Political perspectives on two transgender characters in opera
Hello, all!
For this week’s post, I’ve decided to be lazy and publish a paper that I recently wrote for a class on opera and politics at UBC. The paper dives deep into two operas featuring transgender characters, As One and Good Country. Since issues of trans representation are very close to my heart and opera is my academic specialty, I thought it important to present some nuanced critiques of these works, especially As One, because much of the press surrounding that particular opera tends to boil down to “transgender! how progressive :)” and I think this growing genre deserves better than that.
I think I say this about five hundred times in the actual paper, but for legal reasons I feel compelled to say that, despite my criticisms, these two operas are genuine works of art and creating successful art about trans themes, especially from the perspective of a cis creative team, takes vulnerability and skill and spirit. I would also like to say that I don’t want to dissuade cis creators from putting trans characters in their art. It’s probably a controversial stance, but I believe that cis people are capable of making trans characters in a non-exploitative manner; it just takes that much more sensitivity towards the real-life problems that many trans people experience. In both of these operas, the economic and social conditions of the worlds in which the trans characters live are not discussed at all, leaving room for neoliberal ideological principles - those same principles which, for example, encourage governments to strip down medical safety nets, forcing trans people to pay hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket for livesaving care. My vision of an ideal future is one in which all trans peoples’ material, emotional, and spiritual needs are met, and I believe that these material conditions can and will inspire a further flourishing of trans art.
TRANS LIBERATION NOW.