Catherine Crouch is an American film director, screenwriter, producer,
cinematographer, and actor. She has been active in independent
film-making for over two decades. Most of her work explores gender,
race, and class in lesbian and queer lives. She is known for Stranger
Inside (2001), Stray Dogs (2002), and The Gendercator (2007).The
Gendercator is a 2007 short film described as "a satirical take on
surgical body modification and gender. The story uses the 'Rip Van
Winkle' model to extrapolate from the feminist 1970s to a frightening
2048 where politics and technology have conspired to mandate two
gender 'choices': Macho male or Barbie babe. In this dystopian future,
those whose gender presentation does not comply will be GENDERCATED."
It is set in a future dystopic world where gender non-conformance is
intolerable and genderqueerness is resolved with sex-change operations
that align gender attributes with outer appearance; wherein
masculinity is conformed with a male body and femininity with a female
body.It was scheduled to screen in the OUTer Limits section of the
2007 Frameline Film Festival, along with other futuristic and
experimental films, but it was pulled from the program after several
members and supporters of the transgender community criticized it as
"transphobic" and took issue with its being included in the festival.
Frameline yielded to an online petition published by the website Left
on SF that described The Gendercator as a "hateful movie". Protesters
complained about the use of the word "tranny" in the dialogue; they
also objected to the director's statement in which Crouch spoke
against body modification as a solution for all gender
dissonance.Crouch was invited to screen her film in San Francisco in
the fall of 2007 by Ondine Kilker, co-chair of community initiative
Center Women Present (CWP). In a 2008 interview for Sinister Wisdom,
Crouch stated that her film spoke to an intracommunity queer issue
where an over-reliance on gender norms was fast becoming a popular and
too narrow way to interpret the vast diversity of queer gender and sex
expressions.
cinematographer, and actor. She has been active in independent
film-making for over two decades. Most of her work explores gender,
race, and class in lesbian and queer lives. She is known for Stranger
Inside (2001), Stray Dogs (2002), and The Gendercator (2007).The
Gendercator is a 2007 short film described as "a satirical take on
surgical body modification and gender. The story uses the 'Rip Van
Winkle' model to extrapolate from the feminist 1970s to a frightening
2048 where politics and technology have conspired to mandate two
gender 'choices': Macho male or Barbie babe. In this dystopian future,
those whose gender presentation does not comply will be GENDERCATED."
It is set in a future dystopic world where gender non-conformance is
intolerable and genderqueerness is resolved with sex-change operations
that align gender attributes with outer appearance; wherein
masculinity is conformed with a male body and femininity with a female
body.It was scheduled to screen in the OUTer Limits section of the
2007 Frameline Film Festival, along with other futuristic and
experimental films, but it was pulled from the program after several
members and supporters of the transgender community criticized it as
"transphobic" and took issue with its being included in the festival.
Frameline yielded to an online petition published by the website Left
on SF that described The Gendercator as a "hateful movie". Protesters
complained about the use of the word "tranny" in the dialogue; they
also objected to the director's statement in which Crouch spoke
against body modification as a solution for all gender
dissonance.Crouch was invited to screen her film in San Francisco in
the fall of 2007 by Ondine Kilker, co-chair of community initiative
Center Women Present (CWP). In a 2008 interview for Sinister Wisdom,
Crouch stated that her film spoke to an intracommunity queer issue
where an over-reliance on gender norms was fast becoming a popular and
too narrow way to interpret the vast diversity of queer gender and sex
expressions.
Share this
SUBSCRIBE OUR NEWSLETTER
SUBSCRIBE OUR NEWSLETTER
Join us for free and get valuable content delivered right through your inbox.