Transgender bias

Look around at art-house marquees of the past few years heralding films such as Brokeback Mountain, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Shortbus, Tarnation, Mysterious Skin and Transamerica, and it might seem from the plethora of gay-themed cinema that a brave new age is upon us. On the eve of the 19th annual Out on Film Festival, some might wonder if, with the incorporation of gay issues into straight cinema, the gay and lesbian film festival might someday be the symbol of a less enlightened age.

As the Seattle alternative newspaper the Stranger's Jamie Hook proposes, "the overtly 'gay' film ... has found itself overwhelmed by its osmosis into the larger culture, to the point that the original mission of the fest threatens to slouch toward obsolescence."

But this year's Out on Film, like gay and lesbian film festivals across the country, proves that there is still a niche to be served and a necessity in pushing the envelope where the mainstream fears to tread.

As Out on Film and IMAGE Film & Video Executive Director Gabe Wardell notes, the specially themed gay and lesbian film festival isn't becoming irrelevant any time soon.

"For every Brokeback Mountain that gets through, there are a dozen films that don't get a distribution deal," he says. "So festivals remain an outlet for people who are experimenting with work. It gives them a surefire audience."

Perhaps the clearest sign of how gay and lesbian film festivals continue to distinguish themselves from the mainstream is by including films that touch on the vanguard of gay life — the true outsiders such as sex workers and transsexuals struggling for acceptance, often even within the gay community.

For new IMAGE festival director Dan Krovich, Out on Film is still aligned with the gay vanguard for dealing with these transgender themes: "As the mainstream becomes more comfortable with gay and lesbian themes, transgender may become the next frontier."

The perfect example is this year's closing-night film, the raw, Hedwig-esque musical 20 Centimeters, about a narcoleptic Spanish transsexual prostitute whose fondest dream is to get his "problem" lopped off and become a woman.

As a reflection of this trend for pushing the envelope, in addition to 20 Centimeters, Out on Film features a number of documentary films centered on transgender issues. For example, Trantasia is set in Las Vegas during a transsexual beauty pageant, while Hotel Gondolin takes its name from the Buenos Aires hotel for transsexual and transgender residents.

Unlike Transamerica, which used the road-movie comedy genre to explore transsexuality, the more personal, incisive documentary Boy I Am is the real-life story of three women transforming into men.

Many of those women, it turns out, grapple with fierce vocal opposition even within the gay community, from lesbians disturbed by their preference for living as men. Also notable on the Out on Film bill is the Danish film Soap — voted Best First Feature at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival — about a recently divorced woman and her increasingly intimate relationship with her transsexual prostitute neighbor.

"Politically, gay and lesbian rights now seem to focus on 'normalcy,'" Krovich says. "The concentration is more on the idea that same-sex couples want to marry, raise kids, and have what's considered the 'normal' American life. And in order to try to gain more mainstream acceptance, there could be a temptation to try to create distance from the transgender issues, which are viewed as even more extreme by the general public."

But the beauty of a gay film festival such as Out on Film, Wardell says, is the combination of a more receptive audience and filmmakers willing to challenge and provoke.

"A film about the transgendered culture in particular can take you into the life and into the mind-set" of its characters, Wardell observes, "and treats the characters with dignity and the kind of humanity they might not be afforded even in mainstream film.

"The festivals will continue to be the place that nurtures these voices and gives them a safe place to screen their work."

So while the rising acceptance of films and television with gay characters might suggest the gay film festival is an endangered species, Wardell doesn't think we should jump to any premature conclusions about cultural acceptance of gay life.

"When you look at the prevalence of scare tactics that gay marriage has brought up and the way political figures are able to use that issue to rally support — and it's more support in terms of what they're against [and] not necessarily what they're for — it really does strike a chord," Wardell says. "Even if one believes there's acceptance in certain media cultures of these things, I think there's a long way to go."