Gender and Ma Vie En Rose

by Keith Garcia

What is Gender? and what is Sex?...Gender are the behavioral and psychological traits related to a person and sex relates to male and female. The movie “Ma Vie En Rose” is a story about a boy named Ludavic (Ludo) who strongly believe that he was meant to be a girl. Although Ludo is a boy, he is taking on the gender role of a girl. It’s something that he just felt was right and went with it. So why make a film about gender role, what is its significance?

Michael R. Schiavi says in his article “A “Girlboys” Own Story: Non-Masculine Narrativity En Ma Vie en Rose” that Ludo emerges into the setting as a gender disaster. What he is referring to is the scene where Ludo shows up in his sister’s fairy princess dress. This is abnormal behavior for a boy because of how we think boys and girls should dress and act. Gender roles are usually picked up at a young age watching either dad or mom do certain things. Growing up children see how male and female act and then the child will try to mimic those actions. This is different for Ludo because he has feels that he was supposed to be a girl. Schiavi refers to this as “coming in” instead of “coming out” because of this sense of being born in the wrong body.

Schiavi says “the interiority and silence that generally contain youthful homosexual self-awareness, speech acts, and narrative possibility” is what makes Ludo’s pre-notion of being a girl to be known as “coming in.” This film portrays the struggle Ludo goes through dealing with being a transgender, as well as, shows how others react to Ludo’s self-awareness. We are self-aware of what gender we are and react accordingly. I grew up loving things such as Ninja Turtles and Transformers, not because it was forced upon, but because it was what appealed to me as a boy. The same thing goes for Ludo which was dresses and dolls. Society shuns upon gender actions that are outside the norm but who is an individual to say don’t act like that, it’s not right…only the person should be able to decide that for themselves.

Heaven Isn't Soooo Far Awaaaay....A discussion of Stacey/Fannon and Far From Heaven

by Keith Garcia

The movie “Far From Heaven” focuses on two main characters, Kathy who is the model white wife of the neighborhood and Raymond who is a successful black man in a time where race was an issue. Both of these characters break racial barriers by communicating with one another. They also overcome other obstacles through out the movie.

In Frantz Fanon’s article “The Fact of Blackness” he talks about what it’s like to be black in the white man’s world. He mention’s that in order for a black man to be black he must be black in relation to the white man. What he means by this is that the black man isn’t just considered a “man” without having black attached to it, compared to a white man who other wise would be known as “that man over there.”

What relation does Fanon’s article have with the film? The character Raymond in the movie is a well educated and very articulate black man living in the 1950’s. When he is first introduced in the film, Kathy sees him outside her window and is startled by the fact there is a man outside in her garden. Instead of seeing him as just a man looking around he was viewed as a threat to her home. Her reaction to his presence was of high alert. Fanon talks about how his skin color has put people on alert just how Raymond’s did with Kathy. As the movie progresses other white people view Raymond’s skin color as a spectacle and not just him as a person.

Even though Kathy is startled by him in the garden she learned to know him as a man instead of just a black man. A scene where Kathy and Raymond are discussing art in art gallery shows their interaction as just two people but the white’s in the gallery look at him as if he were some sort of animal, not sophisticated enough to be in their presence. Fanon speaks of a time when he was viewed in the same manner by a child saying “Look, a Negro!” “Mama, see the Negro! I’m Frightened!” He then goes on to say all he wanted was to be a man among other men just how Raymond in the movie wanted to be viewed.

Kathy’s interest in Raymond quickly turns into desire through the movie as she gets to know him on a personal level. Jackie Stacey talks about fascination and desire in the article “Desperately Seeking Difference.” Stacey also explains how women face the opposition of femininity and masculinity and how a woman is to take on both roles through desire and identification. So in what way do we see this in the film?
Kathy’s husband, ol’ washboard abs (Dennis Quaid), battles his sexuality and in the end leaves his family for a man. At this point Kathy fills in for his absence being both mother and father to the children. This also gave her time to understand what Raymond was about and she desired to learn more about him.

Ultimately her desire forced him to move from the city and give up the floral shop because the white people did not like their association with each other. Their friendship could not be sustained because of the color of his skin. “I progress by crawling. And already I am being dissected under white eyes, the only realy eyes. I am fixed….they objectively cut away slices of my reality” (420).

I thought Alien Nation was a T.V. show?....An overview of Marx and Dancer in the Dark

Keith Garcia

At the beginning of the reading Marx talks about how as workers the labor we put into an object is confined in that object. He goes on to explain that the worker puts his heart and soul into an object only for it to remain trapped in that object; (The greater this product, the less is he himself) Marx 297. Marx describes this as the alienation of labor in which this labor is external; that the work is not essential to that person. "His labor is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labor"(298).

The same can be said for the character Selma in Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark. She spent many hours at the factory making what looked like sinks or basins. At the factory she is no longer herself and thus becomes a product of labor. She works hard all day for a paycheck which she uses sparingly, only paying for necessities and putting the rest away for her son's eye operation. She fears he will suffer from blindness which she is also battling. Scolded for almost ruining the machine line and falling behind on products produced, she starts to feel as less of a person. This brings in a sense of alienation because she feels that she is not cut out for any other work because her current occupation is all she knows and without eyesight she can not learn anything new.

With all this talk of alienation what does it have to do with Selma? How does the director show this in his film? Marx says that alienation is labor of self-sacrifice and that's exactly what Selma has done. She has sacrificed herself to the work line so that her son would be able to have his vision the rest of his life. However, her labor was taken away by her eyesight as she broke one of the machines in the production line. This caused her to lose her work and source of income for Jean's operation. Marx also states that whatever the product of his labor is, he is not (297) and that is how Selma felt after losing her job. She felt like she wasn't capable of doing anything else and when put in a confrontation between her neighbor Bill and her stolen money, she had to make the ultimate sacrifice. He wasn't going to give her the money back unless she killed him, which she did and refused a 2nd trial and lawyer so that she could use the money for the operation. She lost all hope for herself and in return wanted Jean to pull forward. She did not want him to become a harsh object of labor.