Tops

The difference between films made by outsiders for trans people, films made by trans people for outsiders and films made by trans people for trans people is at least on a par with the cultural shift experienced when changing one’s gender presentation. To the average cisgender viewer, this film is going to seem so odd as to be almost indecipherable – yet still, potentially, a lot of fun. It’s certainly at odds with mainstream narratives which position trans men as obsessive or tragic. What director Ames Pennington and co-director Jos Bitelli deliver is, in its own way, close to the bone, but it’s also joyously silly.

Whilst a mockumentary spoofing the content made by amateurs from within a community with very little mainstream representation might seem mean-spirited, Bitelli and Pennington are very much insiders, and furthermore, their modest production values ensure that the film – though certainly kingy – never lords it over anyone. It centres on a fictionalised version of Pennington, who hosts a show called Tops. Whilst this might have several meanings within the community, it actually focuses on getting trans men to display and discuss the upper body garments they most want to wear after getting mastectomies and masculine chest reconstruction (known as top surgery).

There’s a bit of emotional depth to this because putting on a favourite piece of clothing that didn’t fit before can be an exciting moment in the aftermath of surgical transition – a moment of claiming identity and getting to feel good about the way one looks. Beyond that, though, it’s a deeply trivial exercise which quickly devolves into the fictional Pennington going through people’s stuff with an eye to what might be worth stealing. The subjects of these documentary episodes seem rather bemused by the whole thing, not clear on how they got into this and not particularly good at getting into that well known hyper reality TV style. Every time they give an inch, a mile is taken, and as the story develops it becomes clear that the host is in fact just desperate to get to know them and make friends – despite going about it in an extremely counterproductive way.

Along the way, the film highlights the ridiculousness of questions often asked of trans people in media, of both the mainstream and community varieties. There’s some astute dissection of masculinity en passant, along with scenes in which we see characters straining after masculinity, interpreting everything in gendered terms. The host’s anxiety about being seen as sufficiently manly comes to a head in scenes involving weightlifting which themselves dodge any direct confrontation, astutely observing how men with such preoccupations actually behave, most of the time, rather than how they imagine behaving. This habit of side-stepping also enables the film to address, briefly, some very difficult experiences without bringing down the mood.

In between the various segments we get adverts of the sort that trans people are all too familiar with: small trans-run businesses promoting goods of dubious quality to others with a side-order of pressure to be a good member of the community and spend, spend, spend. This also speaks to the film’s broader examination of the fear of not being trans enough to deserve the respect of others – a need to fit in amplified by the experience of being an outsider in other parts of society. The unnecessary nature of this feeling is demonstrated by the different lifestyles and attitudes of the show’s subjects, who all seem pretty comfortable with themselves – further highlighting the insecurities of the host.

For all its visual scrappiness – without which it could not convince – this is as sharp as a tack. It is nonetheless warm-hearted, a nice little character study which quietly celebrates the fact that, moral panics notwithstanding, most trans people are just getting on with life on their own terms, and in a fabulous selection of tees, shirts and jumpers.