The Acisted Eye: Transgender and Intersex Bodies in International Cis-Authored Film and Television

Dealing with the politics of representation, this thesis examines the implications of mainstream media depicting minority bodies. Contemporary North American media is inundated with images of transgender bodies. But who is depicting these bodies and how are they directing the spectator to look and listen to the transgender or intersex protagonist? This thesis explores the different ways in which contemporary cisgender filmmakers in Australia, France, the United States and Uruguay encourage spectators to understand the transgender body, while counterbalancing this analysis with a depictions of an intersex experience. By analyzing three different modes of fashioning the transgender and intersex protagonists (through self-representation, by the camera and production by the diegetic home) the formation of identities can be firmly mapped. This thesis uses close visual analysis in relation to key theories in trans scholarship to understand how transgender and intersex bodies are being fictionally represented by their cisgender counterparts.