Alex Evans

Rayon: An Instrument for Social Equality

Gender and Sexuality Criticism of Dallas Buyers Club


The recent, Oscar-winning film titled Dallas Buyers Club has been recognized as a
liberating depiction of the transgender and AIDS community. The film is based on the true
story about a former rodeo cowboy, Ron Woodroof (played by Matthew McConaughey),
who contracts AIDS and, when prevented from obtaining effective medication, creates a
drug smuggling operation that aims to provide alternative medicine to fellow sufferers.
Through his endeavors, he meets Rayon (played by Jared Leto), an HIV-positive
transgender woman who becomes a regular client of Woodroofs. Throughout the movie,
the hyper-masculine and hyper-feminine identities clash until the very end, when each
character finds acceptance in the other.
Specifically, the role of Rayon has been credited with the most prominent role of
depicting transgender life. The role presents an interesting intersection of gender and
sexuality studies because it was the first movie co-starring a transgender character to
gained such widespread popularity. As a progressive representational voice on such a
grand-scale, it offers a contemporary look at the current state of transgender
representation in the media. In this paper, I will analyze how Rayons character
deconstructs the dominant social rules regarding gender and sexuality, reconstructs a new
combination of traits, normalizes transgender identity, while also explaining how the
representation has been considered problematic by some groups. Throughout the paper, I
hope to present a contradiction to the dominant conceptualizations of gender and sexuality
that reflects a more tolerant way of framing social identity.
Historically, it has been a tough going for transgendered individuals in Western
culture, largely due to the ways that we conceptualize identity. As Goffman mentions, In
our society the character one performs and ones self are somewhat equated, and this self-
as-character is usually seen as something housedin the psychobiology of
personality.(Goffman, 1959). This is what has made it so hard for transgender acceptance
in America, due to our belief that performance (i.e. gender/sexuality) is a look into the
inherent characteristics of human identity, we are shocked when a biological male adopts
the social identity of what we have known as inherently female. Because society still has
such a long way to go towards re-conceptualizing identity, the importance of
understanding gender and sexuality as an arbitrary performance becomes even more
important.
As Judith Butler so famously stated, All of gender is a performance,
designed to reinforce the categories of man and woman as dictated by heteronormative,
patriarchal culture (Butler, 1991). As a challenge to the heteronormative, Dhaenens and
Van Bauwel define deconstruction as a critical inquiry and dismantling of conceptual
oppositions that has once proven fundamental and universal to specific
disciplines.(Dhaenens & Van Bauwel, 2012). I will continue with by explaining how Dallas
Buyers Club engages in this critical inquiry. First, it is perhaps the films most pivotal
accomplishment that the character of Rayon deconstructs and exposes these dominant
notions of heteronormativity. As a biological male, Rayons feminine-like behavior both
acknowledges and rejects the gender dyad. Acknowledges it by performing a type of
femininity housed in the gender dyad while rejecting the biological pre-requirement for
this femininity. Viewers are reminded of Rayons biological categorization at various
points during the movie. For instance, there is a scene in which Rayon sits shirtless and
alone in front of a vanity mirror and verbally voices her obsession with beauty. Her thin,
almost sickly male frame presents a reversal on the common connection between
femininity and female weight-loss. Rayons shirtless appearance forces the viewer to
realize that femininity and femaleness are not synonymous, and in this case she embodies
femininity on top of a biologically male physique. This scene influences viewers to
critically inquire about the state of dominant gender discourse.
In succession with the other half of heteronormativity, Rayon deconstructs sexuality
in similarly quiet ways. The presentation of a biological male who adopts a feminine
identity and enacts heterosexuality is all that viewers really need to ponder the so-called
rules of sexual identity in our society. The simple challenge of dominant heterosexuality
provokes an additional critical inquiry into the system that largely recognizes biological-
female and feminine-gendered heterosexuality as a paired counterpart to biological-male
and masculine-gendered heterosexuality. In the realms of gender and sexuality, Dallas
Buyers Clubs account of a biological male, feminine-gendered, heterosexual identity
exposes and deconstructs dominant discourse with an intimacy unprecedented in the
history of popular Hollywood film.
In accordance with Judith Butlers claims that gender is a performance, Dallas
Buyers Club portrays the reconstruction of gender and sexuality primarily through the role
of Rayon. In a video interview with the films writers, Melisa Wallick and Craig Borten,
along with actor, Jared Leto, they mention that they gained critical insight from interviews
with transgendered individuals about the performance of a transgendered identity. As
Rayon displays in the movie, the simple presentation of a character who violates traditional
gender and sexuality roles does so by deconstructing and reconstructing the pre-conceived
trait combinations that exist within the gender dyad. Rayons character reconstructs
gender by adopting a higher registered voice, wearing feminine make-up and clothing,
walking in high heels, and engaging in flirty behavior with masculine heterosexual males.
The process of re-attributing dominant feminine traits to a biological male body is what is
considered reconstructive action. Koenig hits the concept of gender reconstruction right
on the head when she states that, such practices work in various ways to challenge
boundaries surrounding the categories of man and woman, destabilizing the implied
originality of these categories and the centrality of maleness to cultural
subjectivity.(Koenig, 2003). In an interview regarding Dallas Buyers Club, Jared Leto spoke
