Tim Burton's 1994 film Ed Wood is a meaningful parody that brings to life the biography of Edward D. Wood Jr. (a struggling filmmaker, actor and writer who reveals his identity as a heterosexual transvestite) as he would have filmed it. Wood comes to terms with his fetishes and the comfort he finds in identifying with women while filming his personal hardships as he exposes them in the script for the movie Glen or Glenda. He undertakes this film project inspired by Christine Jorgensen, formally know as George William Jorgensen, the first known individual to have sex-reassignment surgery. She became a transsexual pioneer and Edward, who keeps the fact that he frequently wears women's clothing a secret, is inspired to take on the subject he considers himself to have exclusive expertise on and also takes he opportunity to show everyone who he really is by starring as the transgendered protagonist.
[...] Ed Wood's mom, Lillian, probably rewarded Wood for pleasing her with her fantasies of having a daughter, while his father did the contrary and as a result you have a film that has beautiful man which feels more secure when dressed in a sweater, a skirt, pumps, a mustache and wigless when it comes to directing. A fruit that is not a fruit, as George Weiss, the president of Screen Classics, asks him after hearing the confession: George: You're a fruit? [...]
[...] Yet Ed was triumphant when dealing with his situation, so as to erase any suspicion that that relevancy could ever be made. Event though Ed Wood Jr. died at the age of fifty-four from alcoholism and a failing career, the film closes on a positive call for hope in a future that could be more understanding. As soon as he felt something serious for Kathleen, his last wife, he confessed to her that he loved wearing women's clothes and he rather have it get in the way at the beginning than ruining everything later. [...]
[...] This is where the explanation for Ed Wood's personhood starts unraveling. This filmmaker's story seems to serve as a defense for ideas that support that life experiences influence gender more than that biological factors influence gender. Instead of steering towards the explanation that the characteristics that have to do with gender have been somehow molded by human evolution, our past and our present, instead (in this case) they have everything to do with interactions with other individuals; especially since it is commonly believed that the primary social influence on gender is the family. [...]
[...] Only when the child is three to four years old is that he or she learns about gender consistency, that gender cannot change over night and that a woman that shaved off all of her hair is still a woman, a distinction a one year old can not make and that Ed Wood at the age of four and three could not probably make either. His gender did change from one moment to the other until it got to the point where he felt very comfortable in both. [...]
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