – Rod: “This man leaves a blot, a dirty, discolored blemish to document a cheap and undistinguished sojourn amongst his betters.” “…a strange mortal combat between a man and himself.” Jackie has been remarkably bad at being who society wants him to be.
03:16 – George comes to visit, intimidates Jackie and wants him to do a murder. Society wants Jackie to be violent. But why?
4:04 – George: “What would you like to do, Jackie? What’s your heart’s desire?” Jackie can’t believe anyone would actually care, or grant such a thing, and hasn’t even figured out for himself what his heart’s desire IS.
04:16 – Jackie: “If it was up to me, I’d like some decent odds for a change.” When you’re trans and don’t know it, the entire world, the universe, all of existence feels like the deck’s stacked against you and you have no idea why.
04:30 – Jackie: “If they pick me up one more time George, it’s three strikes and out. I’m long gone, and for good.” Jackie’s worried if he conforms to what society expects of him, it’ll be the end of him.
4:50 – George: “You always look like somebody’s squeezing you through a door. What do you do to sleep at night, Jackie? Hide in a locked closet?” The “in the closet” metaphor is HUGE here. And how have I described gender dysphoria before?
Like a 500 pound weight on your chest, or like someone is eternally “squeezing” you.
5:12 – George: “Tonight I’m going to let you be a man.” Ah, now we’re getting to it. Jackie isn’t what society (especially in the early 60s) considered a “man.” He’s passive, he’s submissive, he’s “weak.” The message is clear: do violence for society and be seen as a man.
05:33 – George gives him a gun. This is how society says Jackie “gets up in the world” and “becomes” a man. Violence.
George says there’s an old man who “spits in their eye,” aka doesn’t respect the “order” of this society, and therefore he has to go. He wants Jackie to kill him, and this violence will remind everyone else to stay in line. Ring any bells??
6:50 – George: “You never did a job like this because you never COULD do a job like this, and that’s why you’re gonna do this one.” Society knows it’s losing its grip on forcing Jackie to conform, and they’ve reached a tipping point.
7:00 – Jackie protests, “I got no guts” aka he doesn’t have the heart for it, and George backhands him. Comply/conform to “being a man” or you will receive violence.
Worse than that, at 7:28, George, “If I find out that you welched on me, that you chickened out… you’re dead.” Society won’t let Jackie keep not conforming to who they want him to be.
This is what our society has done all along, visited violence upon anyone who doesn’t conform… especially those who are assigned male at birth and display anything other than the “accepted” behaviors and mannerisms society has deemed okay for men.
This is why we trans women are so often the victims of violence, it’s this very thinking. And we see it here with Jackie, who doesn’t want to be the man society says he should be.
8:17 – Jackie picks up the gun and looks at it, throws it down. He considers what society wants, rejects it. But how’s he going to survive?
8:33 – He looks in the mirror the first time, he sees himself reflected as the “unmanly” person George says he is. Chastises himself for not being who George/society wants him to be. Tries to talk himself into doing what George wants. Fails.
8:58 – Jackie, to his reflection: “I wish I could trade you and I could use another model.” He wishes he was different and not the way he is, literally wishing he could trade his body for another one!
He then tries to convince himself this is just the way the world is and there’s nothing he can do about it, which is exactly how a lot of trans people (myself included) try to convince ourselves we’re not the trans person we already know in our hearts that we are.
9:50 – He goes back to the mirror and admits he’s not a killer aka not the man society wants him to be. But if he doesn’t conform, he’s going to BE killed. But if he does go through with it, he feels he’ll also die aka it will kill the real him.
10:33 – Jackie: “Boy I wish I could trade you in.” Again, he’s wishing he were an entirely different person.
10:42 – Jackie: “No matches. Cigarettes and no matches, that’s me all over.” Regardless of your thoughts on smoking, it’s often done for pleasure (especially in the 60s). This is showing you Jackie doesn’t have what he needs for even brief, momentary pleasure.
Jackie: “That’s Jackie Rhodes, the halfway boy.”
THE
HALFWAY
BOY.
“That’s the story of my life.”
This one’s pretty self-explanatory!
10:54 – Smoke wafts at him from behind. Something back there, in his reflection aka deep inside his subconscious, has access to what he needs to find pleasure in his life.
11:00 – He looks back to the mirror, and sees the him he wishes he could be. Confidence and strength, the real him (her). It terrifies him. He tries to run, but the reflection demands his attention.
As a reminder, if you haven’t read the trans tuesday on PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS, and how difficult and complicated they can be for trans people, as we go our whole lives without seeing ourselves in them, check it out.
11:30 – Jackie worries he’s lost all his marbles, but the Reflection tells him he hasn’t lost them yet, and the Reflection means to see that he KEEPS them. The reflection, the true Jackie, is trying to HELP.
11:53 – Reflection: “I’m part of you, Jackie. Another part of you. Don’t you even remember me? You used to know me, a long time ago, Jackie. A very long time ago you were up for grabs. You coulda gone one way or the other. You could have gone my way or your way. You went your way. You know what that means, Jackie?”
This is an excellent description of who someone reached a point where they almost accepted their transness, but our of fear continued pretending to be cis instead.
12:55 – Jackie refutes the reflection and runs away. But he doesn’t… leave? Instead he runs to the closet.
T H E C L O S E T.
But his reflection is in there too. Even when you’re in the closet, the truth is in there with you. It’s always with us, as we see when Jackie sees it again in the bathroom and out in the hall.
14:13 – Jackie: “Now I get it. I’m talking to myself.” Reflection: “That’s just who you ARE talking to. Part of yourself. The part you never let come out.” I MEAN.
14:45 – Reflection tells Jackie if he goes through with the hit, it will kill them both. Both the poor excuse for a man he’s tried to be, AND the real him. Jackie knows this, and that’s why he’s been so nervous.
15:12 – Jackie says if you’re me and I made all the wrong choices, didn’t you make the wrong choices too? Reflection: “Every time I tried to talk to you, you listened to somebody else. That was your mistake.”
When we don’t listen to our subconscious, to our hearts, to what we know to be true, and suppress them and instead listen to society’s ideas of who we should be, that’s its own (very real) kind of death.
15:28 – Jackie: “I was a runt, a skinny little runt. If you want to join a street gang, you gotta go along with them. You back down, they give you business.” He had to try to conform to society just to survive, under threat of violence.
Reflection: “Yeah, you went along with them. And you made me go along, too.” Even though Reflection/true Jackie hasn’t been able to be out living her life, she’s been riding shotgun with all of Jackie’s decisions.
That speaks a lot to how complicated and weird THE PAST (and why it haunts us) is.
15:50 – They discuss all the things Jackie did that he never wanted to do, all because the gang/society told him that was what was required of him. And he didn’t have the confidence or ability to stand up and say that’s not who he is.
And there were consequences, he got caught and spent 11 months in reform school. Aka conforming to what society wants made him feel trapped, even as a kid. This has always hounded him. Nobody BECOMES trans, if you’re trans you’ve always been trans.
16:39 – Reflection: “You got less time than you think. But you never had time. … Six months later you were in jail again. And that parole officer couldn’t help you any more than Janey Reardon could.”
Let me here point out that this woman from Jackie’s past, that he has a wistful fondness for, Janey Reardron, HAS SAME INITIALS AS JACKIE RHOADES. Further, just how close are “Jackie” and “Janey?” Hmmmmmmm.
17:14 – Jackie: “She was a nice kid.” Reflection: “She was a beautiful woman. She tried to set you straight. I loved her, Jackie. I loved Janey Reardon.” The reflection IS Janey Reardon, the person Jackie Rhoades could have (and almost did) become.
17:38 – Reflection: “I needed her, Jackie. So did you. I tried to tell you how much we needed her. … Two years we spent in the pen on that one. And when we got out, Janey Reardon had gotten married and moved away.”
Reflection: “She walked out of your life, Jackie. Our of our life. YOU CHEATED ME OUT OF HER.” This is almost just clear as day, isn’t it? And speaks of the journey of self-acceptance and self-actualization in the same way the Matrix movies did.
The “romance” there wasn’t between Neo and Trinity, but Neo’s ability to love HIMSELF enough to rebuke all of what society said to exist as his true self. It plays out the same way here!
18:05 – Reflection: “You wouldn’t wanna have a girl, would you Jackie? Somebody sweet and pretty, somebody who would love you? Somebody who would be kind and gentle with you? You don’t need that, do you Jackie?”
aka Jackie’s been refusing to treat himself with sweetness, kindness, gentleness, and love. This is what denying our true selves is, in every way. It’s an act of violence against ourselves.
