Appropriation Tales: Israel Luna and dead trans women
Warning: Contains quoted descriptions of violence against trans people.
With the state of appropriation of trans lives in the queer community being what it is, I wasn’t terribly shocked when I found out about Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives, a new “comedy/thriller/‘transploitation” film directed by a cissexual gay man, Israel Luna. Trans women especially are subject to being reframed in cis people’s narratives, and gay men especially seem to have a sense of entitlement over the identities of trans women. This piece does a good job of pointing outmuch of the transphobia, transmisogyny, and cissexual privilege in the movie and in Israel Luna’s attitudes towards trans people.
Although annoyed by the news of the movie, this seemed just another case of the LGB community appropriating trans lives. When I checked the movie’s trailer on YouTube, however, I was genuinely shocked. Only four seconds in, against mournful music, I could not believe what I was reading:
Denver, CO
Angie Zapata, a transgender teen
is bludgeoned to death by a
man she met online.
Literally mouth agape, I kept watching:
Caguas, Puerto Rico -
a 26 year old man picks up
Jorge Mercado who is dressed
as a woman,
then kills him – burning him,
dismembering him,
then decapitating him.
NSFW, and extremely transphobic, the film’s trailer. Warning, contains violent imagery:
I felt sick. I have seen the lives and even the deaths of trans people appropriated by cis LGB culture before, but I didn’t think anyone would be so crass as to describe in lurid detail the deaths of two trans people (ironic in how quickly many cis gays were to distance Jorge Mercado from any sort of trans identity before) to promote a COMEDY. A drag queen comedy directed by a cissexual gay man. Even more troubling is the pornographic description of their deaths. Do cis people not realize how incredibly triggering and damaging it can be having to read the detailed description of how a trans person was murdered? And then the sickening punch of realizing it was done in the aim of promoting a comedy?
Rather than being left to wither in obscurity, however, this film is being given access to one of the best known film festivals in North America, Tribeca Film Festival. Israel Luna, for appropriating the lives of trans people and being willing to sink to really disgusting lengths to promote his work is being given an internationally recognized stage to show his product. Again cis people are promoting other cis people’s appropriation as art.
Please take the time to write the festival to express your disappointment with their decision to program such a transphobic, appropriative film. Contact Tammie Rosen at (212) 941-2003, or trosen@tribecaenterprises.com.
As well, there is a Facebook group you can join to show solidarity with trans people on this issue.
ETA this classy quote from the director:
“[My film's] like Grand Theft Auto. If you have a bad day at work, you can shoot some people, kill some hookers, trash your car and feel better. It’s the same with my movie.”
Trackbacks
- Appropriation of Trans Women’s Deaths in Cis Gay Film « Questioning Transphobia
- Beautiful Darling « gudbuy t'jane
- Margins of Biography « Questioning Transphobia
- today i am thinking about: ticked-off artists and appropriation art « things to think about
- Uneasy allies: Trans women and Cis gay men « gudbuy t'jane
oh fuck i didn’t see that coming. the trailer has a extremely fucked up scene in the beginning that made me fucking cry. some reason I thought the plot was going to be shallow cheap cis laughs not extreme violence.
Hi, I am sorry I didn’t make that more clear. I’ve added a bit more of a description, but I really apologize for not making that clearer so you could brace for it.
“[My film's] like Grand Theft Auto. If you have a bad day at work, you can shoot some people, kill some hookers, trash your car and feel better. It’s the same with my movie.”
WTF??
and hey its ok. theres zero chance of me ever facing that form of transphobic straight guy violence. I guess I’ve been a lot closer to it in the past and maybe thats why it hit me or its just trans female solidarity but its not really about me at least not who I am now.
I feel zero conflict about what a complete asshole this guy is. and I want to go down to Tribeca and throw a rock at his head but I’m conflicted about fact that there are trans actresses who star in the film. and i guess I’m stuck there. and all I can say is hey your smart what do you think?
