sophiaserpentia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophiaserpentia) wrote2008-08-20 05:29 pm
sophiaserpentia) wrote2008-08-20 05:29 pm
Entry tags:
moon-blood, fate, and the gods: on transwomen in Sandman and The Invisibles
There's been some interesting discussion in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
transgender about "A Game of You," which was a story in Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. (I'd link but it's a locked post.) You can read a synopsis of the plot at Wikipedia.
One of the major characters of this storyline is Wanda, a transsexual woman. Many of the folk in that community have, as do i, very mixed feelings about the way Wanda's place in the story was handled. Is it a sympathetic portrayal? An objectifying portrayal? Why is transgender even an element of the story at all? Was the purpose simply to make one of the characters quirky? Or is the intention to explore something deeper?
I'll start by saying that i do believe that Gaiman (and Grant Morrison, whose portrayal of Lord Fanny in The Invisibles i want to compare and contrast) does not seem to approach transgender as a metaphor or literary device (e.g. movies like "The Crying Game" or "Hedwig and the Angry Inch"). It doesn't "mean something," it is just a way some people are. He also does seem to understand that transgender is rooted primally in a transperson's experience. It is fundamentally an aspect of what it is like to be me; it does not come from culture or abstract gender conceptualization, although the way in which it manifests is shaped by those things. It is not a religion to which i converted; there was never a time in my life when i was not transgender. Gaiman seems to understand these things about Wanda.
I also want to say at the outset that authors are not required to do things that make us happy. I don't mean that in the sense of, was his portrayal tolerant or intolerant. I mean, sometimes an author may, if it suits his or her purpose on the way to making a bigger point, narratively affirm a concept or point which seems discordant.
And so it is during the part of the story when Thessaly, who turns out to be a witch who by hook and crook has kept herself alive for thousands of years, draws down the moon and creates a bridge into the dreamworld. Two other women who are present can cross; but not Wanda, because she was born male and has no menstrual blood to offer. A disembodied face Thessaly has nailed to the wall, who speaks with supernatural knowledge, affirms this and refers to Wanda as a man. Actually i found an excerpt of the dialogue between Wanda and the disembodied face:
In Gaiman's narrative the proposition that "chromosomes are destiny" seems to be affirmed, countered only by Wanda's stubborn refusal to accept it. It comes across as being something Gaiman as a person believes (hence the controversy in the trans community over this work). What adds weight to this conclusion is that (1) it fits in with the cultural meta-narrative, and (2) gender essentialism is common in the esoteric community. I've encountered it far and wide among ceremonial magicians and neopagans of various paths.
Howeeeeever, i'm not convinced that Gaiman is asserting gender essentialism as established fact. Rather, he seems to be opening a conversation on essentialism, and particularly on transgender as a rebellion against fate. Wanda tells the gods where to shove it, and in the end, when she is in Death's realm, we see her assertion vindicated. There's a number of ways to take that, but if you look at the issue from the perspective of the primary arc in the Sandman series (that all things, even those which are endless or divine, are subject to being challenged and/or forced to change) one might argue there is a "Yeah, but" disclaimer tacked onto Gaiman's narrative affirmation of gender essentialism.
I'm aware that i may be giving Gaiman more credit there than he deserves. For one thing, usually when an author has a character voice an opinion which is not what he or she "really" believes, there is some kind of indication that the author as a person does not hold that view. OTOH, it *is* a way to have it both ways: an affirmation of gender essentialism as the present reality but with an indication that the future reality is being pushed in a different direction by the reality of what it is like to be transgender. If it was his intention, he chose a risky way to show his views. How many parodies of racism or sexism (or other satirical works) have been mistaken for the real thing?
As i mentioned above i wanted to compare and contrast Gaiman's Wanda with Lord Fanny as shown in Grant Morrison's The Invisibles, specifically the notable "Apocalipstick" storyline. Hilde (whose codename is later Lord Fanny) was born a boy but raised as a girl by her grandmother, a witch who needed a girl to carry on her tradition. The problem was, it was customary for the initiate to be presented to Mictlantecuhtli, the Lord of the Dead, when she has her first menstrual blood. Hilde, of course, cannot menstruate; but her grandmother pokes her inner thigh with a knife and hopes that this will satisfy the god. The god, when he appears, does not seem terribly concerned; he is not fooled, but accepts Hilde in the capacity in which she has been presented, telling her, "Do you think i have never seen your kind?"
The narrative in this case rejects gender essentialism. BUT, Morrison seems to interpret gender *entirely* as performance. While he is quite aware of and sympathetic about the ways in which transwomen are used and abused, he doesn't really seem to grasp the difference between a transsexual woman and a drag queen. In this work transgender experience is stretched and squeezed in order to fit an overriding story arc - in this case, an entreaty (reminiscent of Robert Anton Wilson) to challenge every last perception and conceptualization (mostly by violating taboos).
transgender about "A Game of You," which was a story in Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. (I'd link but it's a locked post.) You can read a synopsis of the plot at Wikipedia.One of the major characters of this storyline is Wanda, a transsexual woman. Many of the folk in that community have, as do i, very mixed feelings about the way Wanda's place in the story was handled. Is it a sympathetic portrayal? An objectifying portrayal? Why is transgender even an element of the story at all? Was the purpose simply to make one of the characters quirky? Or is the intention to explore something deeper?
