Corpses, Fools and Monsters

Description

A radical history of transness in cinema, and an exploration of the political possibilities of its future.

In the history of cinema, trans people are usually murdered, made into a joke, or viewed as threats to the normal order — relegated to a lost highway of corpses, fools, and monsters.

In this book, trans film critics Caden Mark Gardner and Willow Catelyn Maclay take the reader on a drive down this lost highway, exploring the way that trans people and transness have evolved on-screen.

Starting from the very earliest representations of transness in silent film, through to the multiplex-conquering Matrix franchise and on to the emergence of a true trans-authored cinema, Corpses, Fools and Monsters spans everything from musicals to body horror to avant garde experimental film to tell the story of the trans film image. In doing so, the authors investigate the wider history of trans representation — an exhilarating journey of compromise, recuperation, and potential liberation that they argue is only just the beginning.”A sorely-needed and comprehensive audit of twentieth-century trans film history… a deeply engrossing, thoughtful, and often recuperative examination of transness in film.”
– Daniel Lavery, author of Something That May Shock and Discredit You

“A thoughtful, revelatory, and rewarding read from two of the most essential critics working today.”
– Ashley Clark, Curatorial Director, Criterion Collection

“As timely as it is vigorous, brave, and intelligent… Gardner and Maclay have written one of the most important – and exciting – works of long-form film criticism of this century thus far.”
- Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, author of 1,000 Women in Horror: 1895-2018

“Gardner and Maclay reach into the guts of the trans film image, into the disreputable world of mondo movies, into unfortunate prestige pictures and forgotten radical Cinéma vérité and bring all of it to a present moment teeming with possibilities. This is an untold history treated with wit and intelligence and a humane, searching tone.”
- Scout Tafoya, director of Enjoy Your Trip to Hell and House of Little Deaths

Willow Catelyn Maclay is a freelance film essayist and critic. She has written for the Village Voice, MUBI, Vulture and Roger Ebert.com. She contributed to the film anthologies Laura’s Ghost: Women Speak About Twin Peaks and She Found it at the Movies: Women Writers on Sex, Desire and Cinema.
Caden Mark Gardner is a freelance trans film critic and researcher on trans film images. He has written for the Criterion Collection, MUBI, Film Comment, Reverse Shot, and other film outlets in the United States.GB

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