A week and a half ago we saw Ed Wood's Glen or Glenda in cinema history class -- it was the first thing we saw in Ed Wood month. I wrote about it here. I realize that there are two general observations that I should have addressed.
The first is the fact that the movie would probably have been better if producer George Weiss hadn't interfered. Weiss had wanted a film that would exploit the sensationalism the then-knew phenomenon of sex-reassignment surgery. But Wood turned in a semi-autobiographical film that focused on his own cross-dressing. Weiss, displeased, insisted on having additional footage focusing on transexualism. As a result, the movie feels like a poorly constructed anthology. As I noted in the above-linked post, it destroyed the reasonably good poetic ending that Wood had created. I'm also assuming that the long sequences showing industrial machines talking to each other about sex-reassignment were added at Weiss' behest. This is not to say that it would have been a good film if not for Weiss. It still would have had that PSA feel, and wtill would have had bad acting. Plus it would have been way too short. Still, it would have been better.
The other observation is that the movie, though very progressive for its day, would, today, be seen as very outdated. Homosexuality, cross-dressing and gender dysphoria are all conflated, and the movie treats them as essentially the same thing. I have to wonder how many people, watching it today, would judge it by today's standards rather than in relationship to its time.
No comments:
Post a Comment