The Danish Girl

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SOCIALIST ACTION JANUARY 2016 11 “The Danish Girl,” directed by Tom Hooper.

“The Danish Girl” is a mesmerizing, moving account of how transgender pioneer Lili Elbe (originally Einar We­ gener) came to be one of the first per­ sons known to have gender reassign­ ment surgery.

Adapted from David Ebershoff’s 2000 fictionalized novel, it features Eddie Redmayne’s amazing performance as Einar. He discovers who he really is, and transitions into Lili. Alicia Vikan­ der, as Einar/Lili’s wife, is brilliant in her almost equally demanding role, at times becoming the central focus.

The film is mainly situated in a lush, middle-class Copenhagen in the 1920s, where Einar is a celebrated landscape artist. Wife Gerda is also an artist. She fights for recognition—until she starts painting the emerging Lili as a femme fatale, which started with a whimsical, half-joking sitting by Einar for her as a female model. But for him this is the start of his self-realization as Lili.

Lili endures horrific experiences con­ sulting with “experts” in the biased and prejudiced medical system who are de­ nearly doubled to $21,000 worldwide.

The report, which also looks at women’s progress in education, health and political empowerment, found that Canada ranked 30th, and the United States was 28th out of the 145 countries surveyed. Syria, Pakistan and Yemen occupied the bottom of the list. Women now outnumber men in universities in 100 of the countries surveyed, yet few of them hold the kind of skilled or leadership roles that come with bigger pay cheques.

Why inequality? Just ask yourself this: where does the money go that corporations save by not paying equal wages to women? — B.W.

termined to “cure” her, or banish her to a psychiatric facility. Then she meets Dr. Warnekros (Sebastian Koch), who proposes what he candidly described Watchman” took top spot on the The New York Times best-seller category in hard-cover fiction. In its first week alone, the book sold more than 1.1 million copies. It was unwrapped under many a Christmas tree. This January, it remains in the top ten best-seller list.

Publication of “Watchman” was a shrewd commercial decision, but not a critical one. In fact, there is a real question if Ms. Lee, in her advanced old age, was capable of consenting to publication of the draft.

However it came to print, “Go Set a Watchman” is not a successful work of fiction, de­ spite some moments of promise and insightful, ironic observation. Mostly, the plot plods along, tediously slow. Reading the book feels like driving behind a car that’s crawling about 15 miles per hour below the speed limit and brakes at every downhill slope and every bend in the road.

Without compiling a list, be assured that all the liter­ ary errors of the amateur novelist can be found in “Go Set a Watchman.” The most damaging offense may be Scout’s utterly implausible discovery—at age 26—that Atticus is not the decent and open-minded man she had believed him to be. Instead, her father is and always has been a sophisticated racist, vilifying the NAACP and the Supreme Court, while asserting that people of the back­ ward “Negro” race are not yet ready to earn their rights as citizens.

To Scout, Atticus is a repellant stranger, like a “pod person” from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” an alien who appears human but who tellingly lacks a soul. When a Southern novel of manners veers off into sci­ ence fiction territory, it is a sure sign that something has gone terribly wrong.

Within the structure of a clumsy coming-of-age nar­ rative, Harper Lee intended to write a story that would explore Southern racism. From the conflicting, insider perspectives of white Southerners, she wanted to take a stand against intolerance and bigotry. Her literary chal­ lenge was to create a framework and a suitable set of characters to embody those warring beliefs.

“Go Set a Watchman” was a failed effort, but it con­ as experimental and risky gender reassignment surgery. Of all the doctors, only he seems to have a sympathetic understanding of what she is going through. (Since Lili, who was raised in a context of relative class privi­ lege, suffered such difficulty, can we imagine how truly impossible would be the situation of a trans­ gender person born to a working-class family?)

Gerda is steadfast in her love and support for Lili—despite being very conflicted and confused by a process she knows will lead to her losing her husband.

In short, this film is well worth seeing. It comes at a time when transgender issues are finally gaining prominence—thanks to decades of LGBTQ activism. De­ spite ongoing challenges of medi­ cal access, the cost of surgery, and persisting prejudice, in Canada and elsewhere, real gains are be­ ing made. In revolutionary Cuba, the treatment is free.

We should note, though, that with all the attention that this film is deservedly getting, other pioneering films, such as “Transamerica,” are be­ ing overlooked. n Stained the seeds of a better one. The crucial decision was to shift Atticus, a lawyer in a small, Southern town, into a defender of human rights, a fighter against racial injustice.

This is the man of conscience who tells his children: “You never really understand a per­ son until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

With a newly defined Atti­ cus, and with the addition of the mysterious recluse, Boo Radley (entirely absent from “Watchman”), the plot lines of “To Kill a Mockingbird” resolved themselves into themes of understanding and acceptance, rejection of ignorance and prejudice, espe­ cially white racism.

Lee had written a complete first draft, an initial at­ tempt to think out and approximate her vision. An ex­ cellent editor encouraged her to set it aside and begin anew. No need to dignify the publisher’s scheme by calling this effort a novel. Nor is there a need to keep it locked away.

The draft should certainly have been made available to biographers or academic researchers. Perhaps the publication of a scholarly edition by a university press, like the University of Chicago editions of Dostoyevsky’s notebooks, would have been a justifiable addition to American literature. An honest introduction added to the current edition would have been acceptable. But for HarperCollins to pass off a draft as a novel is a particu­ larly specious sort of re-gifting. n ... China environment (continued from page 6: “Grassroots environmental struggles in China”)

ernment has revised the “environmental law”

to make it stricter. It has also implemented the so-called “ten-point water plan,” which is consid­ ered the strictest environmental policy in China’s history. However, many Chinese laws cannot be implemented at the local level. Under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, corruption is still common and human rights are restricted. This reduces the effectiveness of government-led re­ forms.

In the short term, we can only hope the protests of the people will bring some improvements. If not, the situation will continue to deteriorate. n Rena Lau has been working at Globalization Monitor since 2011. She is the author of the 2012 study “Restructuring of the Honda Auto Parts Union in Guangdong, China: a two-year assess­ ment of the 2010 strike.” Reprinted from Interna­ tional Viewpoint.