In the latest installment of everything is transphobic

I agree with @NeverDropYourMooncup
But as with so many things that could be be used to open up the trans debate and have a sensible discussion the trans lobby have gone straight for the drama of being transphobic.

🤣🤣🤣

That's where the terms of the discourse distract away from actually valid points; framing it as transphobic is applying current terminology (with all the inherent value judgements that entails) to the themes - any reader could identify with multiple characters and events in the book, but with the underlying assumptions of Trans = unfairly maligned, tortured, threatened, etc, that emotionally loaded language interferes with analysis.

It could just as easily be viewed as Victor representing Trans ideals, rather than Adam - or as being the baying mobs of the Universal Monsters franchise going after an unfortunate female who is not happy with her body and how others (men) react to her, not knowing how to speak or interact with people when they look at her being told that her body and behaviour is wrong and wicked because it doesn't match societal norms.

It's human nature to want to be the hero (heroine?) and whether anybody likes it or not, Adam and his Bride are seen as the iconic, tragic heroes thanks to the movies - nobody is going to be able to separate the two - if somebody who works in film is going to even consider the book rather than the popular culture depiction in any case.

How can Frankenstein be transphobic? Transgenderism wouldn't be invented for another 130-140 years later when pervy men started abusing oestrogen & getting mutilating genital surgery.

I think that the book itself, rather than the film depictions, could resonate uncomfortably if through a lens of undergoing surgery/identifying as another gender.

How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God!

And there is the consideration that a woman who had experienced a premature birth and death of that child could have flipped those memories into a man performing a female role - bringing life but also experiencing a visceral revulsion at the result - is changing sex and gender based functions, roles and expectations in the text in a way that challenges beliefs that it's all fine to do that, it's never going to go wrong, as it very much isn't all fine. Adam feeling rage at what he is and seeking to punish the parent who rejects him is also going to hit the target with that person - that love/hate, wanting to be accepted but isn't, yes, that's going to speak to them. And, of course, the doctor believing he could do it and it would be perfect, then his rejection making him the monster - that's going to be difficult, as 'does the surgeon promising me this really think I'm going to be beautiful? Or does he think I'm a hideous creature he's experimented with?'.

So many ways this can be read quite reasonably from a pro-trans viewpoint.

I do not believe that makes it transphobic, but making somebody uncomfortable because it challenges their own beliefs - yeah, this person has a valid point that could have been discussed.

Proves that Mary Shelley was a fucking amazing writer, though, creating something where her ideas can be discussed in relation to something like this, doesn't it?

OMG. you mean Norman and Buffalo were like REAL people and not just fictional characters invented out of someone’s head, bearing no relationship to real live humans at all?

Honestly, next you’ll be telling me Snow White and Cinderella weren’t real girls who just had extraordinary lives, because you know what, I am finding it harder and harder to sort out what is fact and what is fiction these days. Don’t know why that is, I used to know what was what, but heck now I hear so many untruths presented as real that I am starting to doubt the veracity of my own eyes and lived experience.

Luckily I find if I beat my head against a brick wall it sorts my brain out and normal service is restored. 🙂

(Which is of course not to say, or imply, that all transwomen are predators/dangerous/serial killers. This was known about long before transvestism was included with transgender/transexualism as some kind of "true identity" - it was understood as a male behaviour.)

But Ed Gein is far from the only example.

Yeah, we were both thinking it - Gein, the literal skinwalker.

Norman Bates, Jame Gumb/Buffalo Bill, Leatherface and others... all inspired by Ed Gein.

Jame Gumb also had elements from Ted Bundy (how he lures his victims by pretending to be injured) and Gary Heidnik (the imprisonment of his victims).

It would make more sense if this director was getting all upset about 'Dressed to Kill'.

There is a flipping big clue in the book's title, “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus”.

I guess the Prometheus bit passed this dude by.

It's Jane who has made a link between Frankenstein's monster, a fake pseudo-human made of a mash-up of dead bits who is psychologically tormented by its own existence, and trans people. I would have thought that was massively transphobic!

I also can't see how the monster is in any way like Norman Bates or Buffalo Bill. They reflect what has been well-known in psychology and criminology for a long time, that mentally unwell male murderers of women have high rates of cross-dressing. (In a real-life case I slightly knew the victim of, in the 90s, the killer then put on the victim's clothes.) It's a thing and related to the fact that sexual fetishes often come in groups and tend to escalate.

Frankenstein's monster is nothing like that, it isn't claiming to be a different sex or displaying a fetish and it it isn't evil. Though as we can see from Jane's confusion about who Frankestein is, Jane hasn't read the book.

it's an opinion they are entitled to have and you are entitled to disagree with it find downright silly if you want

Yes they are and yes we did, so not sure what your point is!

In one sense, those are the places where they saw representations that felt familiar or comforting in some way to their own experiences – but also, those movies are super f---ing transphobic and problematic,” the filmmaker added.

So finding Frankenstein's monster comforting, but also hugely trans phobic and problematic.

It's the usual bollocks, isn't it.

Finding it a little odd that both those papers gave it five stars. Although the endless lusting after Gillian Anderson in the comments might have something to do with it.

Delving further, Hannah Einbinder quote: “I have two trans siblings.”

https://www.papermag.com/hannah-einbinder#rebelltitem17

I went with support as my reaction. Thanks for taking one for the team and wading through that pile of nonsense 🙄

why shouldn't evil murderers identify as women if they want to? Fair is fair.

Absolutely. And it's exactly what Stonewall championed.

"Acceptance without exception" is a guiding principle for diversity and inclusion. Most prominently championed by Stonewall in the UK, the phrase advocates for the unquestionable rights and inclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals—particularly trans people—in all spaces and services, without loopholes or conditions."

From the article-
‘The psychedelic slasher, part satire and part arthouse horror, features a serial killer called “Little Death”. The character becomes a supernatural murderer after being bullied and made to drown for being trans during summer camp.’

So yet another weird trans revenge fantasy that skates very close to the plot of the Friday the 13th franchise?

To quote The Devil Wears Prada, groundbreaking…
I note The Guardian gives it five stars, which is rarely a ringing endorsement.
Also, his bio makes him sound like one of the last people on earth I’d want to invite to a dinner party.

'This image of the trans monster kept coming up, whether that be Norman Bates or Buffalo Bill or Frankenstein as a constructed body'

Schoenbrun doesn’t even grasp the very basic point that Frankenstein is the name of the creator, not the monster, so I wouldn’t be paying any attention to what Schoenbrun has to say.

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