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The unfortunate reality of queer media is that it tends to be issue first — projects get caught up in lengthy explanations about the nuances of each person’s sexual identity, to the detriment of the rest of the subject matter. The members of Chicago-based band Actor Slash Model, Simon Strikeback and Madsen Minax, managed to craft their new “transfabulous rockumentary” Riot Acts: Flaunting Gender Deviance in Music Performance without ever falling into this trap. The film discusses the realities of being a trans musician with the kind of candidness that only a “by us for us” project allows, and has enough restraint to allow each musician to describe their own lives without defining them in advance for the audience’s benefit. And it still manages to wow the audience with the sheer talent of the musicians.
The acts included vary widely, from the beautiful soothing folk of the duo Coyote Grace (think upright bass, acoustic guitar, and male-female harmonies), The Shondes politically charged melodic rock (Sleater-Kinney with classical and traditional Jewish influences), to Novice Theory’s cabaret style performance. The seventeen different acts discussed the trials of life on the road as much as the impact of trans identities on performance. The most poignant moments were the result of intimate interviews, when the filmmakers knew to ask questions that wouldn’t occur to those who haven’t transitioned themselves. Musicians discussed topics ranging from the effect that hormone therapy has on singing voices to the awkward experience of trying to sing in the dyke bars you used to feel so at home in after transitioning and no longer identifying as a lesbian. Though it was clear many of these situations were exceedingly difficult to navigate, the interviews were still warm and reaffirming; the film avoids the traditional role of trans people as victims, and instead opts to celebrate the artists’ accomplishments.
The production of the film is subtle and feels organic. Interviews with the performers form the narrative, and this encompasses the entire film. There is no omniscient narrator interjecting heavy-handed morals, and there are no awkward tie-ins — the discussion of the musicians’ common experience is enough to form a cohesive film. The interviews are backed by a kick-ass soundtrack comprised of songs written and performed by the featured bands, and footage of the performances supports the anecdotes and observations made during interviews. The only clips that are independent of the featured artists are black and white sequences of a semi-truck on the road that bookend the film – an inherent analogy for life on the road, and a metaphor for the journey of transitioning.
The film ends up being as much for trans people as for cisgendered people (those who identify as the gender they were born as). For the trans members of the audience, there is the powerful connection of representation and identification. For the cisgenders, the film is frankly informative and positive, and forces consideration about the musicians to be focused on the way they express themselves, rather than on externally imposed categories. And above all, it’s an enjoyable watch. The interviewees and the filmmakers embrace their senses of humor (particularly in segments with the Boston based Systyr Act), and the artists are articulate and easy to relate to.
The film stands as a response to a legitimate fear of many trans musicians – the concern that they might be “pigeonholed” into a constrained category as trans musicians. The filmmakers responded by refusing to allow the nonnormative gender identities of the participants to swallow up their music. Each band’s musical style was as distinct as their experiences and their personalities. While the film drew out the similarities between the artists, the filmmakers refused to distort their experience by lumping each act into a homogenous mess of identical experiences.
Riot Acts: http://www.actorslashmodel.com/film.htm
[...] http://www.radarredux.com/2009/12/riot-acts-flaunting-gender-deviance-in-music-performance/The members of Chicago-based band Actor Slash Model, Simon Strikeback and Madsen Minax, managed to craft their new “transfabulous rockumentary” Riot Acts: Flaunting Gender Deviance in Music Performance without ever falling into this … [...]
December 7, 2009 3:20 pm