“THE DANISH GIRL”: A CINEMATIC REPRESENTATION OF TRANSGENDER BODY IN ART

The Danish Girl is a fictionalized story of the real life character Lily Elbe, also known as Einor Wagener, regarded as the first trans woman painter. We have seen a lot of paintings that represent the theme of sexuality. Here in this paper I would like to trace a brief history of these transgender representations in art. In the movie The Danish Girl, we can identify an individual who struggles with identity and tries to find out who he/she really is. Both the characters Einor and his wife Gerda in the movie are shown as ambassadors of art and their sexuality becomes a threat in their career as painters. So in this paper, through analyzing the movie, I would like to discuss about the birth and death of an artist when sexuality comes to question and how art has represented the theme of transgender sexuality. The act of coming out of the closet through art is another part of discussion in this paper.