My relationship to who I was is tenuous.

Is
this true of all people? This is why it seems
important to me that all people create,
make art, practice their imaginations,
exercise beauty. When we fill the world with

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artifacts of what we dreamed we begin to
learn from who we wanted to be, an
imagined people who might know enough to
stop making the same mistakes.

Ð T Fleischmann, Time Is the Thing a body

Moves Through, 2019

McKenzie Wark I donÕt exactly know how I heard about Jessie

Jeffrey Dunn RovinelliÕs film So Pretty.1 It was
Femme as in probably through Twitter. Jessie and I became
mutuals there, and traded a few messages,
before I even saw it. And after. And then we
Fuck You became friends. And then Jessie adopted me as
one of her trans Òdaughters.Ó2 In both her art and
life I saw a glimpse not just of the trans woman I
wanted to be, but of a shared world to which
such a trans woman might want to belong. IÕm
too old to ever become a pretty woman, but I
might still want to believe and work, and play, in
a pretty world.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊBefore I met Jessie, I saw her, at the New
York premier of So Pretty. She was rather
fetching, in a black see-through sheath dress
over simple black underpants, her breasts bare,
her slender frame pedestaled on giant platform
shoes, which I would discover soon enough were
e-flux journal #102 Ñ september 2019 Ê McKenzie Wark

her trademark. It might seem, letÕs say,

problematic, to be discussing how a woman
looked rather than what she said about her film,
or the film itself. But maybe one of things at
stake, for some trans women and femmes at
least, is the right to claim to appear in our beauty
at all. A beauty the cis world hardly knows how to
acknowledge.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊMaybe pretty is a better word that beautiful.
So Pretty is adapted from a Ronald M.
Schernikau novel, known as So Schšn.3 One
Femme as in Fuck You

might translate that as So Beautiful, but here as

elsewhere Rovinelli transforms the source into
something of her own. The pretty might be one of
what Sianne Ngai calls the minor aesthetic
categories: equivocal, diffuse, although I want to
propose that one can still justify the pretty as an
aesthetic, and that it can, in a low-key way,
connect to a kind of action in the world.4 Making
things pretty might, in a low-key way, hint at the
utopian.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊHere is the story, such as it is: Tonia arrives
in New York and reunites with her lover Franz,
and is introduced to FranzÕs circle. She meets
Paul and Erika, who are also sort of a couple.
They hang out, they go dancing. In the end, Tonia

09.11.19 / 18:21:46 EDT

Jessie Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli,ÊSo Pretty,Ê2019. Filmstill from movie. Courtesy of the artist.Ê

09.11.19 / 18:21:46 EDT

09.11.19 / 18:21:46 EDT
will be with Erika, and Franz with Paul. Along the might hide dick. (The full Freudian catastrophe.)
way, we meet PaulÕs mother, Gera, a curious and But what if this sense of the pretty was
caring older onlooker. And we meet Helmut, who reversible? Perhaps what is pretty is not trying to
involves them in a political demonstration, where hide anything. Perhaps what is pretty is instead
Paul will get arrested and injured. Meanwhile, displacing this whole idea of appearances as a
Paul makes photos, Erika makes music, and cover for some essence.6 Perhaps what is pretty

