I watched a documentary the other day in The History of the Body. We watched “Southern Comfort,� centering on a FTM man during his final year with terminal ovarian cancer.
The film raises a lot of gender issues, and a lot of social stigma issues. Robert, the main focus in the film, passes very easily…so easily that he is invited to a KKK meeting by men he meets in a bar.
Robert’s girlfriend, Lola is a very different person. Lola identifies as Lola; yet, when she works, she works as John, the persona she was before she came out. I believe this was because she hasn’t come out to her clients yet, and it was just easier to avoid that conversation for the time being.
At any rate, I think that the documentary says a lot about what it is to create media in a queer subculture. It is important to look at who the filmmaker is, what their slant may be. It is also important to look at what tidbits the filmmaker includes.
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