By Ally Tayag Ricarte
PearlArts Studios
Welcome back to In RE! This week, we all dedicated our time to watch DISCLOSURE, a Netflix documentary that dives deep into Hollywood's representations of transgender people and its impact as described by trans creatives, actors, directors, and more.
With the recent responses to Justice for George Floyd & Black Lives Matter emerges the urgency for intersectionality and justice for the murders of Black Trans Lives. Historically, the Civil Rights Movement have marched parallel with LGBTQ protests, starting with the resulting protests of the 1969 Stonewall riots led by Black and brown transgender & nonbinary people including Marsha P. Johnson. However, poor coverage for murdered Black transgender people and continued misogyny within our culture has often isolated efforts towards justice. If you observe protests today, you may still see the difference in the volume of attendees between the Black Trans Lives and Black Lives Matter marches. Watching DISCLOSURE is one of many steps we are taking as individuals and as an organization to place Black Trans Lives and intersectionality at the front of conversations on justice and equality.
It is imperative to include stories of transgender and nonbinary people in our culture as part of America's story. In this week's In RE: our team shares their takeaways from Netflix's documentary DISCLOSURE and how Hollywood's storytelling of transgender narratives affected our society with fear and dehumanizing behavior.
Please share your thoughts with us in the comments. We’d love to hear your perspectives after watching this movie!
Staycee Pearl (Co-executive/Artistic Director)
I was moved by this one. It's a perspective rarely considered and so misunderstood. I feel that it's important to understand and honor the bravery and honesty it takes to be trans. Talk about being true to self! Unfortunately, the world at large has been terrible to this community and we are just generally trash to each other period. I truly wish for a more sensitive, peaceful, gentle world, where acceptance and tenderness is natural and not responses couched in fear and violence. We've had enough. Time to evolve.
Herman “Soy Sos” Pearl (Co-executive/Artistic Director | Sound Engineer)
Great doc. One particular detail I found especially crazy was all the movie and TV clips portraying the moment a male character realizes that he's been fooling around with, almost or did have sex with a trans woman. That awful bit of him freaking out, vomiting or becoming violent was so disturbing and then seeing the traumatized look on the face of the trans character!
I'd forgotten how many times I'd seen this over the years. The other thing that I realized is what a bubble we live in as to our connections with so many trans and queer people and how far our culture has to go in accepting their right to exist.
Jessica Marino (Company Dancer | Artist Manager | Jamdancer.com)
10 minutes in and I had already texted a friend to urge her to watch it. This will be on my mind for a long time. I am inspired by the vibrance, resilience, intelligence, beauty, fashion, fierceness, power, love, and magic represented. I think about the unique journey of understanding one's authentic self and what it means to be actively present in deep soulful listening.
I am particularly aware of my identity privileges when watching each person interviewed share their experiences of trans community history and pop culture’s role in BIPOC erasure and exploiting trans and queer experience. Also noting the cycle of commodifying of women. As a viewer, you are a witness to re-lived trauma through storytelling of fear, misunderstanding, violence, and stereotypes of trans people. I am moved by the raw honesty of the individuals sharing their truth so generously through this documentary. Intersectional, compelling, beautifully human, smart, genuine all come to mind to describe Disclosure.
Kitoko Chargois (Communications Director | Program Coordinator)
First of all, this is one of the best documentaries I've seen because like Ally said, it is very nuanced, and it's also the most intersectional. Second, I appreciate the artists so much for going through this very difficult process of sharing their stories through the media and film they've consumed and participated in through the decades. So powerful and extremely informative. What we see on TV and the big screen is a record of the attitudes and biases at that moment in time. Watching Disclosure, I found myself constantly flinching at the violence perpetuated against Trans people for cheap laughs or to indulge a need for trauma porn.
Through watching this, you can clearly see how oppressions are connected--transphobia, homophobia, racism, sexism, cultural appropriation, erasure, and more. Even as we speak, the stars of POSE, which is held up as an example of honoring Trans voices and stories respectfully with a large Trans cast and a Trans director, are speaking out against the lack of recognition and space given to Trans actors. The only member of the cast to be nominated for an Emmy was Billy Porter, who is a Gay, cis male. If you don't understand why that's a problem, you need to watch Disclosure! This documentary should be required watching for anyone in the film/media industry.
Katie Kulasa (Company Dancer)
Wow! This documentary is wonderful. In my opinion, it hits the nail on the head as far as how informative and vulnerable all people involved are. It goes to show how media and the film industry had it all wrong for quite some time, depicting the trans community in an evil/negative way. As humans, we are taught that any secrets we are told to keep could mean they are negative/not the ideal. And this documentary showed me how many people in the trans community are held hostage in their own thoughts, keeping their secret in order to protect the feelings of others.. but what about theirs?
LaTrea Derome (Company Dancer)
This documentary was very insightful. It forced me to think on my own personal ignorances that I had about the trans experience. I appreciate that it was very direct and raw. So many of my questions were answered. It was also interesting to note how we've seen trans people in different forms of media more often than we realized. I hope that this documentary is able to be seen by everyone so we can all continue to learn and grow into better human beings who can love and support one another.
Ally Ricarte (Production Manager | Marketing Associate | Director of Education)Out of all the documentaries I've seen, Disclosure sets the bar high on capturing the nuances and truth of transgender lives. I also feel it truly captures how important media and culture plays a part in how their lives are valued. This documentary is so relevant as we see that much of today’s American media and culture is built by people who identify as queer, femme or BIPOC and whose narratives & credit were erased. As an arts administrator, it is more crucial now than ever to treat these narratives with the tenderness and care they deserve and close the chapter on the fraudulent claims and fear that transgender people never created in the first place.
I was very intrigued by the high dosage of fear, shame, and punishment that has evolved into appropriation. I remember watching FRIENDS a few years back and recognizing how it hasn’t aged well because of transphobia between Chandler and his transgender father. Disclosure also sheds the layers of hyper femininity that you see in celebrities today. People need to know how the aesthetic is rooted in transgender people who were sex workers and dressed to appeal to affluent and sometimes older white men.
We have to admit and hold ourselves accountable for the toxic perspectives we did not challenge until now. We need to acknowledge the Black transgender story as the American story.