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Tonia makes a staged reading of the Schernikau need not be seen as hiding something, as
book in which they have all become characters, damaged goods, but as a gift, as offering the
including herself as Tonia, rather than Tonio, as it possibility of stepping outside of exchange value.
is in the book. ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊLetÕs risk the idea that the changing valence
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊRovinelli reimagines SchernikauÕs world as of the pretty has an historical connection to the
inhabited by trans people. SchernikauÕs was a rise to dominance of a commodity economy:
world of gay men, in the eighties, in Berlin, and Before, a pretty man might be tricky, but need
yet a world with a lot of femininity in it Ð gay not be diminished by that association. ItÕs an
male life can have its femme side. A world I know active quality, for one thing. But when the
a little about: had he lived, Schernikau would be commodity displaces chivalrous codes of honor,
my age now. For a while I tried to inhabit that the commodity itself becomes what is pretty, and
femininity that was sometimes present and often it is not so much tricky as a trick, or a trap. Its
disavowed in that eighties gay world.5 To take the pretty form hides its calculating essence. It lies
femme latent there as trans can be controversial in wait, in the market, in all apparent passivity, to
in a gay world, but for we transsexuals, itÕs a hook the buyer with its charms. The pretty
reclaiming of some of our own pasts, lives, commodity is feminine; the pretty becomes
culture. feminine, and exchangeable Ð and suspicious.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊExcept Helmut, who reads to me as a trans ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊPerhaps thereÕs a shiny glint of the utopian
man, all of the characters are femme in some in the pretty, even so. If only the pretty could be
sense. Tonia and Erika are trans women. We something other than a trap for menÕs desires,
learn near the end of the film of ToniaÕs snaring their thirst for possession, for things that
transition; if you are trans you might clock a vial they might buy, own, abuse. Things that
of injectable estrogen in ErikaÕs room. Paul and inevitably disappoint those desires, when put
Franz read to me as cis men with a femme side to under close scrutiny. What if those pretty objects
their style and movement. On the way to a demo, really did have agency, and danced?7 The pretty
Tonia will say that she used to think of herself as might then be a bit utopian, but only to the
someone who could survive getting arrested, but extent that certain kinds of violence could be
not anymore. Helmut replies that while in kept at bay. And only when they dance together.
e-flux journal #102 Ñ september 2019 Ê McKenzie Wark

principle he thinks Tonia should go to a womenÕs ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAfter some texting went back and forth,
prison, he does not particularly want to end up in Jessie and I met for coffee on the Upper West
the menÕs. Transition has changed the relation of Side, in a cafŽ that flew the pride flag but which
their bodies to political possibility. To be trans is still felt like it was in enemy territory. It was a
to flee a particular kind of violence, but to put long conversation. One memorable thing was
oneself in the path of several others. when Jessie said she had read Sianne NgaiÕs
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊEveryone in So Pretty is so pretty. IÕd like to book on minor aesthetic categories. The most
say that even Helmut is pretty although it is not a memorable was when Jessie declared that she
thing one would say to a trans man. The time has thought all cinema is based on rape, and that she
long passed when one could call men as well as wanted to make a cinema that precluded the
Femme as in Fuck You

women Òpretty.Ó ItÕs a word with German roots, possibility of rape. That caught my attention.
with Dutch and English derivatives, that used to ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe film business is rape culture. ThereÕs
mean brisk and clever, maybe a bit tricky. Over ways in which this is literally true. The #MeToo
centuries, it became more gendered. The tricky movement against rape culture partly started
quality is related to a lack of strength, smallness, there.8 But thereÕs a way in which it is true in
to getting by with oneÕs wits, but then also with another sense, in terms of film form, film
crafted and crafty appearances. The pretty may narrative, what the camera does and doesnÕt do.
have elements of beauty but is perhaps not One thing it does a lot in the more rapey cinema
beauty in its pure or intrinsic form. It isnÕt a is that it pries. It might begin by setting up for the
classical harmony of form and content. It may viewer a fascinated gaze, at pretty things, at
have elements of attractive form that hide a pretty women Ð but it must investigate! Like a
content that doesnÕt quite match appearances. buyer in the market; like a man on Tinder.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe word ÒprettyÓ is pretty trans. The sense ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊSometimes, when the camera looks at a
of the pretty as duplicitous connects to a woman, thereÕs a gap between what it shows in a
particularly hostile attitude to trans women: that longer shot of her pretty figure and what it shows
we are traps. That our pretty faces and bodies when it comes in for the close-up on her wrought

09.11.19 / 18:21:46 EDT

09.11.19 / 18:21:46 EDT
face. The edit cuts away her body, reducing it to a they flourish, to the objects and art and books in
face, and the face is supposed to betray some those spaces. Those spaces are filled with
inner turmoil, some feeling that is hidden inside, artifacts through which to dream, and practice,
to prove thereÕs a heart there, or something. You another habitation for another life.
could call it the male gaze. But sometimes also ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThis is a utopian cinema, then. To the extent
itÕs the cis gaze: checking to see that whatÕs that this is possible. The first principle of utopia

