The Reel Deal

Last Thursday, September 18, 2008, was the screening of Ma Vie en Rose (My Life in Pink), the first film of Reel Genders International Film Series, that Upstate Feminists is co-sponsoring with the Center for Women's and Gender Studies this year. Beginning at 7pm in USC Upstate's Tukey Theater, the film, introduced by Pride Upstate Vice President, Stacey Haney, only lasted about a hour and half, with a student/professor led talk-back afterward. When I arrived, I was pleasantly surprised at the large turn-out of about 50 people, especially since it was just a handful of faculty and mostly students. The French film centered around a trans-girl, Ludovic, who was born a little girl in a boys body and takes place over the course of about a year. Because being a girl feels natural to her, while her male sex does not, she begins to talk openly her about crush on a boy, Jerome, the son of his fathers boss and says she will marry him "when [she is] a girl." It, rather light-heartedly, shows the challenges and confusions seven-year-old Ludovic faces in the heteronormative community in which she lives as well as her coping mechanism of a fantasy world--a world that consists of toy-like imagery and a doll/cartoon character whom makes it safe for her to be and feel like a real girl. When her parents take her child therapy she cleverly develops her own theory of her a mix-up in her genes and refers to herself a girlboy. All the while the community as well as her family are slowly realizing that it isn't just a little boy playing dress-up or pretend, but Ludovic actually considers herself to be a girl. The hostility to Ludovic's actions rises when her father loses his job and the family has to move again. However, the film has a optimistic ending in when Ludovic meets a little trans-boy like him, who introduces himself as "Chris," right before his mother calls him "Christine," and Ludovic's parents finally accept her the way she is telling her to "do what feels best."

I really enjoyed the film as well as its depiction of what it is like to grow up trans and thought the little boy, Georges Du Fresne, did a phenomenal job in his portrayal of Ludovic. Dr. Lisa Johnson and Stacey Haney led the talk-back with the audience that followed the film and the interactive discussion was a great wrap-up to the screening. The reactions from the audience were quite positive and it was obvious that the film presented a lighter and better understanding of what trans people deal with in life, particularly at an early age. Please come out and join us for the next film, Show Me Love, on October 16, when Dr. George Williams and I will facilitate the talk-back after the screening.

--Lindsay