My dear friends, every once in a while we get some news so fantastic, so wonderful we just want to shout it out, I am in love with life! I love life so much I have declared myself free! Free to live to day as whom I truly am. Free to live my life with my arms wide open!
This is a day of celebration unlike any other a person may have. It is our day of transbirthday!
Jenna, ecstatic that her gender marker was changed to show who she knows with her heart she truly is shared her joy with me. This is a unique celebration that only transgender people have. It is a meeting place we can all gather at for a moment and forget about the trials and tribulations that have defined our trip.
Jenna, my dear friend thank you for making our day so valuable by sharing this day with us!
GLAAD Contacts: Taj Paxton, Director of Entertainment Media, (323) 634-2028, paxton@glaad.org
Rich Ferraro, Director of Public Relations, (646) 871-8011, ferraro@glaad.org
GLAAD was recently alerted by community members and allies to a film called Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives that will be screened at the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival.
GLAAD has since seen the film in its entirety and can report that the title is far from the only problem with this film. The film, its title and its marketing misrepresent the lives of transgender women and use grotesque, exploitative depictions of violence against transgender women in ways that make light of the horrific brutality they all too often face.
Misrepresenting the Lives of Transgender WomenWriter/director Israel Luna based his film on the "exploitation films" of the 1970s such as I Spit On Your Grave, about a woman who was raped and sought revenge on her attackers. The five lead characters in Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives are brutally attacked by a group of men; two do not survive the attack, but the surviving three seek gruesome revenge on their attackers. The film is a pastiche of graphic violence and horror movie clichés, with a few scenes of campy humor.
By marketing Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives as a "transploitation" film, by using the word "trannies" (a pejorative term for transgender people) in the title of the film, by casting transgender women in some roles, and by citing the murders of Angie Zapata and Jorge Mercado in the trailer, Israel Luna has attempted to place his film squarely within a transgender narrative.
However, while some of the actors in the film identify as transgender, the characters are written as drag queens, “performing” femininity in a way that is completely artificial. The very names of these over-the-top female caricatures (Emma Grashun, Rachel Slurr, et al.) drive this point home.
Because of its positioning as a transgender film, viewers unfamiliar with the lives of transgender women will likely leave this film with the impression that transgender women are ridiculous caricatures of "real women." It demeans actual transgender women who struggle for acceptance and respect in their day-to-day lives and to be valued for their contributions to our society.
Exploiting and Sensationalizing Anti-Transgender ViolenceTransgender people are a marginalized and vulnerable minority in our culture, subjected to horrific hate crimes and pervasive discrimination. Relatively few media images of transgender people exist, so every media image becomes essential in educating audiences about transgender lives and working to eliminate the discrimination and violence they face.
In this context, it is irresponsible and insulting to make a film that serves up graphic anti-transgender violence as a "hook" for an homage to B-movies of the 1970s. Anti-LGBT hate crimes are serious issues that do not translate into an exploitation film. The very nature of exploitation films is to shock and titillate audiences with extreme, sensationalized violence.
Films like Boys Don’t Cry and A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story have graphically portrayed the murders of transgender people. In a serious dramatic context, such depictions convey the tragic reality of the violence that many transgender people face. But in this film, repeated shots of a baseball bat covered in clumps of hair and blood are grotesque – and serve only as horror movie-like gore. Depictions of violence and brutality are immediately followed by ridiculous scenes that make light of the horrific crimes that have been committed. There is nothing funny about the murders of the countless LGBT people who have fallen victim to hate-motivated violence.
Furthermore, the filmmakers have chosen to market Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives using a crass trailer that opens with references to the recent murders of Angie Zapata and Jorge Mercado, putting their brutal murders on par with the outlandish violence in this film. Sign The Petition Here
GLAAD finds it troubling that the respected Tribeca Film Festival would give a film that sensationalizes anti-transgender violence and misrepresents the lives of transgender women, a platform that affords such great exposure. The Tribeca Film Festival has a history of screening powerful LGBT films, such as the GLAAD Media Award-nominated Quentin Crispbiopic An Englishman in New York, and the GLAAD Media Award-winning film Transamerica, about a transgender woman reconnecting with her son. Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives does not meet, and in fact devalues, the standard of excellence established by the festival.
GLAAD has reached out to writer/director Israel Luna, the film’s producer and the Tribeca Film Festival, and both have refused to take responsibility for the problematic content and offensive marketing of this film.
Concerned community members have developed a Facebook group called "Boycott 'Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives' at the Tribeca Film Festival" that you can join at Here.