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advertised as woman is female all the way as a genre is the exclusion of violence.9 That
through. means that the violence is contained and
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThere might even be a cinema thatÕs almost neutralized, but still there. This is a place or a
aware that itÕs doing this, but does it anyway. time, a constructed situation, where it is kept at
LetÕs call it meta-rape cinema: AntonioniÕs Blow- bay, so something else might flower. In this
Up comes to mind, as does Michael PowellÕs situation, what can come into being is something
Peeping Tom or Brian De PalmaÕs Body Double, or femme, something trans, and something queer.
Chuck JonesÕs Duck Amuck. These are all films in Maybe itÕs so pretty because it brings together
which there is a double of the filmmaker within those three different but overlapping
the film, whose work-practices we see. These are sensibilities, all of which might be pretty in
films that are fascinated with their own different ways, different from each other and
fascination with penetrating the mystery of the from the more conventional suspicion of the
female body, with the pry and cut that reveals, pretty as a trap.
beneath the vivacious surface, the dead thing. ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊItÕs a question of the viewer in relation to
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊI asked Facebook friends to suggest movies the point of view of the camera. It isnÕt
that might fit in a meta-rape genre. The four I controlling or exposing. The camera does not
chose here as examples are winnowed from a assert itself as the primary agent in the scene,
very long list. The rapey quality of cinema is nor do scenes appear to be staged to please the
abundant. While the thread was going, I sent a camera. ItÕs as if the camera was just another
link to the So Pretty trailer to Adrian Martin, who point of view among a group, rather than the
sent me this Facebook message. ÒSounds most (self-)important person in the room. This
fascinating! btw Jacques Rivette said of his film camera is not terribly interested in, or interesting
Amour Fou in 1967 that Ôcinema is necessarily for, the Òmale gaze.Ó It doesnÕt much care for
fascination and rapeÕ Ð and that is also a film- what one might call the straight gaze either. I
within-the-film, documenting theatre suppose one ought, as a matter of manners, to
psychodrama. When I put that quote in my last describe the intimacy of Tonia with Franz, or of
book, an anonymous reader for Amsterdam Uni Erika with Paul, as heterosexual. (Trans women
Press strongly requested that it be removed, for are women; trans women dating men of any kind
e-flux journal #102 Ñ september 2019 Ê McKenzie Wark

being so offensive in 2018!Ó are in hetero relations.) Then Paul ends up with
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊSo Pretty attempts to invert the genre of the Franz; Tonia with Erika. Gender is neither here
meta-rape film. Tonia comes to town to make a nor there. They are all, in some sense, femme.
project. One assumes itÕs the staged reading in Call it queer cinema if you like, but I donÕt think
the park of So Schšn, which recurs throughout that exhausts what may be attractive in it.
the film. We see her in the milieu of Franz and his ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊI would not want to reduce So Pretty to
friends, but also directing them. It is different to being a trans film or Rovinelli to being a trans
meta-rape cinema. She is not investigating, filmmaker. ItÕs so much more than that. But it
exposing, revealing. What is she doing? What is was what drew me to it. And that drew me back
involved in the production of the image of what is into a love of the cinema I thought I had lost,
Femme as in Fuck You

