Cross-Dressing and Transgender Representation in Swedish Cinema, 1908–2017

Abstract

Today's explosion of Swedish films made by and about transgender people is sometimes considered in a vacuum. This article explores the long history of cross-gender performance in Swedish cinema and the relationship of these new films to older traditions. In this article, I will outline the contours of cross-gender performance in Swedish films from the 1908 to today, using some exemplary films to display the variety of styles, genres, and meanings that can be found , 2016). I will show that the two main shifts in Swedish cinema's representation of cross-gender performance occurred in the mid-1950s and in the 1990s, due to social changes and changes in the structure of the Swedish film industry. In Swedish cinema, as elsewhere, cross-dressing has never meant any one thing, so we must attend to the specific contexts of its expression in order to understand what it meant. "It's as if I'm destroying myself. To become her. My dream sister: Ellie," speaks the voice on the soundtrack. A young person lies in a bathtub. We cut to a view through a fence of a dark landscape, a pink sky glowing over empty railroad tracks. The voice belongs to the protagonist of Everything Falls Apart (Nånting måste gå sönder, Ester Martin Bergsmark, 2016), played by Swedish trans actor Saga Becker. It guides us through the character's haphazard search for sex, love, and meaning. Although transgender and gender non-conforming characters have only entered Swedish cinema in recent decades, Swedish cinema has a long history of cross-gender performance.

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