New Fangoria review of film

[PeteMork]

I don't think I've seen a review of the film and book with this detailed a slant in the Trans Romance direction before:

https://www.fangoria.com/original/oskar ... s-romance/

[intrige]

That was a pretty great review, and I agree with a lot of the feelings the writer is talking about. As a 16 yearold when I first saw the movie I was so taken with it and didn't know why. Now as a 28 yearold I understand why, and I'd dare to say in a way it shaped me a lot as a person. As did this forum.

[CyberGhostface]

While I support trans readings of the character (I know a lot of trans people have responded positively to the story) and I think there's room for this to be explored in future adaptations (I.E. having a trans/nonbinary person play Eli)... a lot of this is bullshit and against what the novel explicitly states.

The novel discusses Eli through this lens, revealing she was forced into it by an older vampire who turned them against their will. Despite this, Eli willingly continues to act and live as a girl. The idea of transwomen as merely castrated men is a deeply rooted transphobic idea and viewpoint, still used in offensive jokes and stereotypes of transwomen to this day to invalidate their existence. ...

The way Eli's physical sex is revealed also diverges from novel to film. In the novel, Eli's deadname is mentioned, driving the point home of their current name being a nickname. Using deadnames, (the names trans people were assigned at birth), is incredibly offensive and hurtful. It also must be said how much this version of Eli conveys the harmful idea of trans people pretending to be someone they're not. In the novel, Eli starts their relationship with Oskar before he knows what happened to her and is shocked to discover it afterward, feeling Eli lied to him. Unfortunately, this is commonly experienced by trans people in relationships, where after their partner finds out, things can become dangerous. The novel depicts Eli as deliberately hiding this from Oskar, further purporting the idea Eli has 'trapped' Oskar in this.

Per John Ajvide Lindqvist:

But I felt that Eli/Elias would try to appear more likeable in order to ge closer to Oskar, once he had decided not to kill him (The stroke on the cheek). Since Oskar percieves Eli as a girl, Eli is content with not informing him otherwise, although he can´t help himself on a few occasions. Eli doesn´t want to fool Oskar, he is uncertain if Oskar is going to leave him if the truth comes out.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1836

In terms of actual canon, Eli is NOT transgender in the original novel. Elias is not Eli's deadname, it's who Eli views himself as. The novel makes it clear that Eli still views himself as being a male. He uses male pronouns when referring to himself. As JAL states, Eli is in an awkward situation as Oskar has assumed he's a girl. He's not trying to deliberately 'deceive' or 'trap' him.

[intrige]

I always viewed Eli as being more indifferent to his gender, and ajusting as need be to survival. But that's just me.

But what this review shows very clearly is that it is very easy for a transperson(myself included) to project oneself onto Eli. Nowadays there are more oppertunities for that in the media, but when the book came out, or even when the movie came out it was not so at all.

[CyberGhostface]

Just to clarify, my only issue with the essay was how the author was going after JAL for something he didn't write or intend (I.e. condemning JAL over Eli using their deadname when Elias is their preferred name).

[andmker]

The review was ok, but I agree that Eli's gender is made quite clear in the novel. The difficulty with watching such an intelligent movie is that things can be misunderstood if you haven'g read the source material. Still, I'm glad LTROI is being reviewed anew and might infected some new people to the masterpiece

(Does anyone remember the review in "1001 movies you must see before you die"? If I remember correctly the writer thought the theme of the movie was immigration)