The
Danish Girl
Tom
Harman
Unfortunately,
I have to say that I am not the greatest fan of Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl. Of course, as with any of
Hooper’s films, you can say, ‘what is there to dislike?’ (a part from, say, the
awful singing in Les Misérables): we
have the beautiful and talented actors Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander, the
stunning European scenery, the sparse but genteel surroundings of Copenhagen
and the luxury of bohemian Paris, all stunningly shot in Hooper’s painterly
aesthetic, much as in the highly successful The
King’s Speech and Les Mis. But, in
a way, it is precisely this aesthetic that I’d like to take issue with.
Hooper’s aesthetic is essentially apolitical or
depoliticised. It aims to create a romantic and nostalgic image of personal
struggle specifically divorced from History, subsuming the political questions
of the past and present into the dominant narratives of bourgeois society. The
story of The Danish Girl is the
perfect material for this sort of assimilation as it aims to address the
inherent questioning of normative gender stereotypes presented by transgender
people by reaffirming a form of gender essentialism that neutralises such a
threat. How does the film do this.
First, in its use of extreme close up and fish-eye
lens. The camera is constantly focussing us on the personal and sensual at the
expense of a wider view of the world. Similarly with the film’s painterly
compositions, there is little room for a chance event or imposition from outside
into this refined atmosphere: the working class are either violent or
picaresque and the medical institutions austere and cold. Life, even with its
troubles, is still beautiful for this privileged class.
Second, let’s look at the portrayal of Gerda (Alicia
Vikander). Gerda is initially portrayed in the film as the liberated, bohemian
woman, but is essentially the loving, faithful middle-class wife to Einar
Wegener (Eddie Redmayne). She loves him so much that she indulges his desire to
dress as a woman, but, once the ‘game’ is over and Lili does not return to the
realm of fantasy, Gerda breaks down. We see Gerda constantly trying to help
Lili but, like any ‘real’ woman, the film suggests that she needs the support
and love of a man which she eventually finds in the arms of Hans (Matthias
Schoenaerts). The film reasserts the heterosexual couple as the ultimate
normative ground of interpersonal relationships.
In this way, Lili Elbe plays the Mrs Doubtfire role.
She shows Gerda how to act as a ‘proper’ woman, holding the ‘proper’ values of
wanting to be beautiful, wanting a husband and, of course, wanting a child.
Here we have the classic construct of woman as male fantasy, where the male
female-impersonator is more female than the female (pace Judith Butler) (we
must remember the choice of the cisgendered Redmayne). Lili turns herself into
an object for the male gaze and acts in the suitably passive and receptive
manner of traditional hetero-normative stereotypes. This is suitably
essentialised by Lili at the end of the film when she recounts her dream that
she is a child and her mother calls her Lili. Through Lili’s gender
reassignment she reaches her ‘true’ self and, luckily for the audience and
Gerda, she dies so that she can be the sacrificial hero who follows her true
calling, realising her true self as a ‘proper’ woman. Male Einar was a mistake
and the natural order is once again resumed at the end of the film, everyone in
their right place.
The Danish
Girl, in this way, maintains the kind
of conservative narratives that Hollywood is so famous for, where the viewer
can luxuriate in the aesthetics of a nostalgic 1920s where the only ‘others’
are a criminal or servile underclass or the threat of medical
institutionalisation, shown in opposition to the liberal and open-minded
cultured classes. There is no room for politics here only the maintenance of
the family and the heterosexual couple as the font of true happiness. The Danish Girl does bring the question
of gender reassignment into public discourse, but neatly translates the threat
of a transgender politics into an updated gender essentialism that affirms the status-quo
once again.
