Brandon Cronenberg’s POSSESSOR Mirrored my Gender Experiences
There’s a lot of queer subtext in the works of psychosexual body horror director David Cronenberg, but what about his son, Brandon? His first film, “Antiviral,” is about obsession and fetishization, among other things, but what about “Possessor”? I never expected to have such a strong reaction to the film, which stars Andrea Riseborough as an assassin named Tasya who takes control of other people’s bodies in order to do her work. I expected to be entertained, maybe shocked and grossed out, but I certainly didn’t expect to see gender euphoria represented so blatantly. While I can never relate to Tasya’s detachment from others or her ability to commit cold-blooded murder, watching her experience the joy of being in a masculine body resonated deeply.
“Possessor” depicted a dream I’ve always had, of waking up one day and looking down to see my form had changed completely. As a child, I desperately wished that I had been born differently, that I had been given a penis instead of a vagina. Decades later, I’ve grown somewhat comfortable in the in-between, embracing being non-binary and presenting socially however I feel like, but there are still days when the idea of waking up looking like Christopher Abbott is still an absolute dream. (Then again, I’m pretty sure most people would be stoked to wake up looking like him.) Tasya’s moments of gender euphoria are bright spots of joy in a movie that otherwise only has pain to give.
Gender Euphoria Made Explicit
Lots can be said about “Possessor,” but what I specifically want to dig into is the scene where Tasya first wakes up inside of Colin’s (Abbott) body. (Note: I’m going to use she/her pronouns for Tasya to avoid confusion’s sake, though she may prefer they/them or he/him, but she is fictional and I can’t exactly ask!) She looks down at his arms, his chest, and his genitals, and you can see her elation. She runs her hands over his body, relishing in the sensation in a way she clearly doesn’t while in her own body. Then, as Colin, she has sex with his girlfriend. As Colin, she seems almost happy, and that creates a link between herself and her host that causes major problems when he’s able to take back over.
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By the end of the film, Colin takes back control enough to kill Tasya’s husband and son in retaliation for all she’s done, and it’s hard to wonder if she didn’t let him take over so she could try and stay inside his mind forever. She was so clearly unhappy in her own body and her own life, and it’s not unreasonable to think she would subconsciously allow him to “win” in order to eradicate everything connecting her to that world.
The Masks We Wear
“Possessor” is about identity, how we put on masks in various circumstances, whether it’s interacting with our families or going to work. Tasya feels so uncomfortable in her own identity that she has to mask it at almost all times. She can be herself when she’s wearing the “masks” of other people’s faces, but she cannot be herself in her own skin. We even see her practicing “being herself” after returning home from her first mission in the film, running through what she might say to her husband and son. Anyone who has ever had to mask socially in any situation can identify with that feeling, but it feels especially potent when read through the lens of her possibly being transgender and longing to live as a man.
She’s also potentially only attracted to women, which explains her total lack of lust for her husband. It could also just be me that she’s so uncomfortable in her body that sex with him causes dysphoria, or a combination of the two, but either way, there’s a huge difference in how she seems to feel when she’s in a masculine body instead of a feminine one, and it struck a chord in me.
I’m not ready to take the plunge into transitioning and become a man full-time, but if I had access to the technology in “Possessor,” I would absolutely love to take a little gender vacation. The rest of the movie may be a living nightmare, but that part will forever be my dream.