I'll start by saying that i do believe that Gaiman (and Grant Morrison, whose portrayal of Lord Fanny in The Invisibles i want to compare and contrast) does not seem to approach transgender as a metaphor or literary device (e.g. movies like "The Crying Game" or "Hedwig and the Angry Inch"). It doesn't "mean something," it is just a way some people are. He also does seem to understand that transgender is rooted primally in a transperson's experience. It is fundamentally an aspect of what it is like to be me; it does not come from culture or abstract gender conceptualization, although the way in which it manifests is shaped by those things. It is not a religion to which i converted; there was never a time in my life when i was not transgender. Gaiman seems to understand these things about Wanda.
I also want to say at the outset that authors are not required to do things that make us happy. I don't mean that in the sense of, was his portrayal tolerant or intolerant. I mean, sometimes an author may, if it suits his or her purpose on the way to making a bigger point, narratively affirm a concept or point which seems discordant.
And so it is during the part of the story when Thessaly, who turns out to be a witch who by hook and crook has kept herself alive for thousands of years, draws down the moon and creates a bridge into the dreamworld. Two other women who are present can cross; but not Wanda, because she was born male and has no menstrual blood to offer. A disembodied face Thessaly has nailed to the wall, who speaks with supernatural knowledge, affirms this and refers to Wanda as a man. Actually i found an excerpt of the dialogue between Wanda and the disembodied face:
WANDA: I am not a man.
GEORGE: Maybe not to you, you're not. But you've got the uh, you know. Male nasty thing.
WANDA: Listen: I've had electrolysis. I'm taking hormones. All that's left is just a little lump of flesh; but all that doesn't matter... inside I'm a woman.
GEORGE: She doesn't think so. And to be honest uh well even if you uh had the operation it wouldn't make much difference to the uh moon. It's chromosomes as much as uh anything. It's like uh gender isn't something you can pick and choose as uh far as gods are concerned.
WANDA: Well, that's something the gods can take and stuff up their sacred recta. I know what I am.
In Gaiman's narrative the proposition that "chromosomes are destiny" seems to be affirmed, countered only by Wanda's stubborn refusal to accept it. It comes across as being something Gaiman as a person believes (hence the controversy in the trans community over this work). What adds weight to this conclusion is that (1) it fits in with the cultural meta-narrative, and (2) gender essentialism is common in the esoteric community. I've encountered it far and wide among ceremonial magicians and neopagans of various paths.
Howeeeeever, i'm not convinced that Gaiman is asserting gender essentialism as established fact. Rather, he seems to be opening a conversation on essentialism, and particularly on transgender as a rebellion against fate. Wanda tells the gods where to shove it, and in the end, when she is in Death's realm, we see her assertion vindicated. There's a number of ways to take that, but if you look at the issue from the perspective of the primary arc in the Sandman series (that all things, even those which are endless or divine, are subject to being challenged and/or forced to change) one might argue there is a "Yeah, but" disclaimer tacked onto Gaiman's narrative affirmation of gender essentialism.
I'm aware that i may be giving Gaiman more credit there than he deserves. For one thing, usually when an author has a character voice an opinion which is not what he or she "really" believes, there is some kind of indication that the author as a person does not hold that view. OTOH, it *is* a way to have it both ways: an affirmation of gender essentialism as the present reality but with an indication that the future reality is being pushed in a different direction by the reality of what it is like to be transgender. If it was his intention, he chose a risky way to show his views. How many parodies of racism or sexism (or other satirical works) have been mistaken for the real thing?
As i mentioned above i wanted to compare and contrast Gaiman's Wanda with Lord Fanny as shown in Grant Morrison's The Invisibles, specifically the notable "Apocalipstick" storyline. Hilde (whose codename is later Lord Fanny) was born a boy but raised as a girl by her grandmother, a witch who needed a girl to carry on her tradition. The problem was, it was customary for the initiate to be presented to Mictlantecuhtli, the Lord of the Dead, when she has her first menstrual blood. Hilde, of course, cannot menstruate; but her grandmother pokes her inner thigh with a knife and hopes that this will satisfy the god. The god, when he appears, does not seem terribly concerned; he is not fooled, but accepts Hilde in the capacity in which she has been presented, telling her, "Do you think i have never seen your kind?"
The narrative in this case rejects gender essentialism. BUT, Morrison seems to interpret gender *entirely* as performance. While he is quite aware of and sympathetic about the ways in which transwomen are used and abused, he doesn't really seem to grasp the difference between a transsexual woman and a drag queen. In this work transgender experience is stretched and squeezed in order to fit an overriding story arc - in this case, an entreaty (reminiscent of Robert Anton Wilson) to challenge every last perception and conceptualization (mostly by violating taboos).
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