pretty out of the milieu in which it arises? It canÕt forever. The cinema I once loved was where you
help but be contradictory. A film is still a see and hear and feel things that are the
commodity, and all that. A director still directs gestures you want to draw into your own body, so
others, requests, requires, or persuades other as not to keep making the same mistakes.
people to do things, even in a cinema committed ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊItÕs not the usual trans film, though, as most
to a practice of consent. Tonia, like pretty much of those seem not to break too much with what
every filmmaker I know, is a social top. one might now have to call cis-cinema. Trans
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊOnce Tonia joins the world of Franz and films still tend to be fascinated with transition
Erika and Paul and their friends, the camera itself. ThatÕs not of much interest here. The trans
tends to move sideways, tracking across rooms. characters simply are. Their world simply is.
It isnÕt interested in prying into any discrepancies Rovinelli asks what trans films usually donÕt:
between these pretty bodies and their hidden What if what had to transition was the world? ItÕs
souls. ItÕs not interested in isolating them as a pretty image, delicately colored, of a little
individuals with their separate Òjourneys.Ó It is world as what could be.
interested in how their bodies connect, or not, to ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊTrans art sometimes has a problem with
each other, to the surfaces of the rooms where genre. Our lives are formatted into narratives

09.11.19 / 18:21:46 EDT

09.11.19 / 18:21:46 EDT
whose genre is romance or tragedy, where we get of imaginary double of Bushwick in Brooklyn and
characters with whom to identify who are heroes the adjacent Ridgewood section of Queens.
or victims. Andrea Long Chu and Emmett Harsin However compromised Ð by precarity, by race, by
Drager suggest satire instead, a genre without the rent being too damn high Ð it wants to
political optimism, that sees a world that is suggest that there could be another city for
always less than itself.10 Torrey Peters suggests another life, to be glimpsed in moments, in this

08/10
the fantastic, as a form which hesitates between one.
the uncanny and the marvelous, highlighting ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊOne could say it is a privileged milieu. One
rather than poo-pooing the marvel of the world. imagines some of these characters as educated:
Being trans is to not quite know whether gender Franz makes a protest sign that says ÒThis art
is as cis people think it is, or something historian kills fascists.Ó Helmut, on the other
altogether more strange.11 Or, a third genre hand, is a bit of a chancer. So Schšn took as its
option: Grace Lavery brings together Janet milieu those who worked in the incidental trades
MockÕs realness as accepting the truth about of the German postwar consumer economy. So
oneself with psychoanalysis and the genre of Pretty seems more to evoke the milieu of those
literary realism to suggest the possibility of a who work in incidental capacities in the
trans art of self-care that moderates Òbeautiful information economy, but would rather make
fantasy.Ó12 their own art. In psychogeographic terms, this is
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe satiric and the fantastic are two poles: Brooklyn, including that part of ÒBrooklynÓ that is
the art which shows the reality we think we know actually in Queens.
to be less than it seems; and the art which shows ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊManhattan appears only as a site of protest
that reality as being suspended in unknowability. and police. We glimpse the brand names of some
Perhaps realism is on an axis that crosses that Fifth Avenue stores, selling coercively normative
one. ItÕs an art of knowing which cuts fantasy designer beauty.14 There probably cannot be a
down to the size of the world. Perhaps it needs counter-economy of the beautiful, for the
its complimentary pole, the utopian: the art of beautiful in this world can only be expensive,
editing together a world as expansive as our exclusive, and driven by envy: fascist fashion.
dreams. Within that matrix, So Pretty is a utopian But perhaps there can be a counter-economy of
film. the pretty. In its utopian form, the pretty leaves
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIf the utopian is to be more than a the subtle violence of normativity behind. It isnÕt
momentary illumination, it has to be organized.13 interested in norms at all. To be pretty is to offer
How to organize love? We see Erika read from a gift of the specificity of oneÕs art of the self,
ToniaÕs translation of So Schšn. This is the gratis, to all. Of course, the pretty isnÕt
problem the reading sets up. The love of these egalitarian, as it has to remain rare. And itÕs still
e-flux journal #102 Ñ september 2019 Ê McKenzie Wark

characters is already organized in the couple connected to youth, eroticism, and the fleeting Ð
form. Any utopian project, of reorganizing love So Pretty abounds in flower motifs.
beyond it, finds its internal limit in the ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊFlowers are one of the gifts offered, by
persistence of the couple, in the violence of its Franz to Tonia, when he comes calling. She
exclusivity. Like a lot of cinema, So Pretty makes a salad for him, which he picks at while
pictures the problems of the individual and the she makes it, before she shoos him away. He
couple, but it nests those problems, as an takes a pickle from the fridge instead. He made a
internal tension, within a utopian possibility. gift of his bed to her at the start of the film, but
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊTonia talks to Franz about a translation now thereÕs no reciprocity between them. The
question hinging on the slippage between the thing about gifts is that they canÕt really be
Femme as in Fuck You

