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My Review of "Disclosure"

A documentary discussing the history of trans representation in the media.

By Brian AnonymousPublished 4 years ago 4 min read
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Disclosure is an interesting documentary as we are getting more and more trans representation in films and TV shows. I was curious why the jump in trans representation has jumped so fast recently when there are other minority groups that aren't quite represented quite as much even though they carry a higher percentage of the population. I was hoping to hear some new perspectives as well.

This documentary is presented somewhat chronologically. It speaks upon how trans people have been represented in different generations. They dive mostly into the media aspect of popular opinion however they go into some social attitudes of the time as well.

The movie talks about how males were comically placed in female clothing in the past as a common joke. It would commonly be laughed at and this was the general consensus. There is a bit of a difference between real life and the media in the past though. At one time it used to be illegal for people to be wearing clothing of the opposite gender. It was and still technically is frowned upon and as the film proceeds we kind of see the change in perception over time.

I had to think in the beginning of the film it seemed more like the filmmakers themselves weren't even aware of the notion of being trans and a lot of the inappropriate depictions of trans people were done ignorantly. As it says in the movie it was more of a negative depiction of femininity. In many of the early films that they show it definitely shows that there is a patriarchal oppression of femininity and that was the major motivation for these jokes.

Later on in the film it seems that filmmakers are becoming more aware of the concept of trans and write these characters as mentally ill or criminals. Writers were probably people that only took bits and pieces of information that they wanted to sensationalize their movie. Then again you don't really have much of a movie if you have everything smelling like roses. Still, there is overwhelming evidence that the films at the time had very negative depictions of trans individuals.

Then the film later goes into more of an acceptance of trans individuals in the media. Some of the speakers in this film even say that they were shocked that it was like a light switch where there was so much positive representation of trans individuals on screen. It's really interesting to see how far the media has progressed in portraying trans individuals on screen throughout the years. That's not to say there still aren't any lingering issues.

It was also interesting to see that there were a lot of trans individuals in films in the past without anyone knowing. Some of them are still unknown even in this age of information. That's truly fascinating.

Still I didn't get my answer as to why there is so much more trans representation now than ever. It's good to have but even this film was questioning it. There's even an example in this film where they talk about the movie Boys Don't Cry. In real life Brandon Teena had a black best friend that had also died but they wrote him out of the movie. So no one knows why some marginalized groups get shunned in the limelight whereas others get shine.

Popularity always changes so I understand the fear that the trans community has with their recent popularity.

There's a ton of information in this film and it's a lot to take in. I think it was pretty interesting and informative. They did it in a comprehensive way where you don't really ever feel like you're lost in the mix of things that they're throwing your way. It's also a different perspective that you might or might not be familiar with.

Overall, I thought it was a pretty informative and entertaining documentary. Having a nice balance is always key for a good documentary. There are times when I thought there was a little mixing of what the message is trying to be. That's only because they tried to pack so much into one documentary. I have to give this documentary a 7.5 out of 10. It was pretty good but I think they could have split this into a bunch of different documentaries because of the vast amount of areas that they covered.

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About the Creator

Brian Anonymous

I have tons of opinions that change constantly. I watch a lot of movies and play video games. There are some articles on my struggles with languages and dance as well.

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