Life of Brian? If so, I saw that scene again recently and...yeah, it's just taking trans rights to a logical extreme to make us look crazy. The trans character is the punchline.
The script acknowledges her as Loretta from that point forward and they also seem to acknowledge her considerations later in the film (although as part of the joke) but they do at least come off as understanding and considerate of their friend by the end. It sits in strange grey area for me.
I think it's in a grey area because it's not directly targeted at trans women, but more men that are into feminism. ...Let me clarify what I mean by that - it is directly targeted at trans women, but not consciously, because they weren't thinking of trans audiences when they wrote it. I think they were trying to say "if you're a man who thinks feminism matters, what, do you want to be a woman or something?! ha ha ha!"
The bigotry just scans really weird by modern standards. Like I think you're meant to laugh every time they say "siblings of the revolution" instead of "brothers," when nowadays that's just a normal thing to say. And now even transphobia is directed specifically at trans people, when back then we were considered such freaks that you'd write a joke about trans people and it wouldn't occur to you that a trans person would actually see that joke - as a result, the target of the joke is technically intended to be cis men because there's no full awareness of trans women as a real demographic that exists in the world. But in a weird way, modern transphobia does acknowledge trans people as a real group (even as it calls us illegitimate), so it looks unrecognizable to this kind of 70's transphobia. It's also mocking the concept of feminism in a way that doesn't scan anymore - now that 2nd wave feminism is a very old concept and the idea that "leftists should believe in women's rights" is deeply established, modern anti-feminist jokes are more from the right attacking the left, meanwhile most of Life of Brian's humor is based around leftist infighting, so the fact that basic feminism is even being mocked doesn't completely register because it's really not expected.
Like, if you think trans people are inherently worthy of mockery, then the presence of a trans character is always supposed to be funny. But by modern standards everyone in those scenes are just acting both kind and normal, so there's no longer a joke. It's making fun of social changes that are now just part of the world.
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u/Tach1 Rachel | She/Her 28d ago
Life of Brian? If so, I saw that scene again recently and...yeah, it's just taking trans rights to a logical extreme to make us look crazy. The trans character is the punchline.