Wendell and Wild and Who
Finally, we’re at my examples of good textual representation of trans people. And to start off, we have Wendell and Wild, a stop-motion Netflix film. The film itself has a couple of issues. Now, I want it to be stated here that I do like the film; I just think that it has a couple of flaws, and this pertains to the trans representation. The film follows a black lead in a scary world full of demons and zombies and, most terrifyingly, the prison industrial complex. The film is well made with good actors and interesting ideas. A little too much of all that. The film is trying its best to say a lot and comes short because there are far too many character main stage characters and plot lines. It becomes distracting. For example, we have three characters that play the role of the popular girls who rule the school and are supposed to get a turnaround but are not mean enough at the start to necessitate a change, and their character arc is barely seen and can’t fit in. And a similar thing happens to a lesser extent to the trans character Rual. Rual is a trans-masc character who plays the sidekick of Kat. Their friendship is well fleshed out, but at times, it feels like Kat is pushing him to do stuff he doesn’t want to do, and this plays into a bit of a harmful stereotype about trans men. I do appreciate that they do not just sweep transphobia underneath the rug. We see a few moments of transphobia by villainous characters, which is quickly combated. Stuff that trans people will most likely experience in real life. Now for the negative. There are many times in which Rual is a pushover, doing whatever other characters want them to do. This is a stereotype that trans men are still ultimately women, and as a woman, they are passive. I do think that this was not purposeful since Raul is such a strong character with tons of character and attitude. I can only hope to see more representation like this in the future.
A little housekeeping I will now be making two posts a week, and my next post will be my final on this series of trans representation before I post my overall feelings, thoughts, and observations on trans representation.