Akda: The Asian Journal of Literature, Culture, Performance
Keywords
Trans Cinema, Precarity, Trans Motherhood, Transgender Studies
Abstract
In this short essay, I reflect on representations and themes in trans cinema in the Philippines. I examine the emerging and intersecting themes of precarity and motherhood in two recent films –Rod Singh’s Mamu and a Mother too (2018), and Isabel Sandoval’s Lingua Franca (2020). I look at how economic and social precarity tends to pervade the lives of trans women, and how transness itself becomes a form of precarity under the legal system’s lack of accommodation to trans rights. I also examine trans motherhood and make the argument that while it destabilizes biology as the root of motherhood, it also reifies traditional tropes of Filipina motherhood that center it on self-sacrifice. Finally, I look at how precarity and motherhood intersect in Philippine Trans Cinema.
Recommended Citation
Inton-Campbell, Mikee
(2022)
"Precarity and Motherhood in Philippine Trans Cinema,"
Akda: The Asian Journal of Literature, Culture, Performance: Vol. 1:
No.
3, Article 6.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.59588/2782-8875.1023
Available at:
https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/akda/vol1/iss3/6
Included in
Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Film and Media Studies Commons, Pacific Islands Languages and Societies Commons, South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies Commons