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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   29245 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 19, 2024

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I watched Silence of the Lambs a while ago, and I remember that Lector expounded that Buffalo Bill wasn't necessarily trans, he just hated his own identity--which, sure, these days, that might be more of a distinction without a difference, but it doesn't seem like the movie is as anti-trans as one might think.

Also, the source novel really labours the point that Buffalo Bill isn't actually trans, to the point that it almost disrupts the immersion. There's a point where one of the characters contacts a gender reassignment clinic looking for information on people who applied for the surgery but were rejected, and the doctor is like "you have to understand: we do not want the general public to think trans people are dangerous. This is already an incredibly marginalised community, making their lives worse in any way is completely unconscionable."

I once argued that, on the film's release, TSotL wasn't transphobic, because during production "trans" was an identity category subject to medical gatekeeping: only people formally diagnosed with gender dysphoria by a qualified mental health professional are "really" trans; Buffalo Bill has not been formally diagnosed with gender dysphoria (and has had his request to medically transition refused on that basis); ergo Buffalo Bill isn't a trans woman. (One could plausibly argue that it was homophobic at the time of release, as Buffalo Bill is stated to be homosexual. My understanding is that Demme took this criticism seriously and made Philadelphia in a conscious effort to atone for it.)

But under the modern self-ID rubric, Buffalo Bill says she's a trans woman, therefore she is, therefore the film retroactively becomes transphobic by depicting a stunning and brave trans woman whose trans identity motivates her to become a vicious serial killer who starves and mutilates her victims.

In other words, TSotL wasn't transphobic until trans activists made it so.

Jodie Foster's character also has a line where she specifically calls out that this behavior is unusual for transvestites, who are normally passive and far from dangerous. I believe the controversy existed at the time, and they slightly altered the script to ward it off.

It's based on the book, where the statement "transsexuals are passive types usually" is made (top half of the page around 164 or 5).

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