about the meetings he and the writers had with real-life transgendered people. What stuck
out to him was the laborious process these people went through in order to adopt a gender
identity that wasnt, by societys standards, based on their birth sex. As Leto dictates, the
level of performance that such an endeavor entails goes to show just how hard it is to go
against the grain of originality between sex and gender that has perpetuated throughout
society for centuries.
In addition to challenging the originality of masculinity and femininity in regards to
biological sex. Rayon also presents a new position of sexuality, one that rejects the
association between biological-male, masculine-gender and heterosexuality. Since Rayon
performs biological-male, feminine-gender and heterosexuality by flirting with masculine
male heterosexuals, traditional sexual orientation is thus reconstructed.
Now that it is known how the transgendered role deconstructs and reconstructs
dominant discourses regarding gender and sexuality. The most important work done by
Dallas Buyers Club is in the normalization of transgender individuals in dominant society. I
am immediately reminded of a quote from a Jared Leto interview in which he tells of an 80
year-old woman who he met at a film festival. She genuinely confessed that she had never
known anybody like Rayon in her life, but shes glad that she does now. Leto then reflected
on the power of film in propagating messages like this around society and what he was
getting at is this idea of normalizing the concept of transgender identity through media. As
an immensely popular movie, the number of people it has reached presents a staggering
amount of transgender exposure for folks who otherwise would never have met an
individual like Rayon. Furthermore, the mostly positive portrayal of a transgender person
aids societies overall acceptance of transgender as a possible orientation. Just like how
DeLucas article mentioned Queer Nations mission to denaturalize the conventions of
heterosexuality(DeLuca, 1999), I argue that Dallas Buyers Clubs mission was also to
familiarize the public with the intensity of both AIDS diagnosis and transgender livelihood.
It goes without saying that, with the help of mass media, this movie had great assistance
towards efficiently accomplishing its normalization goals.
After its immediate admission into various film festivals around the country, Dallas
Buyers Club faced a small, yet incredibly intriguing group of protestors. Like Rayon, these
protestors were also transgender, but unlike Rayon, they did not avow the same identity
traits as Rayon did in the movie. It is easy to understand why this would be troubling to
them, especially regarding the movies overwhelming acceptance as a legitimate
representation of transgender identity capable of widespread success and Oscar-winning
potential. The activists concerns were not unlike many minority concerns over media
representation. They argued that Rayons character was far too sassy, emotional, sexually-
promiscuous and did not match their own characteristics. Similar to feminist complaints
about the sexualization of women in media, these transgender protestors disliked the fact
that their identities were being minimized to the flirty behavior of a transgender prostitute.
Their concerns help to surface the enormous disadvantage in media representation: that
one can never accurately depict an entire group of individuals through the actions of one
person.
I cant help but agree with their views that Rayon is a bit too sexualized in Dallas
Buyers Club. Although the overall goal to normalize transgender sexuality is done with
great success, I think that the hyper-sexualization of Rayon poses an unnecessary
drawback in fully accomplishing the normalization process. Namely, that the nature of
Rayons sexual identity reinforces problematic stereotypes of transgender femininity in
that all transgender people are overtly flirty and sexual creatures. However, I also think
that the hyper-sexualized portrayals of Rayon are somewhat counteracted by the more
intimate, serious, and deeply emotional encounters we as viewers have with the psyche of a
transgender individual. There is a scene that does the job very well. Towards the end of
the movie, Rayon meets with her father, a southern homophobe, and admits her AIDS
diagnosis. The scene is heart-wrenching and through pathos, we are reminded that Rayon
is a human being capable of the very same physical, mental, and emotional experiences as
the rest of humanity. These portrayals are crucial to preventing Rayons characaturization
and they define her credibility as a real transgender person, not just a prostitute.
Overall, I am pleased with the social progress that has been made thanks to Dallas
Buyers Clubs recent instatement into dominant public discourse. A movie of this type and
stature has never before been accomplished and I have enjoyed seeing how well it has
brought up the inequalities of gender and sexuality in society. It has given me a new found
appreciation for individuals who fall outside dominant hegemonic identity limitations.
Dallas Buyers Club will be remembered for its contributions to the normalization of
transgender life and through the work it does on deconstructing dominant notions of
gender and sexuality, it has exposed some of the most prominent inequalities in America.
In addition to Rayons gender reconstructive actions, we have seen how simple character
traits can be reorganized into new gender roles and identities. As a media representation
that aims to speak on behalf of a group identity, of course there are individuals who feel
that Rayon does not accurately represent who they are as transgender people, but I think
that this is just a fact of life in the modern world. Moving forward, it is important to offer as
many diverse depictions of transgender people as possible in the hopes of removing
impactful stereotypes of a people who aim to live peacefully and comfortably in society. It
is a right that we all have and Dallas Buyers Club has offered an astounding example of
social progress on one of the biggest platforms possible, eluding to the bright future of
social justice and equality for all.
















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