Two Spirits

Arguing that advertising not only sells things, but also ideas about the world, media scholar Sut Jhally offers a blistering analysis of commercial culture's inability to let go of reactionary gender representations. Jhally's starting point is the breakthrough work of the late sociologist Erving Goffman, whose 1959 book The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life prefigured the growing field of performance studies. Jhally applies Goffman's analysis of the body in print advertising to hundreds of print ads today, uncovering an astonishing pattern of regressive and destructive gender codes. By looking beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that tend to focus on either biology or objectification, The Codes of Gender offers important insights into the social construction of masculinity and femininity, the relationship between gender and power, and the everyday performance of cultural norms.

A riveting expose about the personalities of murderers and their motives. This 72 minute film covers the McDonalds' restaurant massacre, President Reagan's assassination attempt, serial murderer Henry Lee Lucas and others.

Camp Beaverton is the Home for Wayward Girls, the only queer, all women, trans-inclusive, sex positive theme camp set within Burning Man, an 8-day experimental art festival that encourages radical self expression found deep within the Nevada desert. The Beavers create a safe space to explore their boundaries while they build a community of friendship, trust, and lifelong relationships.

Director Jeanie Finlay charts a transgender man's path to parenthood after he decides to carry his child himself. The pregnancy prompts an unexpected and profound reckoning with conventions of masculinity, self-definition and biology.

Four precocious preteens perfect their lip-synching and runway walks in anticipation of the biggest drag performance of their lives at Montreal Pride, in this fierce and joyous celebration of acceptance and self-discovery.

Through letters, diaries and personal testimonies, an account of the complexity and variety of experiences of LGBT Italians during the Fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini (1922-43); intimate words that contrast with the lyrics of popular songs and the propaganda of the time, obsessed with extolling the myths of virility, femininity and motherhood and constrained by sexual repression.

A young teacher in Zurich in the 1950s falls in love with a transvestite star but is torn between his bourgeois existence and his commitment to homosexuality. He joins a gay organization that is eventually seen as the pioneer of gay emancipation in Europe.

A misunderstood and isolated transgender teenager takes revenge upon his unaccepting parents. A powerful supernatural entity known as the Bug God contacts him to help him do the deed. A mysterious organization produces a largely fictitious made-for-TV docudrama on the subject.

A documentary about the macho owner of an auto wrecking company in Florida who goes into hiding from the law as a woman setting off a bizarre journey of self discovery. Undergoing a risky sex change operation, Gloria becomes a dominatrix, a transgender activist and finds a gender-bending love all while trying to reconcile with her dysfunctional family.

They're the real 'goodfellas': 'Joe Dogs' Iannuzzi, Tommy DelGiorno, 'Big Dom' Lofaro. For the first time on television, Mafia turncoats give personal accounts of life inside the Mob. In this shocking documentary, five high-ranking informants tell tales of murder, brutality, greed and vanity-and why they broke the Sicilian code of honor. The first generation of the American Mafia stood on the foundation of loyalty and a code of silence. The second and third generations traded their Sicilian traditions for government protection and instant personal gain. MOB STORIES presents five chilling narratives from five members of the underworld, most of whom are overwhelmed with fear and paranoia with the exception of “Fat Jackie”, a loyal lifelong mobster. Father and son team, Alan and Marc Levin, direct and produce an honest and personal portrayal of the demise of the Mafia.

Eight iconic performers of the first generation of Brazilian transvestite artists go on stage to celebrate their 50th career jubilee. The film depicts the human, personal dimension behind these icons, deconstructing gender stereotypes.