Welcome to Trans Tuesday! Tillyvision speeds down the slopes in THE UNINTENTIONALLY INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF LISA FRANKENSTEIN, part 4! This week we discuss Lisa’s super trans dream, and how hate and bigotry can come in passive-aggressive forms!
Like a good student of the art of cinema, you’ll have read PART 1, PART 2, and PART 3 first, so you have some idea what’s going on, yes? Yes.
Good, because I’m not waiting any longer. Lessgo!
16:22 – “Strange” by Galaxie 500 plays. The lyrics sure read to me like someone just going through the motions, doing the cis things everyone expects of them, and wondering why they ever agreed to it.
Why’s everybody actin’ funny?
Why’s everybody look so strange?
Why’s everybody look so nasty?
What do I want with all these things?
16:40 – We cut to black and white, a world run by the FALSE DICHOTOMY, the false cis binary matrix, and the tears on her face. She’s still in bed but in a fancy dress with bows on it. Ultra femininity.
17:06 – She sits up, and a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer blanket falls off of her. It, and the Doug it represents (I fucking hate Doug), was holding her down and confining her to that box.
She looks at a photo of her mom, who tells her to wash her hands and calls her “kiddo,” infantilizing her. Remember just a few minutes (of screentime) ago, Doug called her the same thing. It’s no coincidence it happens again here, from her mom. Neither of them respect her.
And the “wash your hands,” well… where did Lisa have her hands when she was assaulted? Note that her mom also winks at her after saying it. It all reads as very “boys will be boys” and “you were probably asking for it, Lisa” and “if he says you led him on, you must have” so just be a good girl and clean up afterward.
A doll looks at her and calls her “Mama.” Being a mother is also a box society wants to force her (and all perceived women) into, and that can be dysphoric when you’re not the gender that word’s associated with. Getting called “dad” was always painful for me, even though I love being a parent, and I never knew why, until I figured out I was trans. See TRANS PARENTS (Mother’s Day) to learn more about that.
17:30 – She sits up further, and Frank, as the statue from his grave, sits next to her. You can see her hair really well here, and what’s it look like? The Bride of Frankenstein. Frank’s not fully alive, she’s not fully his bride, so they’re not together aka a self-accepted and transitioned person, but they’re closer than they’ve ever been, despite the world seeing in only black and white, cis boy or cis girl.
They turn to look at each other, but she’s not scared. He opens his hands to reveal a package of Freshen-up gum. They clasp hands over the gum, squishing it, causing goop to run out and drip down. You don’t need to “wash your hands” and “freshen up” after a sexual assault, you need to squash the entire concept.
They both lean forward and look down, in sync, as a masked person comes out from under the bed and grabs their feet. That person is wearing the same Bride of Frankenstein mask that Lisa’s mom’s “murderer” wore!
The person in the mask then grabs both their feet, at the same time. These two are one. As in the flashback when the man in this mask was representative of Lisa’s transness, here it represents the same thing. Trying to get her to see the truth.
This man may look “dead,” may seem to be nothing more than a statue, an unreal representation of a person, but you can make him real, Lisa. All you had to do is let him out.
And you just did.
18:05 – They lean back and slowly put their heads together, as they look at old footage of the man in the moon from A Trip to the Moon, a silent film from 1902 (see Doug! (I fucking hate Doug!), Lisa’s a real fan), as a rocket hits the moon in the eye.
When they put their heads together, the man in the moon rests between them.
This is them looking, together, at the place they want to be. Shoot for the moon. Aim for the stars. Flight. Joy. Freedom. GENDER EUPHORIA. A second after their heads touch, the rocket hits the moon right in the eye. Arrival at the destination. Will they ever make it there?
18:16 – Taffy wakes her up, and we see Lisa’s pajamas are in trans colors… Cathy from the comic strip of the same name, on a beach, with the words “unattached and cordless.” Unattached = unmarried = a not whole trans person, cordless = without a, uh… ahem. “Cord”. Supertext?
And her hand’s in her shorts. Implying masturbation maybe, sure, but that wasn’t a sexy dream in any regard, was it?
If you’re dreaming out the trans man you really are inside, one of your most likely sources of dysphoria is what you find, or don’t find, in your pants. And maybe you try to imagine what it’d be like if that was… different. (Standard reminder: you don’t need to have gender dysphoria or want or need bottom surgery to be trans, but many trans people do and this is metaphor.)
18:28 – Remember when I said Lisa’s bedroom was her subconscious? Look at the windows above her bed, they literally look like lies. We’re inside her head, and it’s gender conformity pink and green-blue dysphoria everywhere. Her sheets were very blue prior to the dream, but now seem to more closely match that signature dysphoria color. That could’ve been done by switching the sheets, or even slightly tweaking the coloring when editing the film.
And there’s those dysphoric black and white drawings jailed behind red danger lights. Eyes that look scared, and someone covering their face as if they’re horrified by it. And there’s…The Creature from the Black Lagoon? From the old horror movie of the same name. Whaddaya think that means?
