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Tranny Cinema
 

in issue 52

Drive S/He Said: Felicity Huffman in Duncan Tucker's Transamerica — The odd couple takes it on the road

in issue 41

Angela's Lashes: Charles Busch's Die Mommie Die — Stage vet Charles Busch does glam for camp movie

Fists and Feathers: Madame Satã Reviewed — Don't mess with Madame

Glen or Glenda: Psychiatry, Sexuality, and the Silver Screen — Normalizing "deviant" genders and bodies is just one of many tropes in Wood's complex camp classic

in issue 40

"Fabulous Gowns but No Pussy!" An Interview with Holly Woodlawn — A superstar talks Trash and papayas

in issue 38

Being a Kid Is a Drag — Onscreen — There are drag queens and then there are drag princesses

in issue 37

The Revolution Starts with Glitter! The Cockettes — The legendary campsters of the counterculture take a bow in this diverting documentary

in issue 34

Mondo Tranny: Monika Treut's Gendernauts — This love letter to San Francisco's tranny community is a little too loving

in issue 31

Poor Queen: Giorgios Katakouzinos's Angel — Giorgios Katakouzinos's 1982 feature is one of the most acclaimed and popular Greek films ever. This in spite of the fact that it's a luridly, not to mention openly, queer story about a homosexual soldier who is forced to become a transvestite prostitute by his macho, domineering lover.

in issue 27

Hell in the Heartland: Boys Don't Cry — This powerful film is based on the short unhappy life of the now notorious "sexual misfit" Brandon Teena — aka Teena Renae Brandon of Lincoln, Nebraska — who was born a girl but saw herself increasingly as a boy. She convinced most of those she met, including a string of lovesick girlfriends, that she was who she wanted to be: a heterosexual male.

in issue 23

Cultural Makeovers: San Francisco's Tranny Fest — Trannies of every stripe — drag queens and kings, transsexuals, intersexuals, etc. — have traditionally had even less say in constructing their cultural identities than gay people have in creating theirs. Fortunately, trannies are not taking this lying down, as evidenced by San Francisco's daylong Tranny Fest film festival.

Primal Gross-Out: Pink Flamingos Restored — For the few who haven't memorized every nuance of this seminal camp work, Pink Flamingos follows the adventures of Babs Johnson (Divine), a fat, style-obsessed criminal who lives in a trailer with her mentally ill mother Edie, her delinquent son Crackers, and her traveling companion Cotton. Their little dream life of shoplifting, egg-sucking, and chicken-fucking is threatened when an eccentric couple try to seize Dawn's title of "filthiest person alive" by sending her a turd in the mail.

in issue 21

Bugis Street — A bittersweet look at the daily lives of the tranny whores of a legendary red-light district of 1960s Singapore — with free make-up tips!

in issue 19

A New Kind of Tranny: Different for Girls — In a cinema crowded with self-conscious transgressions, Kim offers the real article when she strips to show her straight boyfriend the thrilling secrets of the altered body.

Hong Kong's "Who's the Man?" Series: Bending the Gender Till It Breaks — Hong Kong's gender-benders are the stuff of legend; director Patrick Chan adds two key works to the canon in these 1996 bookend satires of fame, pop music, and forbidden kisses.

in issue 17

"An Oasis of Glamor in a Universe of Mediocrity": Vegas in Space — John Waters, Zsa Zsa Gabor, The Bad Seed, Supermarionation — drag queen diva Doris Fish trawled through the lowest depths of culture for her homemade camp fairy tale.

"There Was No Before!": The Queen — This grimy, exciting artifact from the '60s shows how important beauty contests were to the queens who ruthlessly — and kind of sadly — mimicked their straight counterparts.

in issue 16

The Birdcage — Seemingly respectable filmmakers are eagerly repackaging homosexuals as whining, pathetic drag queens for a culture disturbed by sex plagues and nose-ringed militants. If To Wong Foo led the charge, The Birdcage delivers the body blow. This is understandable in a sense. Society longs for the pre-AIDS homosexual, and even more for the comic-pathetic caricatured Drag Queen. And there are plenty of "artists" all too happy to deliver this image.

It's an Ed Wood World After All! — The "world's worst director" never apologized for wearing women's clothes, though many have questioned his taste in sweaters.

films