Appraisal

Introduction

Through Makeup exploration, this appraisal explores transgender in a light of beauty, surgery and horror and how society and culture influences attitudes. Transvestite people in the media such as Jeffree Star have become iconic role models and promoters in the makeup industry. Whilst Pete Burns for instance, is renowned for his plastic appearance after undergoing horrific surgery. Another topic explored is acceptance of the current female transgender, recently interviewed on programmes such as The Jeremy Kyle Show and Lorraine. An example of suffering in society is Transgender men in the media such as Kellie Maloney, who has recently been in the public eye, voicing her struggles with acceptance.

Case study 1 transvestite surgery

There are numerous examples of both Transvestite figures and transvestite surgeries, which have gone viral from the celebrity culture. Some examples include; Pete Burns, Jordan Parke, RuPaul, and Divine. Where some are successful for example Jeffree Star, the minority who abuse icons like him, are overridden by his public ego and success and is strongly supported by his followers. Pete Burns in particular is an appropriate example of a cosmetic surgery horror, which the public were not so supportive. By judging how surgery goers are represented to an audience, they appear weird and unnatural.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender representations have changed significantly in the first decade of the 2000’s, not only in mainstream media but also in the possibilities for self-representation enabled by new media genres and technologies. (Ross, K. 2012. p.207.)

This does not necessarily mean that this is openly accepted today. However, the more we see of transgender, it can become more accepted as a norm. On the other hand, they may also be mistaken. There is risk that someone could have a change of heart during the procedure of becoming the opposite sex, this would then increase risks of corrective surgery going wrong.

Programmes such as The Body Shocking Show, displays negative judgement where interviewees on the programme use language such as:

Pete: Thankfully, Priscilla says she stopped the collagen and her nightmare… Oh, it’s nearly over! And like Priscilla, I’m now reaching the final chapter of my own lip odyssey.(Burns,P. 2008)

Which implies these surgeries were mistakes and it is confirmed that he is seen as 'shocking' already by appearing on this show. Though comments seen on YouTube come across very defensive of Pete as they are fans who respect and follow him. Pete himself admits that as a result of his surgery: 'I was suicidal. I was deformed, I couldn't leave the house' (Burns, P. 2013.) As a public figure, there was no escape from the media telling the horrific experiences to the public. Newspapers and Magazines negatively portray surgery disasters in the public eye as ‘shocking’, so we are already told how to perceive the story and the unfortunate images, to illustrate it. Pete’s dysmorphic features make him more objective. When he is spoken about, he is no longer treated as a human as the abnormality of his face is looked at as a threat; it’s out of the ordinary. As a result of this, society is very critical of changes people make to their bodies, as they are instantly compared to how they appeared before, and are quick to judge which surgeries are successful and those that are not.

A BBC One drama, Accused gives an insight of the life of a Transvestite. Within this, we see the struggle of living a double life. This double life brings difficulty in many ways. With this character not being transgender, there are obvious features which suggest he is not a woman, and as a result he is abused by the public and labelled as ‘sick’. He appears misunderstood, and surprisingly the idea of a man impersonating a woman is interesting to a particular character, which peruses this transvestite and takes the risk of developing a relationship between them.

This is an example of how people’s lives could be more accepted and easier to live. If those who were too quick to judge were open minded, and understood why people choose to live transvestite lives, this should be reason enough to accept this, as it is their own decision.

Case study 2 transgender

Acceptance of transgender people in society is finally becoming more publicised. We see this where an unusual situation on reality Television programme, Celebrity Big Brother aided Kellie Maloney, and her two daughters to accept her for who she has become. This is a programme which has millions of viewers every year, so it wasn’t long until Maloney’s story became popular in the media. (Horton, H, Stevenson. D, 2015.)

Kellie Maloney, as soon to be transgender, competed on Celebrity Big Brother in September, 2014. The Mirror Magazine, stated that

Transsexual Kellie Maloney's teenage daughters have finally accepted her as a woman after witnessing her tearful soul searching on Celebrity Big Brother. (Drake 2014)

Maloney struggled to help her children understand that she had chosen to become a woman. She was originally known as Frank Maloney, a boxing promoter, so instantly the issue was publicised and spread throughout the media. So when looking at stereotypes, this is a drastic change of character, which shocked the public, and questioned why Kellie had put herself in the public eye on reality show, Celebrity Big Brother. Her story alone tells the difficulties people face as transgender, and understandably it may not be as easy to accept this as a family member to begin with. However if as a society, people were not publicly framed in negative portrayal, there may never have been any issues with this idea. Maloney’s children are too caught up in the norms of society; so naturally, they are shocked that their father is to become a female figure, in which Maloney will still play the role of their father, but with a different appearance. This could also bring complication to Maloney’s daughter’s lives, where they may be faced with non-understanding people and curious questions. Naturally, that may not be able to answer some questions, so to overcome this change is to accept it, and inspire others to see that it is ok to be outside of the norm.
Paris is burning (1990) is a documentary which explores the lives of Drag Queens who compete against each other in a small community and change their lifestyles. Renowned Drag Queens such as Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Willi Ninja are interviewed, supplying the viewer with ideas of why they have become who they are. Venus Xtravaganza in particular, tells the story as a transsexual man. Xtravaganza states that ‘I want to be a spoilt rich white girl’ (Xtravaganza, V. 1990) which reflects the desired life for many Drag Queens like herself as she believes that ‘they don’t have the struggle’(Xtravaganza, V. 1990).

