Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters
Document Type
Poster
Publication Date
Spring 5-6-2026
Faculty Advisor(s)
Ian Barnard
Abstract
Sean Baker's Tangerine (2015) has generated genuinely divided responses among trans critics, and for good reason. This paper takes that division seriously, using two reviews published on Autostraddle within six weeks of each other to frame a central question: who is Tangerine actually for? Existing scholarship on trans cinema has tended to evaluate films on a spectrum from exploitative to affirming, but this paper argues that framework is insufficient for a film like Tangerine, which operates as both simultaneously. Through close reading of the film alongside its production history, paratexts, and reception, and drawing on Paige Macintosh's scholarship on trans representation and respectability politics, I examine how Tangerine speaks authentically to trans audiences through its insider language, humor, and unmediated Black queer culture, precisely because trans performers Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez shaped it from the inside. At the same time, the structures surrounding the film redirect its cultural and financial capital away from those same women and toward the white male filmmaker whose career it elevated. I conclude that Tangerine is a genuine turning point in American trans cinema, but one that reproduces the very industry inequities it seems to resist, and that taking the film seriously requires holding both of those things true at once.
Recommended Citation
Brandt, Ava, "Between Authenticity and Exploitation: Rethinking the Intended Audience of Sean Baker's Tangerine" (2026). Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters. 810.
https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/cusrd_abstracts/810
Original research paper the poster was adapted from.
Included in
Black History Commons, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Other Film and Media Studies Commons
Comments
Presented at the Spring 2026 Student Scholar Symposium at Chapman University.
This project derived from a research study in ENG 472 Film, Gender, and Sexuality. It was originally an essay, but was adapted into a poster format for the symposium.