There’s actually a poster from that film on the walls of Lisa’s bedroom that you can see in other shots, so they’re really hoping you pick up on it.
Despite the fact that I’m calling him Frank, the movie calls him “the creature.” Remember I mentioned that in this film, black and Lisa together are a signifier of change and transition (and this is a great place for a reminder, because this is where all the black really starts appearing). Lagoon = water.
Frank, transition, water.
You can interpret the water as dysphoria, and the ways it drowns us, but I think this is actually more about foreshadowing where Lisa will transition to Frank…
Next to Lisa’s bed is a black and white photo of her mom, who only saw things in FALSE DICHOTOMIES, and her photo is bordered by the pink flowers of gender conformity.
And we still aren’t done talking about this, because look at the far left… and how that suuuuure does look like a penis drawing on the wall. The thing Lisa doesn’t have but was maybe just dreaming about having, to alleviate her dysphoria.
There’s so much going on in this one shot!
18:54 – Lisa goes down to talk to Janet about the destroyed bathroom mirror, and look at her. Remember how Barbie in BARBIE woke up the day after her egg cracked? Yeaaaah. Remember how Neo in THE MATRIX woke up after his egg cracked? Yeaaaaaaaaaaah. Metaphor, surely, but drastic changes to physical appearance clue you in to what’s going on with the character internally, and mean a lot when the story’s about transition.
And look at the mascara under her eyes, even more pronounced than before. The black/change/transition is growing.
19:15 – Look at all the pink and green-blue between Lisa and Janet. This whole house is a nightmare for Lisa.
20:39 – Notice how none of them ask if Lisa’s okay, or how she’s feeling, they’re only concerned about how what she’s going through affects them. This is CIS GRIEF in action.
Janet: “Lisa, do you know what happens to people who act out? They wind up in the looney bin.” They literally used to do this to trans people, mind you, and certain people would love to again. It’s not a mental illness! It’s just how we are! But display any more signs of that, Lisa, and we’ll lock you up. How you affect us is more important than anything you feel, or the hell we’ve put you through.
And Janet’s a psych nurse, so that’s an extra big threat, saying she’ll have Lisa committed if she doesn’t drop this trans stuff. Taffy calls her out on how she shouldn’t be calling it a “looney bin,” but Janet doesn’t care at all (including not caring about her patients, as she feels they’re all nonconformos who “deserve” to be there).
21:19 – Lisa sees the news report that the statue and grave of Frank was struck by lightning, which “reignited neighborhood concerns”. The trans man she buried deep inside is coming back to life due to Lisa’s egg fully cracking, even if she hasn’t realized it just yet. And the cis sure have “concerns” about that.
Throughout the scene, Lisa’s incredibly visually evocative of that striking, idiocyncratic look of Malcom McDowell in A Clockwork Orange. The entire scene she keeps her head down even while looking up, as if to drive the reference home even further.
So in A Clockwork Orange, the character Lisa’s drawing allusions to, Alex, is a violent criminal and sexual predator. Lisa Frankenstein isn’t saying here that Lisa is those things, but that Janet sees her that way.
But the most important part is that Alex is used as a tool by those in power, who try to brainwash his “undesirable” qualities out of him, and in so doing use him as a political pawn.
Given we know that Janet will soon make further references to having Lisa committed for her “deviant” behavior, and actually has the power to make that happen (and puts those plans into motion), and the way society weaponizes transphobia as a political wedge issue, this reference absolutely tracks.
21:19 – Lisa’s back at work like a good contributing cis member of society, but look how she’s walled in by the pink. And behind her, by the door when Michael Trent walks in, there’s a poster (in the iconic Patrick Nagel style so popular in the 80s) of overly sexualized Elvira, in a pink Frame.
Who is Elvira? An overtly sexualized performance of a woman, created and performed by Cassandra Petersen. These are the messages Lisa (and everyone) are bombarded with about who and what women are supposed to be.
This is not the fault of Elvira mind you, she’s great and that’s a performance where how overtly sexualized she is is part of the joke. The point is just that despite her overtly sexualized nature being part of the joke, many miss the “joke” part and just overtly sexualize her because that is what society tells us to do to women. And that can be extra dysphoria-inducing for trans men.
And look at Lisa’s magnifying glasses, they’re blue. All she can see in here is despair. She’s even dressed in blue.
21:53 – There’s another similar ultra sexualized, ultra fem art piece behind Lisa, framed with pink gender conformity and green-blue dysphoria.
Though just seeing Michael, who’s closer to the kind of man she wants to be, the kind of man she is, has helped her see things more as they are. Or, rather, as she wants them to be. She’s no longer looking through the magnifying glasses.
22:05 – Michael apologizes for the spiked drink (that was weird how you got gender feelings, we definitely didn’t mean to do that) and jokingly calls her an “experienced psychonaut… an astronaut of the psyche.”
