Directed by: Christina Willings (2017)
Film Duration: 23 minutes
Keywords: gender creativity; gender diversity; identity; youth; short film
Freely available on the National Film Board of Canada website: https://www.nfb.ca/film/beauty/
Have you ever felt like you were playing a game of pretend, sacrificing your individuality just to fit the mould? Have you felt the need to suppress certain parts of yourself for fear of being judged by your peers, your family, or your society? If so, the experiences of the five gender-creative kids who star in this film will surely resonate with you.
Beauty: Beyond Binary is an award-winning short documentary film produced by the National Film Board and directed by Vancouver-based filmmaker Christina Willings. This piece offers a window into the lived experiences of five Canadian kids, as they explore the possibilities for authentic self-expression that are available to us all.
Participants Bex, Lili, Tru, Fox, and Milo tell their stories, in their own words. Milo, Bex, and Tru identify as transgender, Fox as gender-fluid, and Lili is a cisgender girl who challenges restrictive social norms and expectations around female gender presentation. Regardless of where they fall along the gender spectrum, these kids make it abundantly clear that they know who they are.
As they discuss their trials and triumphs on their journeys towards embracing their whole selves, each of the participants exhibits an astounding depth of self-knowledge, courage, and thoughtfulness. They are acutely aware that choosing to live authentically is not always the easiest path in a social reality that discourages creative self-expression. In an early scene, seven-year-old Bex tells us that he doesn’t like to talk about his trans experience in public because “it can be dangerous for me.” Throughout the film, the children recount instances where they were targets of bullying or harassment, moments when they worried about fitting in, and times when they wished they could be reborn into bodies that align with their true identities. Despite the challenges they have faced, these kids dare to be true to themselves and in sharing their stories, they inspire others to do the same.
Director Christina Willings, a member of the LGBTQ+ community herself, has addressed sexuality and gender in previous works, including a 2008 documentary entitled Cure for Love (IMDB). In Beauty: Beyond Binary, she explores a delicate topic with masterful sensitivity and a profound degree of respect and care for her participants. Willings weaves together deeply personal and occasionally heart-wrenching dialogue in Beauty: Beyond Binary with sequences showing the kids playing and doing what they love and clips from home videos shot by their parents. In this way, she reminds viewers that Bex, Tru, Lili, Milo, and Fox are just regular kids, whose painful experiences do not prevent them from feeling profound joy.
Willings does not make any appearances in the film, and her absence seems to be deliberate; in stepping out of the picture, she lets her participants speak for themselves. Their voices make up the film’s entire narrative, and its message is stronger for it. In a world where children’s perspectives are often trivialized by the media, Beauty: Beyond Binary makes an important contribution to broader public discourse on gender diversity and trans rights. Rather than exploring the issues that concern trans and gender-creative youth from a theoretical standpoint, the film empowers Tru, Bex, Fox, Milo, and Lili to share their own thoughts, feelings, and experiences. In the process, they offer kids the opportunity to hear directly from their peers and remind the rest of us that young people have a great deal to teach us, if we will only listen.
Willings collaborated with animator Elisa Chee to illustrate the participants’ felt experiences and bring to life each of the kids’ conceptions of their inner selves. She depicts Milo as an astronaut, Lili as a warrior, and Tru as a mermaid, a “part of two worlds”. As the film progresses, the narrative shifts from the challenges the kids have faced towards their accomplishments, their passions, and their hopes and dreams for the future. Meanwhile, their animated alter-egos are shown breaking out of the box and soaring into space. The animation and underwater sequences featured in the film lend it an otherworldly, almost dreamlike quality, inspiring viewers to use their own imaginations. What does gender become when we strip away the rigid norms and expectations of society? Can we dream up a world where all identities and forms of self-expression are accepted, regardless of whether they fit inside the proverbial box? Beauty: Beyond Binary inspires us to liberate ourselves from a restrictive social paradigm and broaden our understanding of what it means to be fully human. As Lili puts it; “I don’t think there are any genders. There isn’t one gender, there isn’t two genders, there isn’t three genders; we’re all just humans, trying to find our way in the world.”
References
IMDb. (2008, May 27). Cure for love. IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1365592/?ref_=nm_knf_i1
National Film Board of Canada. (2017). Beauty: Beyond binary. National Film Board. https://www.nfb.ca/film/beauty/
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