Tomboy

The film Tomboy, written and directed by Celine Sciamma, is about a young child who experiements with gender. I held a showing and discussion of this film on March 1, 2019. There was a great turnout and we had a fascinating discussion afterwards. Read my reflection and watch some clips from the film below.

Tomboy depicts gender in an innocent and accurate manner, which can most easily be achieved through the eyes of a child. A young biological girl and family move to a new town, and the kid tries out going by the name Mikeal and he/him pronouns. There is no dramatized coming out or internal struggle, he just simply decides to tell the other kids that he is a boy. This strips the spectacle from gender and allows the viewers to see gender expression in its truest form. He doesn't tell his family about his male alter-ego, but his little sister eventually finds out. She plays along, creating a strong juxtaposition between the children and adults. Tomboy is about adolescence and innocents, and gender identity fits smoothly into this theme. Mikeal does little things to masculinize himself, but none of it is overdone or dramatic. There is only one conversation about gender in the entire film, and it's when Mikeal's mom finds out that he's been identifying as a boy. She forces him to wear a dress and go to his friends houses. This final scene is heartbreaking, and it shows the difference between how children and adults perceive gender.

This was a main point of discussion after the film. Everyone agreed that children have a more innocent, open-minded way of viewing the world, and this was way Mikeal was so easily able to experiment with his gender. In the end, it doesn't matter if he ended up being transgender or not, because the film is simply about the experimentation that he does. I was also able to share some of my Capstone research, which everyone found very interesting. I shared some scientific studies that prove medical basis in being transgender, and the studies that prove that gender is not a social construct. No one else knew that there was so much scientific proof for the transgender brain, so I think that it's important to get information like this out into the public more effectively. We also discussed gender in Western society, and how closed-minded the Western view of gender is. I shared some of my research on third genders in non-Western societies. Overall, the event was very successful. I was able to share a lot of my research, and I think that I got my points across in an effective way that will stick with whoever was there. I think that Tomboy is a very important film, and it is worth sharing. It offers insight into what it's like to question your gender, and it's the only film I've seen that depicts gender so accurately.