Jackie loses his cool, gets angry and upset, why is this happening to him? “What do you want from me?” Basically the same thing many trans people ask themselves when figuring this all out. The true us is in there and won’t leave us alone. What on earth do they want?
18:34 – Reflection: “I want to take over, Jackie. I wanna call the shots. I want you to let me out. I want a chance to live. I want to live with all the guts and goodness you left behind.” What was good and left behind? JANEY REARDON.
Reflection: “I wanna live the dreams you dreamed and never had the guts to live.”
P H E W
18:57 – Jackie: “I’m calling the shots. And neither you or anybody else is telling Jackie Rhoades what to do.” We keep trying to deny our true selves, but that doesn’t make the truth any less true. It just makes us miserable. On cue:
The phone immediately rings and it’s George checking to see if Jackie carried out the hit yet, and Jackie is instantly subdued as we’re reminded he’s NOT doing what HE wants, but what society wants.
Jackie grabs his coat to go, and Reflection is seemingly missing. Jackie wants to see how he looks, being the person society wants him to be, BUT THE REFLECTION IS MISSING, because he is not that person.
20:02 – Reflection returns. “You go out that door, you’re finished. We’re both finished. That’s the door to nowhere.” Reflection again pleads to be let out, to take over, to finally become the real person he’s always been inside.
20:16 – Jackie: “I got everything I want.” Reflection: “You got nothing. You got nothing but a pain inside. …You got nothing. You ARE nothing. It’s time to be SOMETHING.” This is the dissociation of being trans, the complete disconnect from reality and our true lives.
20:47 – Jackie: “You’re a liar!” He flips the mirror, but even as it spins, Reflection remains, getting bigger and closer with each spin.
21:14 – George returns to deliver consequences/violence because Jackie didn’t comply with his orders. George: “Get up little man.” Denigrating his manhood for not conforming.
21:55 – Jackie quits the gang, because Reflection has taken over. He’s becoming his true self. He speaks with confidence. He’s self-assured.
22:12 – Society can’t believe it, and Jackie hits him a few times/fights back. This is not the violence society wants him to commit, but self-defense and fighting for his right to exist as his true self (which he wouldn’t have to do were society not violently oppressing him).
22:34 – Jackie kicks him out, and George is cowed. Jackie removes the ammunition from the gun and tosses it back to Society, refusing their orders, their violence, and REMOVES THE AMMUNITION aka their power over him.
22:52 – Jackie tosses the bullets in the trash. The very things society used to keep him in line are literally garbage. He won’t keep them.
23:01 – He calls to CHECK OUT OF THE OPPRESSIVE ROOM he was trapped in (he’s made the decision to transition), tells them his name is… different! His transition came with a name change, as is wont to happen.
He now goes by JOHN RHODES. What’s even closer than Jackie/Janey? John/Jane. Only one slight vowel shift between them.
23:33 – John: “Now maybe we stop biting our nails.” No longer anxious, oppressed, trapped, the nervous habits cease. He is calmer. At peace. (I have a trans lady friend who said she bit her nails all the time pre-transition… but not anymore!)
23:46 – John looks back at the mirror… and the true him is all he sees. He closes the door, leaving the oppression behind him.
And if you don’t understand the confidence shift that has happened, please see the trans tuesday on that very topic, CONFIDENCE 2: INTO THE UNKNOWN aka WHAT IS HAPPENING aka A WHOLE NEW WORLD.
23:50 – Rod: “Exit Mr. John Rhodes, formerly a reflection in a mirror, a fragment of someone else’s conscience, a wishful thinker made out of glass, but now made out of flesh, and on his way to join the company of men.”
Did Rod have a blind spot when it came to LGBTQIA+ rights? Maybe. But look at the compassion, kindness, acceptance, and rejection of bigotry that permeates all his work. I choose to give him the benefit of the doubt. I think he did what he could given the state of tv at the time.
Did Rod know trans people and wanted to write something that spoke to their lived experience? Quite possibly. But it could also be a very long string of very specific coincidences. But how can that be, when so much of it is so (very) specific to the trans experience?
It’s because TRANS PEOPLE ARE HUMAN BEINGS. We all deal with the same shit as humans, though the details may vary. TRANS STORIES ARE HUMAN STORIES. You can identify with us a lot more than you think. Give it a shot. We’re worth it.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com