Could a trans actress play Eli?

[sauvin]

Maybe I'm just a little confused. I wasn't thinking in terms of how an actor or actress might react to playing the role of Eli; I'd been fixated on the perspective of the audience member who wouldn't necessarily know one flipping thing about the person doing the acting.

I may also be just a bit trigger-happy. As I'll mention on occasion in this forum, I'm a moderator on a major forum whose area of interest is a particular operating system (how to install it, how to use many of its tools, what kinds of software is available for it, etc). As with all fora of any size or notoriety, we sometimes see an influx of new people who are less interested in the operating system itself (or even computers at all) and a lot more interested in this religion or that political party or some other controversy du jour. While the forum tolerates and usually even subtly encourages community with off-topic banter and socialising, we (on this other form) can be rather quick to clamp down when non-topical threads of conversation threaten to disrupt or derail the forum. We're primarily a technical forum, albeit a friendly one, and we would very much like to remain so.

It's been seen in this forum, although it's been quite some time. Somebody wandered in, socialised for a week or three, and then started ascribing to Eli all kinds of different labels involving the 'cis-this, bi-that, quasi-other' that I admit to not understanding. I personally thought this was a great deal of rather adult eris to be lashing onto poor little Eli's twelve year old back, and wasn't at all shy about saying so. The specific epithet I offered at the time was that this forum wasn't going to serve as a host to matters of gender politics.

I'm having a great deal of trouble seeing that Eli herself would have anything resembling a "sexual identity", or even anything resembling any of the various brands of "gender" people can choose from these days. It's explicitly stated in the novel and strongly implied in the movie that Eli is aware these things exist but I don't remember anything in either medium to suggest that Eli understands these things... um... "viscerally", so to speak. If anything, she is herself quite literally genderless, apparently having nothing in the way of conventional generative organs (contagion is something other, I'd think) and therefore having nothing to impel generative desire or behaviour. She's evinced an intellectual ("practical") knowledge of these things, as with consenting to endure Haakan's blackmail (but only to an extent), being very wary of what Oskar may have had in mind with this "going steady" business and with her offer "we can kiss, if you want" in the novel when she thought Oskar was upset or displeased with her. But, an ability to operate these mechanisms in no way implies any real understanding of them or of having any facet of "identity" concerned with them.

Mine probably isn't the only possible interpretation of Eli in these matters, and I don't believe the other moderators would have a problem with discussing Eli's sexual or gender-related identity (if any) if a plausible case could be made for it strictly on the basis of evidence supplied in LTROI canon (movie or novel). Such pursuits can be fraught with danger, though, just as we've often skated and danced very, very carefully (and usually rather delicately) around Haakan's pedophiliacal mulberry bush.

That said, with respect to the plight of an actor (or actress) whose character endured some kind of emotional extremity, there is some latitude for discussion. It's happened. I think I remember reading that Jodie Foster declined to reprise her role as Clarice Starling because it had rattled her cage - if you'd read the book before watching the movie, I think a case could be made that reprising the role wouldn't have done Foster any emotional favours. I also remember reading that Natalie Portman declined a great many roles since her role as Mathilda (Leon the Professional) because of the character's very Lolita-like aspects, although this case may be a bit less germane because her reaction wasn't to the role itself so much as to the nature of some of the fan mail she'd gotten afterwards. If you'll google around on such search terms as "actors traumatised by the roles they played", you'll run into any number of stories of similar things happening, although a great many of these cases seem to have more to do with how their directors treated them than the actors' reactions to the roles themselves.

[Jameron]

At least two of us--Trige and I--don't see Eli as trans or any kind of cis-something. He was born male and was emasculated by a sadistic vampire lord. In the film, he is mistaken for a girl but doesn't think about until he wonders at the candy kiosk if Oskar only likes him because he thinks he's a girl.

Absolutely this. Put me down as a plus 1.

.

[Jameron]

Fwiw one of the reasons why I did the topic was because I’ve been watching Euphoria on HBO and there’s a trans actress (Hunter Schafer) who I thought could do a good Eli for either something like the play or if they had an older cast just as a what if. Then I wondered how such a thing would go down in terms of reaction.

Euphoria was so full of tropes I almost gave up on it. The only thing that kept me watching was the relationship between Jules and Rue (Hunter Schafer and Zendaya). Didn't have a problem with Hunter being trans.

Anyways sorry if I caused any problems.

I don't think you have caused any problems here.

The biggest thing that I like about WTI is that we can have honest and frank discussions about prickly subjects because we're mostly adults that behave like adults, unlike the vast majority of the internet. I am largely unaware of trans issues simply because I don't know anyone that is trans and if I misspeak here I'm sure someone will politely correct me and not insist that I'm some kind of "CIS SCUM!!" for not knowing the best pronoun to use.

