Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen Review
Trigger warning for sexual violence, transphobic violence. and transphobic discrimination.
"Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen" is an amazing and hopeful battle cry from trans and queer folks to trans and queer audiences to continue the fight for better representations of trans characters and people in TV shows, webseries, and movies. It assembles a diverse group of trans and queer scholars and individuals who have worked in the entertainment industry and gives a very detailed account of a lot of the characters that defined motion pictures from past and present and how problematic and complicated they are. It's highly accessible due to its tight editing and incredible panel of diverse and highly knowledgeable interviewees who guides us through the works that impacted them when they were younger and works that hopefully does so now for newer generations in better ways.
It's a movie that asks and answers a lot of tough questions and give personal insights into terrible trans tropes like, trans characters mostly being sex workers, trans women in medical shows dying from cancer from their hormones, cisgender men's violent reactions to being in contact with trans women, and the demonization of trans men in feminist works just to name a few. It's a must watch and simply one of the best movies in Netflix's catalogue and a great jumping off point for people who are interested in learning about trans representation and the big differences of how they see themselves on the screen compared to how non trans people see trans people in the media they consume.
As a non-binary East Asian person, I would've loved to have seen more Asian trans folks be involved in the documentary itself. It focuses exclusively on North American and European media and I feel that it would've been more helpful to explore trans representations in other parts of the world or to provide more specific multi-ethnic perspectives to add to the perspectives that were already in it. This being said, the documentary is still highly effective, diverse, and emotional as it is.