Cloaked Trannies on the SIlver Screen: "Evolutionary Derangement" and Cronenberg's Approach to Shaping a Critical Mindset towards Trans Bodies

Author

John David HunterFollow

Date of Award

5-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

Committee Chair/Advisor

Dr. Aga Skrodzka

Committee Member

Dr. Maziyar Faridi

Committee Member

Dr. William Stocton

Abstract

This thesis engages David Cronenberg’s 2022 film, Crimes of the Future, analyzing the text through the lens of Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensten) as a transgender allegory. Through this, the project investigates the way in which Cronenberg’s text visually creates a Deleuzian language of the body, which is the body of becoming. This queer analysis of the film does so by utilizing the perspective of the trans body, through the character of Tenser, which more clearly illustrates the human body as one which is in a continual process of evolution. Following in the footsteps of scholars such as Susan Stryker and Nick Davis, this text takes the radical stance that the mind and the body each have the ability to act on their own accord, using queer bodies to illustrate how this freedom from a forced and stable subjecthood is something which all bodies—cis or trans—are able to achieve. Cronenberg’s film also comes at a critical time for transgender bodies in the US, with laws being passed to increase the government’s control of these bodies, in which his text not only questions these actions, but also provides a new language with which to discuss the body and the government’s attempts to keep control over it.

Comments

This reupload fixes the formatting issues with the links in my references page!

Recommended Citation

Hunter, John David, "Cloaked Trannies on the SIlver Screen: "Evolutionary Derangement" and Cronenberg's Approach to Shaping a Critical Mindset towards Trans Bodies" (2024). All Theses. 4239.
https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/4239