Adventures in the Gender Trade is a video by Kate Bornstein advocating about transgender issues. The couple in the Cage, on the other hand, is a video by Coco Fusco presenting a satirical performance of stereotypes in culture. Both artists are critiquing a certain aspect of the society or rather a certain way of doing things in the society hence end up fighting for rights of a particular group of people. This essay will, therefore, compare the two videos and explain in details how each has been used to fight for rights.
There is a focus on acting and social performance from both artists presenting an “agency” possibility. Agency is the aspect of acting and involving one to influence his or her situation. In other words, acting has been used to provoke discussions. Kate Bornstein’s video has provoked discussions on transgender issues and refusing to be identified as male or female. There is a presentation of Kate Bornstein’s unhappy childhood as a boy. For instance, there is a time when his father looked at him and said to his mother, “Mildred, your son has eyelashes like a girl” (Kate, 1994 02:50). This really thrilled him until when one day he was walking from school and saw a big block presenting a beautiful blonde woman with a statement, “SHE WAS HE”. This is when he realized that he was not alone in the situation of being asked questions about gender like whether he was sure he was not a gay man (00:30). He just wanted to be in a situation where he would just be what he wanted to be (01:15).
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Discussions come in where a group of people is involved in the documentary. A group of gender anomalies such as transsexuals, gays and lesbians, transsexuals, and those who do not want to be categorized (01:15 – 01:50). All of them advocate for the right not to be referred as male or female. They claim that there is no need to have a bipolar gender system while other cultures embrace diversity. All these people are seen in a satirical nightclub explaining their experiences as the transformed from their genders to being transgender.
Coco Fusco’s video, on the other hand, has been used to trigger discussions about culture stereotypes especially on how westerners treat non-westerners or think about people who are not western. It is a video of a couple in animal clothing placed in a cage for viewing by people in different places such as museums and Plazas. Two things are seen from the video; colonial stereotype and juxtaposition. Colonials stereotype is seen where the caged couple behave like savages such that they are fed on bananas like tourists do to monkeys when they visit animals like monkeys in cages (Fusco, 2017 07:07-07:35). It is also seen where the caged couple act like they are unable to speak or understand English. This is how the westerners think of non-westerners when they visit the world fairs. The areas chosen by performers were places like Plaza in Madrid because those are the places indigenous people felt they were abused the more.
Juxtaposition comes in in the fact that these performers are representing the tribal people but display westernized habits. Habits such as reading magazines and books, typing on a laptop, watching television, and sewing voodoo dolls (04:33-04:58). An indication that in as much as the tribal people are not well developed, they embrace or rather are welcome to new ideas and cultures, unlike the western people. They instead dehumanize the non-western people, for example, most people would pay to take funny pictures with the caged people (09:29-09:58). To them this was normal. However, to some people, it was a disgusting move. "I feel like being put on. It is like a slap in the face" (09.29-09:45). The film made people realize the aspect of no humanity that western people displayed to non-western people and even got emotional about it (24:50-26:32).
From the two videos, we get to see that they were all presented to trigger some discussions. In a manner, that some people would be disturbed by what they saw and go ahead and choose to or not to participate in it. Others would be made aware of current happenings to either warn or appraise them depending on how they are involved in the happenings like colonial stereotypes or transgender activism.
