![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The first time I saw “The Matrix” (ages and ages ago, back in 1999) I had to wonder “Why the hell does Trinity dress like that?”
The question was not “Why would the Walchowski brothers *write* her dressed like that?” – easy enough for me to figure that out. Ha. Larry’ and Andy’s cyberpunk wet dream. Not much to wonder about that[1]. No, I wanted to know why the character would choose to dress in such an overtly sexual, attention-grabbing way. (Especially when she has to sneak into the Matrix, and lay low while she's there, anyway).
This was *way* before I knew what femme was, or had any idea what it meant.
Hell, I’d never heard of ‘genderqueer’, either. As such, I didn’t know quite what to make of Switch, the Other Woman, but only knew that I found that character fascinating in ways that the rest just, well, weren’t[2].
Anyway, now that I have a slightly broader vocabulary, I figured I briefly chat on the subject of queered gender presentation as it applies to Switch and Trinity in “The Matrix”. Bear with me, this is short, and possibly a little weird.
( Firstly, Switch. )
For further yammering – of a different sort – on Switch and gender, see This Entry.
( And then there’s Trinity. )
On a related note: Theresa L. Geller has a wonderful article (“Queering Hollywood’s Tough Chick”) that talks about how characters like Trinity (and Switch, and the Oracle, as well as Charly Baltimore from “Long Kiss Goodnight”) flip heternormative cultural ideals on their heads through the queering of feminine gender identity.
I recommend that you all check it out. :-)
- TTFN,
- Amazon. :-)
[1] That was before I saw “Bound”, before I realized that Larry and Andy knew what ‘femme’ was, and had an idea of what it meant.
[2] Yes, yes, Belinda's Very Pretty. So’s Keanu – in pretty much the same way, no less – but I can’t say I was mesmerized by Neo, despite his having extra screen time and a *lot* more lines on his side.
The question was not “Why would the Walchowski brothers *write* her dressed like that?” – easy enough for me to figure that out. Ha. Larry’ and Andy’s cyberpunk wet dream. Not much to wonder about that[1]. No, I wanted to know why the character would choose to dress in such an overtly sexual, attention-grabbing way. (Especially when she has to sneak into the Matrix, and lay low while she's there, anyway).
This was *way* before I knew what femme was, or had any idea what it meant.
Hell, I’d never heard of ‘genderqueer’, either. As such, I didn’t know quite what to make of Switch, the Other Woman, but only knew that I found that character fascinating in ways that the rest just, well, weren’t[2].
Anyway, now that I have a slightly broader vocabulary, I figured I briefly chat on the subject of queered gender presentation as it applies to Switch and Trinity in “The Matrix”. Bear with me, this is short, and possibly a little weird.
( Firstly, Switch. )
For further yammering – of a different sort – on Switch and gender, see This Entry.
( And then there’s Trinity. )
On a related note: Theresa L. Geller has a wonderful article (“Queering Hollywood’s Tough Chick”) that talks about how characters like Trinity (and Switch, and the Oracle, as well as Charly Baltimore from “Long Kiss Goodnight”) flip heternormative cultural ideals on their heads through the queering of feminine gender identity.
I recommend that you all check it out. :-)
- TTFN,
- Amazon. :-)
[1] That was before I saw “Bound”, before I realized that Larry and Andy knew what ‘femme’ was, and had an idea of what it meant.
[2] Yes, yes, Belinda's Very Pretty. So’s Keanu – in pretty much the same way, no less – but I can’t say I was mesmerized by Neo, despite his having extra screen time and a *lot* more lines on his side.
