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Disclosure Movie Review

Disclosure is a 2020 documentary film directed by Sam Feder. It’s an interesting, but deeply flawed look into the transgender representation in media.

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“As a trans person,

you have the most sensitive radar to tell

the difference between you’re laughing with us,

or you’re laughing at us“

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The movie consists of many transgender celebrities in movies and on television who talk about the issue of representation. Firstly, they touch upon the history of trans characters in movies, but later down the line some of them talk about their own experiences working in this industry.

The result is decidedly a mixed bag. The major highlight has to be the entire emphasis on movie roles featuring transgender characters as we see all these famous movies deconstructed and watched through this transgender minority lens. But some of this outlook was deeply problematic.

For instance, there is this whole section talking about ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ that showcases how that movie ended in tragedy. Their point here is that too many LGBT films end in tragedy when in reality this type of story not only happened, but was crucial in showcasing the heartbreaking brutality that this minority has faced throughout the decades.

It simply felt overly annoying to me to just look out for the negative and disregard the positive examples of movies featuring transgender characters and really great films in fact. Also, they conflated some terms here, which to me was very frustrating. These are the people who should know best how to differentiate between transgender people and cross-dressers, and yet they continued to complain about all these characters who were clearly never trans to begin with. It felt purposefully misguided and conflated.

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Disclosure is at its best when focusing on the positive developments that have happened recently with people like Laverne Cox herself and the entire ‘Pose’ crow and the show that is simply amazing. The light at the end of a dark tunnel definitely happened for this community in recent years and this section of the movie was the most uplifting. I liked seeing and hearing from all these transgender actors. Some were clearly more interesting and better articulated than others, but all were important. The editing was also good and the movie is a fine transgender alternative to ‘The Celluloid Closet’.

The actors and actresses interviewed in Disclosure have the tendency to be overly critical of some showcased movies and they do conflate certain terms very frustratingly, but for the most part it’s a solid look into the history of transgender representation in media, especially Hollywood, and how drastically things have changed in very recent history.

My Rating – 3.5