Dressed to Kill (1980)
Directed by Brian De Palma
Written by Brian De Palma
Starring Angie Dickinson, Michael Caine, Nancy Allen, Keith Gordon
Release Date July 25th, 1980
Published July 23rd, 2024
Right off the bat, we have to talk about transphobia. Spoiler alert for this more than 40 year old movie. See it for yourself and come back if you don’t want spoilers. I do think the movie is worth seeing even as it is fairly viewed as problematic by many in the LGBTQ community. I am not a trans person and I cannot speak to how trans people feel about Dressed to Killoutside of a few essays I’ve read about this specific topic. I am writing from the perspective of a trans ally. I have trans people in my family and thus I am sensitive to how our popular culture portrays transness. But I will not try to speak on behalf of any trans people, even those I know and love.
Dressed to Kill features a killer, played by Michael Caine, who claims to be a woman trapped in a man’s body. The conceit, according to the screenplay by director Brian De Palma, is that this woman trapped in a man’s body is like a second personality who becomes defensive when the male presenting part of them presents a masculine attraction to a woman, played by Angie Dickinson. This defensiveness is expressed by the female personality emerging, presenting as female, stalking Dickinson’s Kate character, and brutally murdering her.
Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here.
No comments:
Post a Comment