sense of togetherness and the sense of two- returned, or canÕt be returned in the same form,
ness. They are on their way to go dancing. Tonia or can only be offered on to someone else. So
and Franz are arm in arm. So are Paul and Erika. Pretty is full of gifts, of sharing, but this utopia is
But Tonia is looking at Erika. Later, the camera always incomplete, always changing, there is
shows us Tonia and Erika, cuddling in an always some gift unreturned.
armchair. It lingers just for a beat, and then ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWhat makes the utopian side of the pretty
tracks sideways, across the room, and shows us possible is an at least partial escape from the
Paul, Helmut, Franz, and Gera playing rock- commodity. In So Schšn, Franz comes to the
paper-scissors. The couple form lives in tension shop where a friend works to steal with his
with a polyamorous one. ItÕs not resolved, but complicity. In So Pretty, Franz gets Paul to let
neither is the latter torn open, pried into, to show him into the cinema where Paul works for free.
the inevitability of the couple. Later, Franz calmly tells Paul an extraordinary
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊItÕs early morning. We see Tonia, in a black story about being present in the grocery store
skirt, big black boots, at the Forest Avenue when it is robbed, admiring the style of the
elevated M train subway stop, in Ridgewood, robber, and himself making off with a loaf of
Queens. The setting for So Pretty is mostly a kind bread. ItÕs a scene that gestures to a tension in

09.11.19 / 18:21:46 EDT

utopiaÕs relation to violence. Violating the The performers are choreographed into their
violence of property might be what enables scenes, together with the movement of the
utopiaÕs distance from all other forms of camera. They are not exactly acting, as they are
violence. The utopia of the gift occupies exactly themselves but not themselves.
the same space as the commodity economy and ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWriting is a rather solitary art. ItÕs good for
depends on it. It just keeps twisting it into little those of us who lack qualities, who are not the

09/10
situations were something pretty might arise. life of the party. Films, like love, are organized.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWhen the utopian holds violence at bay, Organizing takes qualities. But which ones?
even momentarily, the utopian can then become Rather than qualities, one could also say gifts.
a situation in which to explore other tensions, Jessie Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli is listed as the
between what has to be specific and what could writer, director, editor, colorist, and coproducer
become, letÕs say, generic, a shared quality. From of So Pretty, as well as playing the role of Tonia.
Schernikau, the film takes the simple gesture of She layers herself into this work, giving herself
making coffee as a kind of metonym for shared up to it, and yet at the same time, taking herself.
life, for care. And yet when Tonia offers Erika To return to the whipping scene: Tonia is both the
water rather than coffee, itÕs a flirtation, an whipped and whipper in this scene. It reminds us
invitation to couple, rather than to commune. The of what can be consented to, and by whom. The
same tension runs through sexuality: while flinching of those girlsÕ asses under the whip Ð is
Helmut whips the asses of Franz and then Tonia real.
for fun, Paul takes pictures, while Erika is ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊOnce, when I got to the point at which
distracted by her phone. The group never hormone therapy was destabilizing my emotions
succeeds in subsuming everyone into it. and making it all but impossible for me to write, I
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊNot even politics unites them. Helmut reached out to Jessie in her capacity as my trans
organizes the group for an anti-fascist Òmom.Ó She told me she was in something like
demonstration; Erika complains to Paul that that tenuous state when she made So Pretty. So
theyÕve been sucked into some white bullshit. to the list of tasks she is undertaking, in So
Race, among other things, cuts across utopian Pretty, one can add the transformation of her
promise. When Franz declares his love for Paul, own body. It was such a gift for me to know this:
Paul responds: ÒYou canÕt love me. IÕm a corpse.Ó Well if you can do all that through the turbulent
ItÕs hard not to read it in terms of black social phase of hormones, I can pull it together enough
death.15 to just write. This essay on So Pretty isnÕt a
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe group makes signs for a demo, but Erika critique Ð as if I could be a universal unmarked
does not come. ToniaÕs says: FEMME AS IN FUCK subject, making aesthetic judgements on par
YOU. And yet it is not so much opposition, to with those of others of my unmarked kind. ItÕs
e-flux journal #102 Ñ september 2019 Ê McKenzie Wark

