Fourteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

During the last decade, the image of transgender people in television representation drastically changed. The purpose of this paper is to analyse how power relations are (mis)representing transgender identities by basing the image on stereotypes and misconceptions. This statement is supported by a theoretical part, covering Foucault’s concept of power relations, and the most recent idea of technological construction by Paul Beatriz Preciado. The analysis of the Netflix original documentary Disclosure and the Apple TV docu-series Visible: Out in Television, will be used to go through the history of the LGBT movement’s key moments and explain how the community image changed since the 1970s. Then, it will use Netflix’s Original series The Umbrella Academy to show how characters in mainstream television are misconstructed. This paper also wants to criticize the image inclusiveness claimed by mainstream television, which results in a categorization of subjects instead of representing individuals. The Umbrella Academy is not the first example of Netflix representing transgender people: Orange is the New Black is an outstanding illustration of LGB representation, but the transgender issues are still misrepresented despite the presence of Laverne Cox, a transgender Afro-American woman, interpreting a transgender character. Analogously, Elliot Page’s interpretation in The Umbrella Academy is following the path of misrepresentation and stereotyping of transgender people. These productions not only shape the understanding and experience of transgender individuals and are unable to deal with people’s intersectionality creating a fertile environment for misconceptions, but also reinforce the power relations between the producers and the viewers.