Someone had an issue with a fanfic I wrote and left this review "... I wonder if you know that Eli is a dude... Probably not." Great review, btw. They apparently didn't like that I wrote Eli as a girl. When I looked at this person's profile there was a manifesto extolling tolerance and acceptance, that included tolerance for trans people. On further reflection it occurred to me that IF we treat Eli as a trans person then "she"and "her" would be the correct pronouns to use in the story. The person that left the "review" didn't know if I had written Eli as a cis girl or a trans girl (I hope those are the right terms) as I hadn't stated that either were the case. However this "expert" missed that, and only showed their own lack of tolerance and acceptance to other's perceived failings. The internet is a weird place.

.

[intrige]

As a trans person myself, I say yes, very much yes. That would be awesome!!

[dongregg]

As a trans person myself, I say yes, very much yes. That would be awesome!!

"Eli takes a blanket from her closet, covers her, and kisses her former rival's forehead. She turns to walk back to the party, stops, and turns back to the bed. She peers at Ingrid's face, so beautiful and childlike in repose. After a moment, she bends down and kisses Ingrid's lips.
Gyah, she thinks, jealousy is more complicated than I thought."

[intrige]

Someone had an issue with a fanfic I wrote and left this review "... I wonder if you know that Eli is a dude... Probably not." Great review, btw. They apparently didn't like that I wrote Eli as a girl. When I looked at this person's profile there was a manifesto extolling tolerance and acceptance, that included tolerance for trans people. On further reflection it occurred to me that IF we treat Eli as a trans person then "she"and "her" would be the correct pronouns to use in the story. The person that left the "review" didn't know if I had written Eli as a cis girl or a trans girl (I hope those are the right terms) as I hadn't stated that either were the case. However this "expert" missed that, and only showed their own lack of tolerance and acceptance to other's perceived failings. The internet is a weird place.

Also by defenition anything but cis is trans. So weather Eli identefies as a girl, something ese, or nothing at all is trans. And also to be honest, having people asking questions, and being open to corrections is an ideal situation to be in, speaking for myself. It is when people are not willing to listen and empathise that there is a problem. That Eli as a blank slate is also refreshing to me, and the way JAL wrote Eli I have and still am very confortable with. Apart from the viewoints of others who are biased and uninformed about how Eli viewes himself, which is to be expected. Eli's gender is such a non issue to him, it is what it is and that's that. It is normalized to him, as is my gender identity to me. I live every day as myself after all and I am used to it, so is Eli. I like that.

[Jameron]

Eli's gender is such a non issue to him, it is what it is and that's that.

Well said.

Even though Eli is a prepubescent child and therefore doesn't see the world in terms of sexual desire, this is still the hardest thing to get people to accept.

.

[dongregg]

"Eli compares Oskar's kiss to how it felt when she let grownup helpers kiss her, which just felt stupid. Maybe Oskar's right. Maybe it's supposed to feel good when you kiss somebody you like.
She wonders, Did Oskar ever think about kissing Ingrid? If he ever gets the idea he wants to kiss somebody, it better be me!"

Like this? Everything is a new experience with Oskar.

[intrige]

At least two of us--Trige and I--don't see Eli as trans or any kind of cis-something. He was born male and was emasculated by a sadistic vampire lord. In the film, he is mistaken for a girl but doesn't think about until he wonders at the candy kiosk if Oskar only likes him because he thinks he's a girl.

Absolutely this. Put me down as a plus 1.

.

Yes I mean, Eli as he views himself don't feel especially trans. All though by defenition he is. More a lack of gender anything. It's is also worth to consider, if something like that happened to me or you; we can't be sure if we would feel differently. Mutulation, removal of identity and humanity, and finally; stuck that way for over a hundred years. It is possible we all would feel the same way, as a comping mechanism. Parhaps Eli might feel that part of him that had a gender was removed not by his genetalia spesificly but the experience and trauma. That he oppresses that part of himself that could feel that way because it links to his trauma. Even adults who have fully developed brains does that. The human brain does a lot of crazy and messed up things that could be harmful just to mentain iself. Not that Eli's non-gender is bad, but yeah. A child coping with a trauma by repressing it or disasosiating from it seems like a logical think for the child brain to do. Added up on that, survival. Marslow's pyramid as I am sure you all are aware of, diktates that baisc need comes before self relfection by far, in the human brain. And the vampire in LTROI at least in Eli's case is a starved shell of a human. Most people are I think, when they live hand to mouth. Or rather, neck to mouth

[intrige]

Maybe I'm just a little confused. I wasn't thinking in terms of how an actor or actress might react to playing the role of Eli; I'd been fixated on the perspective of the audience member who wouldn't necessarily know one flipping thing about the person doing the acting.

