Yes, this is an unintentionally hilarious thing about the movie. From what we can observe, Elliot himself is not transgender (the movie uses "transsexual" though these days I think that refers specifically to a transgender person who's had or seeks a sex change operation or procedure), BUT he has multiple personality disorder (I think they call it dissociative identity disorder these days), and since the Bobbi personality is (presumably) female and is inhabiting a male body, *Bobbi* could be arguably said to be transgender when she's emerged as the present personality in Elliot's body. I sort of doubt professionals in reality actually consider someone's other personalities to be separate people, but just going by what the movie shows us that's what it looks like.
Thing is, the film's exposition doesn't do much to draw a distinction between the two conditions AT ALL so it gives off the impression that the filmmakers have simply WILDLY misunderstood transgenderism to mean "I have a separate personality of the opposite gender inside of me." And the movie keeps making repeated and unprompted references to transgenderism all throughout (like the Donahue episode playing on a TV; the graphic conversation they're having in the restaurant at the end; etc.), practically screaming "Elliot is transgender! This movie is all about transgenderism! This is what it's like! Multiple personality disorder, what's that?"
Ironically, I suspect all those references are the filmmakers attempting to show that "hey, transgenderism is a real thing that real people experience, and that doesn't make them psychos like our fictional Dr. Elliot." Except since it looks like they've got what transgenderism even is all wrong in the first place, the more they keep bringing up the subject the more it seems like they're doubling down on depicting trans folks as having a pretty severe multiple personality disorder that would require extensive psychiatric treatment. It's nuts!
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CalvinJarrett (326)
6 months ago
Yes, I just rewatched the movie (with the benefit of our modern understanding of transgenderism), and, yes, they do mention transsexualism too much for the nature of Elliott's psychosis. And, yes, it lends itself to a conflation between transgenerism and dissociative personality disorder. It appears that in 1980, if a man wanted to become a woman there had to be a separate, distinct female personality in his being that wanted to 'win out' over the outward male personality. Seemingly no understanding that the personality is singular but the outward gender misapplied to the person's sense of gender identity. The Donahue interview with Mrs. Hunt was a good nod though toward our contemporary understanding of this issue, as there did not seem to be any hint DID in their case history.
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