Transgender Subjectivity and Cinema: the Experience of Transgression or the Experience of Borderline

Article

Abstract

[In Belarusian]

The main concern of the article is the question of the cinematic
possibility to implement the transgressive potential of the
transgender subjectivities. In order to find an answer the author
tries to analyze the social context of the cinematic representations
of transgender in the USA, Russia and Belarus, as well as
to figure out the difference between possible explanations of the
notion ‘transgender’ – as the umbrella term and as the transgressive
experience. The author analyses concepts of drag subjectivity
by J. Butler and the connections between ideology, gender
and cinema described by T. de Lauretis. This theoretical approach
is seen as necessary for the further analysis of the Russian
comedy Veselchaki that represents transgender subjects. Putting
together theoretical concepts and the analysis of the film the author
came to the understanding of cinema as an ideological apparatus
that nevertheless gives the resources for the implementation
of the transgressive potential in the representation of transgender
subjectivity, but to achieve this a cinematographic text should
be transgressive by itself. And on the other hand, the researcher
should be very sensible to the so-called «positive» representations
of transgender as in the majority of cases such films implement
the principle of the «soft aggression» and construct the transgender
subjectivity according to the «assimilationist politics».