Film as corrective social spaces in Southern Asia: Trans persons as oppressed characters with superpowers from below

This paper analyzed four films produced and released between 2003-2016 in Southern Asia, specifically Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, and India that revolves around a transgender character with extraordiary abilities. The selected films are The Adventures of Iron Pussy (Thailand), Zsazsa Zaturnnah Ze Moveeh (Philippines), Madame X (Indonesia), and Arddhanaari (India). sought to answer the question “How does gender oppression in selected religious countries south of Asia give rise to trans persons with superpowers or extraordinary abilities? Specifically, the study sought to surface experiences of oppression of the persons behind the characters with extraordinary abilities, their anti-oppression powers, the structures of power they undermine, and the resolutions to the oppression they addressed. Through repeated viewing and textual analysis (via thematic analysis), the study found that the protagonists‟ experiences of rejection and abandonment, desire for love, and external and immediate threats to safety were the main sources of their motivation to be heroic. However, their actions, while nurtured and exercised from below, seek only to correct and not overturn an oppressive system.