I may also be just a bit trigger-happy. As I'll mention on occasion in this forum, I'm a moderator on a major forum whose area of interest is a particular operating system (how to install it, how to use many of its tools, what kinds of software is available for it, etc). As with all fora of any size or notoriety, we sometimes see an influx of new people who are less interested in the operating system itself (or even computers at all) and a lot more interested in this religion or that political party or some other controversy du jour. While the forum tolerates and usually even subtly encourages community with off-topic banter and socialising, we (on this other form) can be rather quick to clamp down when non-topical threads of conversation threaten to disrupt or derail the forum. We're primarily a technical forum, albeit a friendly one, and we would very much like to remain so.

It's been seen in this forum, although it's been quite some time. Somebody wandered in, socialised for a week or three, and then started ascribing to Eli all kinds of different labels involving the 'cis-this, bi-that, quasi-other' that I admit to not understanding. I personally thought this was a great deal of rather adult eris to be lashing onto poor little Eli's twelve year old back, and wasn't at all shy about saying so. The specific epithet I offered at the time was that this forum wasn't going to serve as a host to matters of gender politics.

I'm having a great deal of trouble seeing that Eli herself would have anything resembling a "sexual identity", or even anything resembling any of the various brands of "gender" people can choose from these days. It's explicitly stated in the novel and strongly implied in the movie that Eli is aware these things exist but I don't remember anything in either medium to suggest that Eli understands these things... um... "viscerally", so to speak. If anything, she is herself quite literally genderless, apparently having nothing in the way of conventional generative organs (contagion is something other, I'd think) and therefore having nothing to impel generative desire or behaviour. She's evinced an intellectual ("practical") knowledge of these things, as with consenting to endure Haakan's blackmail (but only to an extent), being very wary of what Oskar may have had in mind with this "going steady" business and with her offer "we can kiss, if you want" in the novel when she thought Oskar was upset or displeased with her. But, an ability to operate these mechanisms in no way implies any real understanding of them or of having any facet of "identity" concerned with them.

Mine probably isn't the only possible interpretation of Eli in these matters, and I don't believe the other moderators would have a problem with discussing Eli's sexual or gender-related identity (if any) if a plausible case could be made for it strictly on the basis of evidence supplied in LTROI canon (movie or novel). Such pursuits can be fraught with danger, though, just as we've often skated and danced very, very carefully (and usually rather delicately) around Haakan's pedophiliacal mulberry bush.

That said, with respect to the plight of an actor (or actress) whose character endured some kind of emotional extremity, there is some latitude for discussion. It's happened. I think I remember reading that Jodie Foster declined to reprise her role as Clarice Starling because it had rattled her cage - if you'd read the book before watching the movie, I think a case could be made that reprising the role wouldn't have done Foster any emotional favours. I also remember reading that Natalie Portman declined a great many roles since her role as Mathilda (Leon the Professional) because of the character's very Lolita-like aspects, although this case may be a bit less germane because her reaction wasn't to the role itself so much as to the nature of some of the fan mail she'd gotten afterwards. If you'll google around on such search terms as "actors traumatised by the roles they played", you'll run into any number of stories of similar things happening, although a great many of these cases seem to have more to do with how their directors treated them than the actors' reactions to the roles themselves.

Sexual identity is a bit far fetched if you ask me, but romantic and gender identity sure, or lack there of. Whoever it was that labaled Eli all sorts of things and then left I can synpathize with though. All though I have been here so long and gotten that: Putting myself into every work of art because I was starving for representation phase, I still remember how that felt. If anything, it is more amotional than understanding the mechanism of a machine as you put it. And I would also give the argument that even though Eli's gender is subtle and not the main focus of the story, it is still there. So to allow people to project onto Eli to mee, has a place here. Gender politics are complecs, naimly because it is politics now. It should't be. In an ideal world gender would just be and everyone would just agree with it and politics would have nothing todo with it. A person being in a wolrd where that isn't the case, and feiling of aknowladgement from any medium is hard to come by, the character Eli does servse its purpose here. Though in canon, the emotions and mechanisms of Eli the character isn't relevant. It is so to real people in this world, if only slightly and for a brief time.

But like Eli's gender in LTROI it would be well balanced with the discussion of such topics in the same amount on this forum. I do understand where you are coming from, and all of this in the real world are complex. Itsn't it that Eli's gender or lack there of isn't? It's easy, cause there's none of it. But for some Eli is a blank slate, and that gives people room to imterprit Eli according to their own needs.

Nowadays anyway, there are far better books movies and comics and such where more solid representasion is. LTROI isn't one of them, not fully. And that's ok.My life isn't all about my gender identity either. I just exist, and it comes up now and then. Just like in LTROI