But like… guess what looking inward and examining your heart and subconscious, which all trans people do, is? It’s exactly that.
Lisa says she’s the “Sally Ride of drugs.” Funny, yes, but also Sally Ride is… famously queer, though she was forced to pretend to be straight for a very long time because it’s what society required of her for her to be an astronaut.
Doooo you see any parallels there?
Do you?
22:36 – Lisa’s boss acts like she has no friends (what a dysphoric loner!) and she can’t get a date. When he says it and claps her on the back, the despair goggles fall to cloud her vision again.
He then says… he then says, “it’s probably because she’s so flat-chested.” Which is inappropriate on multiple levels, but also this white cis man with power has noticed Lisa is not as sexy as she should be. Maybe like she’s even… doing something… to make her breasts appear smaller? HUH. See TUCKING AND BINDING if you need more info on that.
23:13 – Lisa smells the jacket that Michael left to get cleaned and smiles, because she likes him… or maybe wants to be him (or both!). Again see SEXUALITY IS NOT GENDER. What would it be like to smell like a boy?
23:22 – Lisa comes home to Taffy telling a story about a teacher at school, seemingly about his being sexually inappropriate, and she and her parents all laugh. So funny! Boys will be boys.
Ugh and ew, and how extra difficult does that make it for trans guys who internalize that their whole lives but, y’know, actually respect women?
When Lisa comes in, we never see her face reflected in the mirror by the door.
It also seems clear that they want us to see the “254” from the house’s address in blue light on the wall. Meanings on this vary, but when you look at numerology and astrology, there’s some rough consensus that it stands for self-sacrifice, balance, positive change and… transformation.
Welp! Supertext.
23:35 – Taffy invites Lisa to go with them to the late showing of Look Who’s Talking.
Lisa asks if there’s pizza left… the saved her one slice, but her dad says: “Looks like it’s got a little meat on it.”
And it’s of course entirely covered with meat. This is a genius little moment that tells you so much.
Vegetarianism is a choice some people make for various reasons, and a lot of people disrespect vegetarians for that choice. For the way they live.
Being trans isn’t a choice (though you can be trans if you decide want to be, because you’re trans if you say you are (YOU ARE TRANS ENOUGH), but transitioning is a choice. Talking about your complicated gender feelings is a choice.
And her family does not respect that choice.
Janet: “Oh she can pick it off.” Never mind there would literally be almost no pizza left. Never mind it would all be contaminated from having meat on it. “We will not accommodate your choices, and if you don’t like it, you can have the nothing scraps (of society) that are left over for you.”
The disrespect is painful. And all too familiar.
Taffy wanted to get Lisa a veggie lovers pizza, but Janet wouldn’t allow it. Even though Taffy is gender conforming and clearly doesn’t get or understand what Lisa’s going through, and has done things to harm her (like spreading rumors about her), she doesn’t want to actively exclude her. She’s kind of trying, in her backwards way, to be supportive.
Janet also has no respect for Lisa’s job doing alterations, but Taffy’s cheerleading (a very gender-conforming physical sport) gets all the respect in the world. And though it’s funny, the line about Taffy spending hours screaming with her legs spread against the walls is pretty dark. Because Taffy says “it doesn’t even hurt anymore,” implying those are not screams of pleasure.
Highly conforming to gendered stereotypes hurts cis people, too.
Taffy thinks Lisa’s fingers probably hurt from sewing, and Lisa says: “Eventually a callus just forms.” But she’s so dejected and dead when she delivers that line.
She’s talking about her heart, because of the way her family treats her, for being different.
24:41 – Lisa’s watching Dawn of the Dead, and they make a point to show us Bub.
If you’ve not seen the film, Bub is a smart zombie who’s capable of learning. He screams and thrashes in chains. When you learn how society wants us all to be chained like zombies, all you want to do is break free. And he’s undead. Brought back to life.
Huh.
Lisa, in yellow, pink, and green pajamas, surrounded by yellow lights, smiles. This pain and discomfort is familiar to her. Light from outside the windows? That green-blue. She’s interrupted by loud banging and groaning from outside.
25:04 – Lisa sneaks toward the door and grabs the red phone, but she does not cross in front of the mirror.
25:10 – Too late, that egg you duct-taped closed has re-cracked, babe. Frank smashes in through the dysphoria window. She screams and runs as he zombie walks after her. You are Bub, bub.
25:40 – She runs to her room, and look at the dysphoria hallway, the pink gender conforming walls, the yellow light, the red danger lights reflected in the mirror that she sprints past. More danger and change (red and black) art on the walls, and on the frame of the mirror, a rubbing that says “memory.” Remember how you figured this out a long time ago, Lisa, and it could have led you to your true reflection? Time to remember again.
Next week, we’ll see if we can escape this part of ourselves we thought was long dead, and finally get a clear picture of the prison we’ve been trapped in!
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
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