A Trans Perspective on The Crying Game
As a preface to my response to The Crying Game (1992), I am going to slightly paraphrase Manthia Diawara:
“To examine [this film], from the specific perspective of my own position as a [trans female] spectator, I want to suggest that the components of ‘difference’ among elements of race, gender and sexuality give rise to different readings of the same material.” (893)
My position in relation to this film must inform how I read it, considering its use — and abuse — of its transgender character.
In an interview given on the 25th anniversary of the release of The Crying Game, writer/director Neil Jordan was asked if he thought the character Dil was a pre-op transsexual. He replied, “She wasn’t that. She was a transvestite” (Brady). He clarifies that he interacted with transgender women, including “a beautiful boy on a hormone course” who performed in the film, and his character was not like them. Aside from the misgendering of the actor, Jordan’s response is either born of a lack of understanding of the differences between ‘transvestites,’ by which this author will politely assume the director is referring to cross-dressers, and transgender women, or he is intentionally diverting attention from his culpability in the lasting injury his film inflicted on the transgender community. As portrayed, Dil has no male identity. She exists…
