one of the trans bloggers I follow just dropped a 4-part essay on what she considers to be an intentional allegory for trans experience layered into the plot & character development of the Val Kilmer movie Real Genius. One of the screenwriters (PJ Torokvei later came out as a trans woman, and the case Tilly makes for the story beats that are so very similar to trans experience was extremely compelling to me (and I went and bought the movie in a fit of pique to go through the minute by minute breakdown). There is a known pipeline in trans circles of awkward/shy/off-putting nerd dudes to hot idiosyncratic trans women, and there are different ways people deal with, or don’t deal with, their trans-ness and it’s that awareness that informs Tilly’s analysis.
THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF REAL GENIUS, part 1
Parts 2-4 are linked in succession at the bottom of each article.