Time of Transition
DRAMATISING THE THRILLS AND ANXIETIES OF A TRANSGENDER GIRL STARTING AFRESH IN SECONDARY SCHOOL, JULIE KALCEFF’S FOUR-PART CHILDREN’S SERIES FIRST DAY TREATS ITS PROTAGONIST’S IDENTITY MATTER-OF-FACTLY WHILE TACKLING COMPLEX SUBJECT MATTER – WHETHER IT BE INSTITUTIONAL DISCRIMINATION, TRANSPHOBIC BULLYING OR PRE-TEEN BODY-IMAGE ISSUES – HEAD-ON. BEYOND ITS ACCESSIBLE NARRATIVE, THE SHOW ALSO SERVES AS A USEFUL TEXT FOR DISCUSSING TOPICS SUCH AS THE IMPORTANCE OF DIVERSE SCREEN REPRESENTATION AND THE BENEFITS OF INTERGROUP CONTACT, AS STEVEN AOUN DESCRIBES.
The idea of representation has long been a rallying cry for cultural diversity, equity and inclusion. Appeals for increased space for the marginalised, displaced and excluded can be increasingly heard across a range of fields, ranging from the classroom1 to the workplace,2 via the body politic3 and embodied lifeworld experiences.4 This is a response to the feeling among many culturally diverse groups of people of being underrepresented or misrepresented within their own society. Such value-laden representations are part of the normative web in which all our beliefs, practices and identities are spun and interwoven.
These differential representations encompass attitudes towards race, colour, religion, sex, sexuality, gender identity, ethnicity, professions, age, body types, disability and social class. Calls for more diverse representation therefore herald resistance to the default cultural settings: white, male, heterosexual, cisgender and middle-class. Equally, seeing the world through the lens of a particular race, sex, sexuality, gender identity or class simultaneously reveals society’s fault lines: racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic or classist.5 Given film and television’s complicity in defaulting to pervasive cultural standards or social scripts,6 screen creators are continually been called upon to re-evaluate their own value orientations.7
Although current calls to be (positively) seen on screen might appear to be trailblazing or progressive,8 they are in reality behind the curve. The rallying cries themselves represent a changing reality that is already happening behind the scenes – via shifting power dynamics, increased social mobility/visibility, the formation of new alliances, etc. – and proceed from the recognition that representation matters in societies continuing to undergo transitions.9 Calls for representation, then, are merely an acknowledgement that other identities should be legitimated and normalised on screen, or made to reflect competing standards and evaluations in a relatively safe space.
Social transitioning
Consider the example of First Day, an award-winning 2020 children’s television series screening on ABC Me during the ongoing culture war over gender diversity, transgender youth and conversion/suppression ‘therapies’. Consisting of four twenty-odd-minute episodes primarily directed at school-age children, First Day is deceptively slight. Nonetheless, its heartfelt teenage drama is surprisingly layered, and deftly explores a range of complex themes and emotions.
While it would be a misrepresentation to speak of the LGBTQIA+ community as a single entity or necessarily even a united front, cisgender lesbian writer/director Julie Kalceff is nonetheless a trans ally and committed to exploring alternate senses of being and belonging. recognises that community is a locus of identity and