Throughout this film documentary, we see a community of black people trying to make themselves into a star to become successful, as they are mistreated and are below the social, white hierarchy. Xtravaganza herself, in knowing that transgender would be an issue, she moved away to avoid her family’s ‘embarrassment’. Freud states that

the better orientated he was in the world around him, the less likely he would be to find the objects and occurrences in it uncanny, (Freud, 2003. P.125)

This demonstrates that they would probably find that there are more sexual identity crisis’s around them than they may think. The places, in which these people come from, have a large influence on how they go about changing their lives. Where Kellie Maloney is in England, she struggles with how media portrays her and her story. However Xtravaganza, lives a more flamboyant life, she is surrounded by others and a small community who are in the same position, wanting to achieve the same things in life.

Case study 3 female to male – social experience

What was unusual is now becoming more current and popular on daytime television in particular. Interviews with transgender females seem to be occurring more often, perhaps as a chain reaction. A recent interview on The Jeremy Kyle Show presented a female to male transgender whose story resulted in making a choice, not to be specified or labelled a particular gender. This was unusual, especially for this show, as this story was inspirational and perhaps an influence to many of those not brave enough to tell their story. This person was accompanied on the show by their sister, who admitted from the start, that things were different; even form a very young age. As a young child, you wouldn’t know any different if your sister had always acted and represented traits of a boy. But for this transformation to happen after years, this would be a bigger ordeal to accept, because the preponderance of the outside world and how society is framed makes it difficult to accept and reject certain ideas.

Gender representation in films such as Albert Nobbs (2011), displays women playing the role of women disguised as men. They do this in order to have a working role in society to earn money to make a living. Women weren’t ‘able’ to fulfil these roles; instead, stereotypically, they worked as maids, cooks and dress makers. Although these women were not transgender, it was interesting to see how the disguise is believable without any surgical, permanent changes. Instead she bound her chest, cut her hair and lowered her voice. This may give these characters a label as transvestites from a visual perspective; however this is not their desirable way to live. Throughout the film, Nobbs’s gender was not questioned, so she successfully fulfilled this male role. Nonetheless, complications occurred when it came to marriage and relationships. During this 19th century period, men were the social hierarchy and in order to earn money as men did, Albert Nobbs was created to receive the wealth of an earning man. This would be interesting to explore from a makeup point of view, without recreating physical changes, but instead portraying the opposite sex with hair and makeup modification. Boys Don’t Cry (1999) is another film where a female to male transgender, ‘Brandon’ struggles to keep people from knowing who he really is. As a consequence, he is killed after being involved with an American family who disagree with his lifestyle. They see him as a danger to the girl he falls in love with, Lana, which links to Freud’s idea that ‘the better orientated he was in the world around him, the less likely he would be to find the objects and occurrences in it uncanny, (Freud, 2003. P.125), suggesting that her family are naïve and afraid of what they don’t know or understand.

However, in falling in love with Lana, she is able to accept him as a boy, with or without sex reassignment surgery. When he is discovered, he is put in the headlights to receive abuse and sexual assault and is violently interrogated to admit his sexual identity crisis in such a way, that he is forced by police; to encourage that transgender people are wrong. This is a tragic example of how uneducated and discriminative people are when something is misunderstood. In contemporary society, seeing more transgender people in the media is the easiest and most successful way to bring this lifestyle into society, so people can live the lives they want to live. Less complex subjects such as fashion have a right to be different and express all sorts of styles, purposely out of the norm. These trends catch on because they are publicly advertised as the new thing. If the same principle were to be applied and represent transgender people in this positive light, more people would be able to progress and express themselves as who they truly are.

Conclusion

Looking at these areas, they are changing in today’s society every day, in exploring specific areas in more depth, I will look into the pressure society brings upon people and their appearance. These issues are important, as more and more cases emerge and for these people to be accepted, perhaps it is useful that the media publicise such issues to raise awareness, as popular culture is unavoidable. As a result, the near future may bring a comfort to those who temporarily struggle. To develop this area of research, subjects such as Photoshop and misrepresentation of what is real is an interesting subject to see how easily this affects the society.