No

I’ve talked about this before on this blog but this is the most disgustingly transphobic and lesbophobic narrative I’ve ever come across. 

CWs: transphobia, homophobia, lesbophobia, corrective rape, voyeurism

The book Adam by Ariel Schrag is being turned into a movie which has been named as one of the most exciting LGBTQ films of the year. You should know before watching that the book is about a cis boy who pretends to be a trans man in order to persuade lesbians to sleep with him.

Yeah… you read that right.

Book plot summary: 

boy spies on his lesbian sister having sex

boy decides to pretend to be a trans man (gross)

i.e. pretends to have a vagina because he thinks lesbians will want him then (he literally wants to fuck lesbians because he watched his lesbian sister have sex wtf)

he does get a lesbian to sleep with him, he straps his penis down using ace bandages and uses a strap on.

all the actual trans dudes we meet identify as lesbians this basically implies that trans men are not real men (lesbians i.e. women)  

another time they have sex again only he uses his actual penis but tells her its a strap on. that’s literally rape, she didn’t consent to an actual penis.

he confesses that he’s been lying to her this whole time but she doesn’t break up with him. she even says its okay cause she fantasised about him being “a real boy"

that’s a direct quote. massive transphobia. huge. not to mention this is now the “lesbian is cured by dick trope” which is disgusting and that trope leads to real lesbians and bi women being raped to “fix” them. 

he leaves new york, they’re long distance. they get in an argument and he calls her a slut and a whore among other things and then she dumps him

eventually they get back in touch and she has a new cis boyfriend so yep, she’s been “cured” woo she’s actually straight and he helped her realise that yay (massive sarcasm)

It is deeply deeply transphobic. To imply that our identities are just costumes for other people to put on erases who we are as people. More than that, to imply it is done to trick people into sex is a dangerous lie that literally gets us killed.

It is also deeply lesbophobic. To fuel this narrative that lesbians can be “fixed” by having sex with a man leads to real corrective rapes happening. 

Here is a review of the book by a trans man. I have yet to find one by a lesbian but will edit this if I do.

This book gives out incredibly harmful notions about trans men and lesbians that are used to hurt them in real life. It’s so entrenched in the narrative that I don’t see how the film can possibly be any better.

I do not say any of this lightly. it’s very very rare for me to call out a piece of fiction or for me to decide that a story is unfixable. But this… there’s no excuse for the bigotry in this. 

I’d like to tell people to boycott it but I can’t tell you what to do. So instead I’m going to ask that you share this because it being named as an exciting new LGBTQ film is going to make LGBTQ teens want to see it. And they should know beforehand how hurtful it could be. They should be able to arm themselves with that knowledge.

Don’t make queer kids see this film believing it will represent them only to be exposed to this hatred of their identities. 

Ginger Rogers was a FUCKING BADASS. Ignore for a sec the rampant sexism in Hollywood (they once bleached  her hair blonde in wardrobe without telling her beforehand), the fact that she fought her whole career against typecasting and stereotyping from fellow actors (Katharine Hepburn famously said of the Astaire/Rogers partnership “she gave him sex. He gave her class” ) for starting out in musicals, and went on to have a career lasting over fifty years, winning a Best Actress Oscar (Kitty Foyle, 1940). But… JUST focusing on the Astaire movies…

Not only did she dance “backwards” in high heels, the dances were a task in themselves. Astaire was an absolute perfectionist and choreographed for himself, so as a younger, less experienced dancer Rogers came in at a disadvantage and worked her ass off to match him. 

Then there’s the filming complications… these numbers were filmed in ONE TAKE. So one thing goes wrong and you have to start over. Maybe you make a mistake or maybe your dress flies up because…

Ginger had to contend with her wardrobe. Dancing in heels is the norm at this time, but dancing in a dress designed for cinema cameras… not so much. They were heavy, embellished, uncomfortable, restrictive and cumbersome and essentially a third member of the dance, strapped to the body of one partner.Not only did she have to dance and look good, she had to control the dress too!

Take this routine from Swing Time… (it gets going proper at 1:30ish)

This dress has weights, YES WEIGHTS, sewn in to the hem to make it fly out and create a visual effect. So it’s heavy, it hurts if it hits you, and your partner gets mad if it hits him. So you gotta control it. 

Well it turns out all these factors on this set, this particular day aren’t going so well. So you’re doing take after take, here’s no labour laws, so at 4am after 18 hours you’re still going, even though part of the routine requires you to spin up those curved stairs with no rail at high speed….

Okay so now back to those high heels. In Ginger’s autobiography she vividly remembers this night as the night she bled though her shoes. They did so many takes, her feet blistered, bled, and the white satin high heels she was wearing finished he night pink because they were literally full of blood. And still they keep shooting. She keeps dancing.

The take they use in the film is the last. Early hours. Bloody feet. And she spins, acts and bosses out until that last second. Because she was that professional, talented and bloody minded. This is the last set of spins… 

So I say once again. Ginger Rogers was a badass.