That was even worse than I thought it would be. Also it’s a really fucking badly edited trailer, and the film looks incompetent. “Camp” is not an excuse for flat-out incompetence. Israel Luna is a moronic asshole, I’m sure he’s a shitty film maker, and that fucking GTA quote is just a cherry on the sundae of SUCK. Asshole. Hate him. The FUCK is wrong with people, including the people at the Tribeca film festival.
That comment about liking GTA because “killing hookers” in the game makes him feel better? Guess that’s part of how he can appropriate the deaths of trans women (portraying us all as prostitutes while doing so, of course) and call it “humor”.
What a fucking douche…this trans woman prostitute, for one, isn’t laughing.
Well, I’d never suggest violence, but I hope a protest is there opening night.
As far as there being trans people involved in acting, I’ve seen others mention this, and I really think it is a red herring. The writer and director is Israel Luna, and that makes this overwhelmingly his project and based on his attitudes. Although it features some members this isn’t by the trans community, it is by the gay community. History has many examples of marginalized people performing in their oppressors’ art.
Yeah, when I came across that quote I had that gross feeling of simultaneously being shocked and not being shocked. It’s frustrating to have my low expectations so consistently met.
This is just completely nauseating. Plus with one of the cis actors pissing all over Gina’s comment page …
yeah i agree with that. thanks.
I’m all for a good gory trans revenge film (ooh, a Tarantino-esque Death Proof analogue would be awesome) — but this is absolutely not it. This actually makes me want to throw up a little: it’s one thing for cis people to murder so many of us each year, juxtaposed against this “OOPS LOLZ SORRY” movie utterly devoid of trans voices … ugh, yuck.
Oh, Jesus Christ. This is disgusting.
The last movie to make use of this kind of deathsploitation, Cruising, had people up in arms. Rightly so: it was homophobic gore-porn disguised as gritty realism with a message. This is transphobic gore-porn disguised as high! camp! irony!
I’m trying to imagine the equivalent with Matthew Shepard, and…no, there’s no way.
I’m all for a good gory trans revenge film (ooh, a Tarantino-esque Death Proof analogue would be awesome) …
…Maybe someone out there can make The Mysterious and Violent Death of Israel Luna.
Not to dismiss the difficulty of getting work as a trans actress, but I think the answer is false dilemma. The solution is to start supporting filmmakers who aren’t appropriative, including trans filmmakers.
I think one of the most disturbing things about this whole controversy is its dismissal by its defenders: but it’s an exploitation film! Right. EXPLOITATION! Is that a genre we should be celebrating? They call them exploitation films because they were known for exploiting marginalized groups and their stereotypes.
Also, I have a really big problem with this being defined as camp. Someone needs to read their Susan Sontag.
I’m all for a gory, schlocky movie about trans women taking revenge on their abusers. It could even have chilling scenes of violence against trans women that then clearly merit, and get, vengeance taken out in over-the-top ways. I don’t even care if it was a little funny, as long as the funny was tempered with the grim necessity of revenge. I mean, violence-for-violence vengeance is not what I would advocate as a political strategy, or my personal strategy, for actually making change. But it sure could be a good release.
However, I’d only be “all for” everything described above if it was done by someone who wasn’t TOTALLY tone-deaf to how to represent trans women in an empowering way. It’s not like you have to cut drag queens from the film — a lot of drag queens are trans women too. It’s not like you have to cut out the trashy b-movie outfits or the campiness — there’s nothing illegitimate about that kind of expression of gender, even if it does veer close to stereotype. But you certainly could strive for more diversity of representation of trans women, and it’s pretty clear that serious tone-deafness is in effect when there’s a line like “it takes balls…” on the poster, and when the filmmakers refuse to respond to requests about not using the word “tranny.”
Look, I’m even willing to believe that probably somewhere out there is a cis filmmaker who is enough in solidarity with a community of trans women, who has real vital collaborators who are trans women and would involve them in a real way in making a gory slash revenge film, and who might make a film like the one I’m describing. But it doesn’t look like Israel Luna is that filmmaker.
Honestly, I don’t understand how Isreal Luna is so dense to see what kind of conflict and hate this creates or is he intentionally this big of an asshole.