Cracking the Binary Frame for Thinking about Gender: Inequality and the Case of "The Closer"

• In Event: 512 - Section on Sex and Gender Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 17. Gender and Media Discourse

Abstract

This paper illustrates how 'The Closer' handles the transgendered storyline of retired cop George Andrews, now Georgette, who returns to Los Angeles to testify at the request of her ex-partner Lieutenant Provenza. In regard to the episode “Make Over,” I critically examine how transgender issues are constructed in Georgette’s dress, emotions, and interpersonal style; the character’s points of view on perjury, self-identity, and gender roles; and the varying responses of law enforcement officers on screen to her ‘new look’ and, moreover, her ability to change genders, yet remain a good cop. This episode appears to make a mockery of transgender issues and ultimately naturalizes binaries of gender by episode’s end; however, individual images or lines of dialogue in scenes of the episode successfully crack the binary frame for thinking about gender (in a Butlerian sense). The television codes of this episode are thus examined for the gender discourse they create around transgender for a wider than middle-American viewership looking for content that challenges the binary frames within which gender identity is constructed.

Author

• Ashley Elaine York, University of Alberta