The Uses for Bad Representation:
A Critical Review of Cáel M. Keegan's “On the Necessity of Bad Trans Objects”
12/01/2022
REPRESENTATION & MY MCNAIR RESEARCH
Centering Good Representation
As my McNair project approaches its conclusion, I have been taking time to reflect upon the content of my research. I notice the bulk of my work is dedicated to defining what I perceive as "good" representation within the coming-of-age genre. To do so, I draw upon the disadvantages of "bad" representation, which I suggest is the limiting scope of the male gaze (Mulvey). Through this call of attention to the disadvantages of bad representation, I realized I negated the constructive uses of these bad representations entirely. To patch this gap, I proceeded to do additional research about uses for existing bad representation, which ultimately led me to Cáel M. Keegan's “On the Necessity of Bad Trans Objects.” Through his article, Keegan explores how inaccurate, transphobic media representation of the transgender community in film can be a point of empowerment to dismantle the sex and gender binary in present-day society.
If interested in learning more about the advantages of bad representation, you can read my critical review of Keegan's “On the Necessity of Bad Trans Objects" below.
CRITICAL REVIEW
Defining Good and Bad Representation
Keegan opens his essay by educating his audience about what the media is defining as “good” and “bad” representations of trans folk. When evaluating good vs. bad representation, Keegan shares how the public is utilizing what is known as the “May Test,” which is a transgender alternative to the Bechdel Test. The criteria for the May Test are as follows: “a transgender character must be portrayed by a trans actor; be depicted as ‘safe, stable, and secure,’ ‘happy,’ and ‘in love’; and not be ‘a sex worker, dealer, or thief,’” and additionally, “Trans identity cannot be used to produce humor or generate a plot twist, and gender transition should not be the focus of the story” (Keegan 26). Keegan highlights that this criterion while giving media users the illusion of developing more anti-transphobic content, is actually perpetuating more political and social unrest for the transgender population. A greater exploration of this claim will be surveyed in the following paragraphs.
One way that Keegan argues that good transgender representation, as defined by the May Test, is fostering political and social unrest is through its exploitation and assimilation of what Keegan describes as “existing normative media.” Explicitly, Keegan writes, “Good trans media objects are “good” precisely because they allow an engagement with transgender identifications without giving up the economy of sexual difference itself—that is, they successfully absorb transgender identity into their representational fields without threatening the intelligibility of preexisting gender identifications” (27). Therefore, in tandem, good representation not only reinforces the sex-gender binary established by the patriarchy, but such representation is also a source of profit for individuals such as capitalists, white supremacists, and colonialists who keep the binary going. Hence, because good trans representation has become a point of economic and political advantage for historically oppressive institutions, Keegan is concerned with how to use bad transgender representations to break the sex-gender binary. To do so, Keegan examines how existing US films that have failed the May Test ‒ Tootsie(Sydney Pollack, 1982), It’s Pat (Adam Bernstein, 1994), and The Assignment (Walter Hill, 2016) ‒ can be utilized to showcase areas of political and social improvement for the existing society, areas that good transgender representation lacks to highlight.
Bad Representation in Tootsie
Within his article, Keegan notes how the 1982 film Tootsie fails the criteria of the May Test because of the film’s comedic genre. Tootsie captures the story of Michael Dorsey, played by Dustin Hoffman, who cross-dresses as a passing female named Dorothy Michaels. In the film, Dorothy plays a feminist soap opera character on the show Southwest General, who ultimately falls in love with her costar Julie Nichols, played by Jessica Lange. In the end, Michael abandons Dorothy, his trans identity, to pursue a heterosexual relationship with Julie. While cross-dressing comedies have historically used transgender bodies to evoke laughter, Keegan argues:
Michael is able to dress and present as Dorothy individually, but it is the support of other women that makes Dorothy into a person and a woman, socially and politically… If Tootsie is a bad trans object, it is because the film points productively at the ongoing need for a feminism without rules regarding who is considered a “real” woman, or who gets to become one. (31)
Through Tootsie’s comedic cross-dressing narrative, the film was able to uncover the discrepancy between how society is defining a woman and how these definitions work to uphold a divide between cis and trans folk. Additional areas of societal concern that jeopardize a trans-inclusive future were also revealed in Keegan’s analysis of the 2019 film It’s Pat
Bad Representation in It's Pat
The film It’s Pat follows the storyline of Pat Riley, played by Julia Sweeney, who falls in love with the film’s nonbinary character Chris, played by Dave Foley. Throughout her day-to-day life, Julia, who passes a butch, is often confronted by her neighbor Kyle, played by Charles Rocket, whose mission is uncovering Julia’s “true” sex through means of harassment. This harassment causes the film to fail the May Test, which Keegan spurs as an advantage to raise awareness of sex’s hindrance to trans-blindness. Specifically, Keegan proclaims, “Unlike media texts that rely on a genital reveal to put sex and gender back in order, It’s Pat never resolves into the lack/excess economy of sexual difference. It’s Pat is a bad trans object that powerfully illustrates how sexual difference is not necessary for desire, for sociality, or for politics” (33). This notion emphasizes that sex is not inherently linked to a better worldly experience and that this notion can be deconstructed to create a more inclusive model of happiness
Bad Representation in The Assignment
Lastly, Keegan examines how bad transgender representation in The Assignment can be used to raise awareness of transgender oppression. The Assignment highlights the story of the assassin Frank Kitchen, played by Michelle Rodriguez, who, after eliminating a plastic surgeon’s brother, is forced to transition to a female by the said revengeful surgeon. Because the protagonist’s transmission is the result of another’s impulse, it fails the May Test and hence produces a bad transgender representation. Keegan suggests:
...it is only by being truly bad, by insisting on the incompleteness of what currently pass for sex and gender, that these systems can truly be overturned… Truly embracing badness means moving beyond a politics in which cisgender people grant the least disruptive forms of transgender identity a marginal amount of inclusion. It means, instead, pursuing a world in which the distinction between cis and trans ceases to exist altogether, because the systems enforcing binary sex and gender are dismantled. (35)
By better acknowledging the systems that are oppressing the transgender community through their bad media representation, Keegan concludes that society can work towards constructing a world that supports trans folk and potentially break the sex-gender binary that is suppressing the transgender community.
TAKEAWAYS
Responsibility of Consumers
If it is the cis-gendered, white-dominated systems that are defining “good” queer representation, as well as other forms of representation, in film, then it is up to consumers to be critical about whether the representations they are watching are serving their mission to be inclusive. If so, consumers should continue to buy and support those films and the representations they wish to see. If not, then it is their responsibility to educate other consumers about why a certain portrayal could be problematic and encourage others not to purchase those films. This gives the public more authority over the types of representations they wish to see in films, which could influence producers to produce more inclusive narratives.
WORKS CITED
Keegan, Cáel M. “On the Necessity of Bad Trans Objects.” Film Quarterly, vol. 75, no. 3,
2022, pp. 26–37, https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2022.75.3.26.
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Feminist Film Theory: A Reader, edited by
Sue Thornham, New York University Press, 1999, pp. 58–69. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost-com.proxy.uwec.edu/login.aspxdirect=true&AuthType=ip,uid&db=mzh&AN=1999088302&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
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