fascism, to whatever, that binds them. At not disinterested, its motivated. ItÕs a little gift
another demo, Paul and Erika kiss, then Helmut for a pretty friend.
and Erika kiss. ThereÕs a tension between being ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊTransition doesnÕt come up much in So
unified through negation, because they fight Pretty at all. But it does in the third-to-last
fascism together, and when they can be scene. Tonia sits next to Helmut on a park bench.
connected, partially, serially, by affirming She talks about her feelings for Franz. She says
something else. that when she looked at herself, in the mirror, ÒI
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThe tension between the specific and the was so unclear on what I was seeing and what
generic passes through aesthetics as well. Paul was looking back at me.Ó Franz was her anchor, a
is a photographer; Erika is a musician. Their art constant in the world. ÒAnd as my body changed,
Femme as in Fuck You

seems solitary; removed from, or even taking I could at least compare that body to him. That
from, the group. Writing might also be solitary someone would keep seeing me through
too, but Tonia takes SchernikauÕs text and different bodies. Now that I feel thatÕs probably
embeds it into what is shared. She directs a gone, I feel really Ð lost. I feel like IÕm losing track
group performance of her version of the text. of my body and I feel like IÕm losing track of the
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊHere this viewer steps out of the film and way people see me.Ó She rests her head on
into a tension between the film and the world of HelmutÕs shoulder.
which it is the utopian double. Rachika, who ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊThis, to me, is the feeling of becoming a
plays Erika Ð I met her at a party Ð like her film woman. Maybe it is for others who have tried it
double also makes music and rides a motor bike. too. I honestly donÕt understand why cis people
I went to a rave with Phoebe, who plays Helmut. imagine they know something about gender
They are gender nonconforming rather than a when they have only ever been one of them. The
trans man. JessieÕs friend Razor, who appears in feelings, through transition, well Ð sometimes
a kitchen scene in the film, lives in the house they are not pretty. Here they are not hidden. Nor
that served as the main filming location, and are they sublimated into an aggressive demand
gives their real name in one scene. And so on. to show and know, as in so much cinema the cis

09.11.19 / 18:21:46 EDT

make about us. Even at its most interesting: ÊÊÊÊÊÊ1 seductive that refuses to be held
So Pretty, directed by Jessie accountable to being penetrated
FassbinderÕs In a Year With 13 Moons, Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli (Aspect down to a supposedly more real
AlmodovarÕs Bad Education Ð cinema wants to Ratio Films, 2019). Here is the essence.
trailer
fuck us. Well, fuck you. https://vimeo.com/350369453. ÊÊÊÊÊÊ7
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊA cinema without rape is probably Just playing here with a famous
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ2 image by Marx about the
impossible. Maybe even an illusion. But that Not to be confused with house commodity:

10/10
mothers (and fathers) in the https://www.marxists.org/arc
doesnÕt mean cinema has to be made by rapists. culture of queer and trans hive/marx/works/1867-c1/comm
Perhaps it could be organized by those who are people of color. In this instance, odity.htm.
a mom, also sometimes called a
pretty, meaning also those who are rape-able Ð big sister, is someone older in ÊÊÊÊÊÊ8
to exclude it. Even if rape remains present in the trans years with whom someone See Where Freedom Starts: Sex,
earlier in transition can meet, to Power, Violence, #MeToo (Verso,
form of its exclusion. Even if it remains in the talk about practicalities and 2018)
world. What is so pretty in art, like what is so emotions associated with https://www.versobooks.com/b
transition, among other things. ooks/2773-where-freedom-star
pretty in others, or even in oneself, even on a This is perhaps also a good place ts-sex-power-violence-metoo.
good day, is an illusion. And yet it is glorious to to mention that trans culture is
as segregated as the rest of ÊÊÊÊÊÊ9
believe, not in the illusion, but in the possibility it American culture, and that the On the ÒUtopian Enclave,Ó see
augurs. categories of gender as we now Fredric Jameson, Archaeologies
endure them are a product of an of the Future (Verso, 2005). IÕm
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ× intertwined history with gently dissenting from some of
All film stills fromÊJessie Jeffrey Dunn RovinelliÕsÊSo Pretty categories of race and practices its theses.
(Aspect Ratio Films, 2019). of racial violence. See C. Rily
Snorton, Black on Both Sides: A ÊÊÊÊÊÊ10
Racial History of Trans Identity Andrea Long Chu and Emmett
(University of Minnesota Press, Harsin Drager, ÒAfter Trans
2017), and: Whitney Terrell and V. Studies,Ó Trans Studies Quarterly
V. Ganeshananthan, ÒC. Riley 6, no. 1 (February 2019).
Snorton and T. Fleischmann Talk
Gender, Freedom, and ÊÊÊÊÊÊ11
Transitivity,Ó Lithub, March 7, T Fleischmann and Torrey
2019 https://lithub.com/c-riley-s Peters, ÒOn Trans Essays,Ó Essay
norton-and-t-fleischmann-tal k- Daily, January 4, 2016
gender-freedom-and-transit https://www.essaydaily.org/2
ivity/. 016/01/t-clutch-fleischmann-
and-torrey-peters.html.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ3
So Pretty is (freely) adapted from ÊÊÊÊÊÊ12
So Schšn (Verbrecher Verlag, Grace Lavery, ÒTrans Realism,
2012). Originally published in Psychoanalytic Practice, and the
1982, the full title of this small Rhetoric of Technique,Ó Critical
work is: und als der prinz mit Inquiry, forthcoming.
dem kutscher tanzte, waren si so
schšn, da§ der ganze hof in ÊÊÊÊÊÊ13
ohnmacht fiel: ein utopischer To me, this is the enduring
film. Schernikau is not much relevance of Charles Fourier. See
known in English. HereÕs an McKenzie Wark, The Spectacle
introduction to his life and work, of Disintegration (Verso, 2013).
e-flux journal #102 Ñ september 2019 Ê McKenzie Wark

with links to extracts of an

earlier work in translation: ÊÊÊÊÊÊ14
https://lareviewofbooks.org/ See Otto von Busch, ÒWays to
article/i-embrace-you-all-ro Make Fashion Work For Us,Ó Our
nald-m-schernikau-and-the-qu World, July 8, 2018
eer-left/. https://www.ow-ourworld.nl/w
ays-to-make-fashion-work-for -
ÊÊÊÊÊÊ4 us/.
Adam Jasper, ÒOur Aesthetic
Categories: An Interview with ÊÊÊÊÊÊ15
Sianne Ngai,Ó Cabinet Magazine, Frank B. Wilderson III, ÒAfro-
no. 43 (Fall 2011) Pessimism and the End of
http://www.cabinetmagazine.o Redemption,Ó Humanities
rg/issues/43/jasper_ngai.php . Futures, Franklin Humanities
See also Sianne Ngai, Our Institute, October 20, 2015
Femme as in Fuck You

Aesthetic Categories: Zany, Cute, https://humanitiesfutures.or

Interesting (Harvard University g/papers/afro-pessimism-end-
Press, 2015). redemption/.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ5
See JosŽ Esteban Mu–oz,
Cruising Utopia: The Then and
There of Queer Futurity (NYU
Press, 2009). A book I cherish
and to which this essay is
indebted, but whose handling of
the femme element in queer
culture this femme does not find
congenial.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊ6
Jean Baudrillard, Seduction
(Palgrave, 1991). While one
might leave some of its quaint
ideas about gender behind,
thereÕs an idea in this text about
the connection between the
femme, the pretty, and the

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