Walter Hill"s thriller that uses gender re-assignment surgery as a plot point is incredibly transphobic, in more ways than one.
Frank’s ridiculous surgical bandages. Bạn đang xem: ‘the assignment’: the worst moments in walter hill’s transphobic movie
When Frankwakes up from his abduction, he is wrapped instrategically placed trắng gauze bandages. Unwrapping his face, there is no bruising or scarring, only a beautiful Rodriguez. (Acting as hard as she can, Rodrigueztwists her face in anger at suddenly being a woman.) The bandages around her perfectly healedbreasts are wrapped in an X across her body, lượt thích a rejected costume from “Xena: Warrior Princess.”
When Frank’s love interest, a nurse named Johnnie (Caitlin Gerard) says of a patient: “Every time I change his IV, he grabs my butt. I don’t mind. He’s sweet & he’s on his way out.”
Becausewomen “don’t mind”being molested at work, as long as the dudeissweet. This movie can’t decide if it’s unadulteratedmale fantasy or nightmare. Either way, it’s made for, by, & about men.
When Frank gazessadly where his penis used to lớn be và tellsJohnnie, by way of seduction, “I’ll vày what I can.”
HA! Because it’s only sex if there is a penis going into a vagina! What the hell vì chưng you gals bởi in bed, anyway?
When Frank asks a doctor about his genitalia: “Can I get off with whatever this is?”
This is probably one of the most viscerally dehumanizingmoments in the film, tantamount lớn calling a trans person “it,” as if they were somekind of freak of nature. It’s hate speech lượt thích this thatleads 40 percent of transgenderpeople khổng lồ attempt suicide.
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Dr. Kay’s big expository speech at the film’s end: “I wanted khổng lồ reinforce the theory that if gender is identity, then even the most extreme medical procedure will fail to lớn alter the essence. Và this proved khổng lồ be true. Frank Kitchen is still very much the man he was, because he believes himself to lớn be the man he was.”
As this speech shows, Hill genuinely seems lớn think he is grappling with gender in a meaningful and positive way.Rather than just chalk the strangepremise up to a science-fiction plot twist, the movie attempts to lớn justify itself with this half-hearted explanation. This idea is echoed in the defensive interviews Hill, Weaver, và Rodriguez gave leading up to the film’s release, where Hill statedthat Frank is not transgender, but that“he’s forced into a body into which he does not identify with.”
Such shoddy explanations only further prove that Hill had no business making this movie in the first place, which headmits himself: “We had no idea when we were getting ready khổng lồ make the movie that this was going khổng lồ be a volatile subject.”
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