The potentiality of a transgender gaze.

Abstract

In Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Laura Mulvey uses psychoanalytic theory to explain the active male gaze and how women are “to-be-looked-at-ness” (715). The objectification of women on screen is reminiscent of the phallocentric nature that underlines our social arrangements. As phallocentrism privileges masculinity, men are elevated to an authoritative and powerful position. But, what exactly is masculinity? Can women be masculine? Can the male gaze function without a heterosexual male and female on screen? Does the male gaze strictly belong to heterosexual males? How can the male gaze be described to be active if it is rooted within a gender binary? Is it then, inactive? As the male gaze is also grounded in heterosexuality, it disallows alternative modes of identification for queer spectators and it also dismisses the possibility of queer images in cinema. Therefore, this essay explores Judith Halberstam’s idea of female masculinity and more importantly, her idea of a transgender gaze, together with the award-winning film, Boys Don’t Cry (directed by Kimberley Pierce, 1999). So what is a transgender gaze? Who possesses the transgender gaze? Why a transgender gaze? Ultimately, this essay argues for a transgender gaze that can disrupt and even, possibly, destroy the gender binary because of its unique ability to move through space and time.