Corpses, Fools and Monsters : The History and Future of Transness in Cinema

Author: Maclay, Willow

Film theory & criticism

Published on 9 July 2024 by Watkins Media Limited (Repeater Books) in the United Kingdom.

In the history of cinema, trans people are usually murdered, made into a joke, or viewed as threats to the normal order — relegated to a lost highway of corpses, fools, and monsters.

In this book, trans film critics Caden Mark Gardner and Willow Catelyn Maclay take the reader on a drive down this lost highway, exploring the way that trans people and transness have evolved on-screen.

Starting from the very earliest representations of transness in silent film, through to the multiplex-conquering Matrix franchise and on to the emergence of a true trans-authored cinema, Corpses, Fools and Monsters spans everything from musicals to body horror to avant garde experimental film to tell the story of the trans film image. In doing so, the authors investigate the wider history of trans representation — an exhilarating journey of compromise, recuperation, and potential liberation that they argue is only just the beginning.