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threeara's review against another edition
4.0
This book covers a lot of ground in relatively few pages. I loved the biographical parts most, as Anderson's voice really shines and it feels extra special when they bring their personal experience into the text.
emb2857's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
unladylike's review
5.0
This was just so great on many levels. As of this moment, I've only seen a small handful of the films and shows Tre'vell discusses. But I used to be an arts and entertainment journalist, and I was good at it, and good at discerning between good versus bad A & E journalism. Tre'vell Anderson is killing it at their craft, capably engaging the reader with the most important facts of the subject matter while also never shying away from acknowledgments of the ways their own subjectivity played a role at different points in time. They establish contexts in culture in different eras and give us a brief, underrepresented history that is a joy to read.
Tre'vell and I are both AMAB nonbinary transfabulous femme baddies. I was born almost a decade earlier, so we have some overlap and a lot of different experience in terms of generational experience. I have white privilege and they're Black, so that alone sets our experiential lenses apart greatly for processing the significance of many of the figures featured in this book. I'll definitely be watching some of the material I learned about: When They See Us, Disclosure, and Sort Of are highest on the list. I never watched Powerpuff Girls (didn't have Cartoon Network growing up) but I had a cool, punk friend named April who was a mega-fan of it and who, I think in retrospect, saw the genderqueerness in me. The villain, called "H.I.M.," from that show sounds/looks like a great character to learn about and cosplay as!
Tre'vell and I are both AMAB nonbinary transfabulous femme baddies. I was born almost a decade earlier, so we have some overlap and a lot of different experience in terms of generational experience. I have white privilege and they're Black, so that alone sets our experiential lenses apart greatly for processing the significance of many of the figures featured in this book. I'll definitely be watching some of the material I learned about: When They See Us, Disclosure, and Sort Of are highest on the list. I never watched Powerpuff Girls (didn't have Cartoon Network growing up) but I had a cool, punk friend named April who was a mega-fan of it and who, I think in retrospect, saw the genderqueerness in me. The villain, called "H.I.M.," from that show sounds/looks like a great character to learn about and cosplay as!
wylovat's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
foureyebooks's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.5
csistek's review
5.0
Thank you to NetGalley and Andscape for the eGalley to review!
This is an excellent look at queer media and particularly Black queer media, going all the way back to the beginning of moving pictures. There was so much in here I never knew about in general and it's going to be especially perfect for Black trans and genderqueer people to read and learn from. It's also a nuanced look at history, with both a critical and an understanding eye.
Aside from simply talking about the titles in history that paved the way to the representation and stories we see today, there is commentary on how media is created and consumed for activism. It is also somewhat of an autobiography: "I wrote this book to document my journey of coming into myself alongside the trans and trans-related images on-screen that factored into it, because I wanted to show people like me what our history of visibility looks like when one of us is telling the story." This is literally an "Own Voices" book. This is a hand extended to other Black trans people--an act of seeing each other, exactly as the title says.
I think the most important part of the book was the section on possibility models. It's about "seeing yourself" on the screen and how it's more likely piecemeal glimpses of possibility that transform oneself than actually truly "seeing yourself" on the screen. These actors and characters are "models of possibilities" and inspire the imagination about what and who you can be. It's noted that in trying to prevent a complication of people's understanding of transness, certain avenues of visibility are left out and so too are those possibilities. Stories and experiences get sanitized and made more palatable for mass consumption, and for historically marginalized identities, possibility models get watered down and tend to end up representing only a fraction of one's identity. This book delves deeper into that and it's a conversation we all desperately need to have as we fight for the need to have representation.
If you're a history buff--especially a queer/Black history buff--or are looking to understand the community and history more, this is definitely a book to be reading.
This is an excellent look at queer media and particularly Black queer media, going all the way back to the beginning of moving pictures. There was so much in here I never knew about in general and it's going to be especially perfect for Black trans and genderqueer people to read and learn from. It's also a nuanced look at history, with both a critical and an understanding eye.
Aside from simply talking about the titles in history that paved the way to the representation and stories we see today, there is commentary on how media is created and consumed for activism. It is also somewhat of an autobiography: "I wrote this book to document my journey of coming into myself alongside the trans and trans-related images on-screen that factored into it, because I wanted to show people like me what our history of visibility looks like when one of us is telling the story." This is literally an "Own Voices" book. This is a hand extended to other Black trans people--an act of seeing each other, exactly as the title says.
I think the most important part of the book was the section on possibility models. It's about "seeing yourself" on the screen and how it's more likely piecemeal glimpses of possibility that transform oneself than actually truly "seeing yourself" on the screen. These actors and characters are "models of possibilities" and inspire the imagination about what and who you can be. It's noted that in trying to prevent a complication of people's understanding of transness, certain avenues of visibility are left out and so too are those possibilities. Stories and experiences get sanitized and made more palatable for mass consumption, and for historically marginalized identities, possibility models get watered down and tend to end up representing only a fraction of one's identity. This book delves deeper into that and it's a conversation we all desperately need to have as we fight for the need to have representation.
If you're a history buff--especially a queer/Black history buff--or are looking to understand the community and history more, this is definitely a book to be reading.
cubaitlubin's review against another edition
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective