Formación de profesores

Transgender through ‘Transgenre’: Poetry and Sexual Identity in “Tracie’s Story”

María del Consuelo Santamaría Aguirre *
FES Acatlán, UNAM

Resumen La Licenciatura en Enseñanza de Inglés de la UNAM ofrece la asignatura optativa de Literatura Comparada (Plan de Estudios LEI, 2012), en la cual los alumnos exploran métodos para comprender las relaciones textuales de diferentes culturas y periodos. A continuación, se presenta un ejemplo de análisis transtextual de “Tracie’s Story” (“La historia de Tracie”, episodio de la serie de televisión Accused de la BBC, 2012), cuyo protagonista sigue un desarrollo paralelo a “La Dama de Shalott” de Tennyson, encerrado en una torre de aislamiento transgénero y tejiendo un tapiz de poemas y canciones. El análisis se basó en la intertextualidad y la mitocrítica, dado que la estructura narratológica del video depende de la presencia de diversos textos para brindar una nueva versión del mito literario de “la dama en la torre”. Los resultados se discutirán en dos direcciones: la fuerza que el tapiz textual proporciona al protagonista para construir una identidad transgénero resiliente y los descubrimientos de los alumnos en cuanto al papel de la poesía inglesa del siglo XIX en los medios de comunicación contemporáneos.

Summary UNAM’s English Teaching Major offers an optional course in Comparative Literature (Plan de Estudios LEI, 2012) where students explore methods to understand textual relations from different cultures and periods. The following is an example of a transtextual analysis of “Tracie’s Story” (an episode from the BBC TV series Accused, 2012) where the protagonist parallels Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott”, isolated in a tower of transgender loneliness, weaving a tapestry of poems and songs. The analysis was based on intertextuality and myth criticism, since the narratological structure of the video relies on the presence of several texts to reenact the literary myth of “the lady in her tower”. Results will be discussed in two directions: the strength provided by a textual tapestry to help the protagonist build a resilient transgender identity, and the students’ discoveries on the role of 19th Century English poetry in contemporary mass media.

Palabras clave literatura comparada, identidad transgénero, intertextualidad, literatura inglesa, enseñanza de inglés.

Keywords comparative literature, transgender identity, intertextuality, English literature, ELT.

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1. Introduction

This paper aims to present a transtextual analysis of the video “Tracie’s Story”, an episode from the BBC TV series Accused, 2012 (credits and cast: IMDb, 2012; video: [TwoOfUsUk], 2013), where several poems and songs function as part of the narrative to discuss transgender identity. This analysis serves as a model of contemporary complex discourses for the course on Comparative Literature, an optional subject offered in the seventh semester of UNAM’s English Teaching Major (or LEI, Licenciatura en Enseñanza de Inglés, created in 1983). The course responds to the interests of students that, after learning Latin American and English literature in previous semesters, would like to discuss authors from other languages and countries (Plan de Estudios LEI, 2012) and practice English in contexts different from grammar or language teaching.

It is worth mentioning that students’ enrollment in Comparative Literature does not imply that they are avid readers, but they resource successfully to their media literacy, and therefore are invited to include materials like films, comic books, graphic novels, songs, and even video games. The course provides a variety of methodological approaches, then some texts and videos are used as examples, and finally, the students look for materials to make their own analyses. Thus, the present analysis shows an example of a combination of media where video and literature work together to produce a powerful narrative.

The methodology includes narratology (the basics of narrative elements), transtextuality (relations among texts) and myth criticism (reenactment of myths). According to the results, the poems and songs (arguably familiar to the viewers) contribute to understand the transgender protagonist’s perspective and even develop empathy towards him. This kind of work not only helps students to learn about transtextual analysis, but also offers an academic ground to discuss contemporary topics like transgender identity in the classroom.

2. Research justification

Transtextuality has a long tradition in literary history (Cfr. Miola, 2004, for a study of the Renaissance), but transmediality as a result of technological innovation helps us to understand contemporary trends defined by using and recycling previous narratives (Cfr. Chimal, 2018). A middle ground was found in the video “Tracie’s Story” (henceforth referred to as TS), with its peculiar use of classic poems and contemporary songs to tell a transgender story. This material results appealing to the students and the references are closer to them.

TS poses an example of two ideas of ‘trans-’, and this prefix —defined as ‘across, beyond’ or ‘through’ (OUP, 2018) — will serve to examine several angles of the video written by McGovern & Duggan, and directed by Pearce (IMDb, 2012). The first ‘trans-’ is related to the theme of the video: the story of a protagonist (Sean Bean) that during the day is a boring homosexual English teacher (Simon), but at night turns into a flamboyant female persona (Tracie) through transvestism (“The action or practice of dressing in clothes primarily associated with the opposite sex”, OUP, 2018). This falls under the general concept of ‘transgender’:

An umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or expression is different from cultural expectations based on the sex they were assigned at birth. Being transgender does not imply any specific sexual orientation. Therefore, transgender people may identify as straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc. (HRC, 2018)

The second idea has to do with transtextuality as interaction of texts, and a third ‘trans-’ is proposed as a pun to describe TS: ‘transgenre’. A literary genre is a category, “a normative aesthetic convention which serves as an invariant model for the creation of specific texts which represent variant forms of the genre invariant” (Žilka in Javorčíková, 2015:8). While the video belongs to the genre of courtroom drama, poems and songs belong to the category of poetry understood as texts with meter, verse, or at least a visible structure pattern (Javorčíková, 2015:13).

To explain complex interactions in contemporary media (from the classic book format to the density of video games), the terms ‘transtextual’ and ‘transmedial’ were coined as part of narratology (the study of narrative structures). A recent discussion revolts around the question whether narratology is a unified methodology or a set of methods according to the specificities of each medium (Andersson & Sandberg, 2018; Thon, 2017; Wolf, 2017). As Wolf explains: “it is meaningful to maintain narratology as one (interdisciplinary) research field, yet one in which mediality must be given a conspicuous place” (2017: 257). A basic media-neutral model of narratological analysis includes the following elements:

Narratological analysis
Spatial and time setting	The places where actions happen, and the time are considered to form a continuum denominated chronotopos.
Selectivity of ‘building blocks’	Arrangement of elements according to content or thematic criteria, effect, etc.
Actions and events	Generally referred to as plot, the story is the chronological list of events that take place in the narrative, whilst discourse is the particular arrangement in which that story is presented to the reader or viewer.
Anthropomorphic character(s)	They possess “volition and the ability to act in a story world ruled by ‘laws’ and norms” (Wolf, 2017: 261).
Causality, teleology, chronology	The organization of actions according to causes and motivations of the characters. “They contribute to realizing the general core narreme experientiality” (Wolf, 2017: 262).
Meaningfulness, representability, experientiality	“we can—and like to— experience narrative worlds because they appear to us as meaningful representations of concrete “slices of life” that address, through their modelling function, interesting aspects of reality.” (Wolf, 2017: 260).

Table 1. Basic elements of media-neutral narratological analysis (summarized from Wolf, 2017:260-262).

The ‘transmedial’ aspect consists of the use of various textual and musical elements intertwined with the general narrative of the video. The interaction among texts was described as transtextuality by Genette and classified as follows:

TRANSTEXTUALITY
Inertextuality	Defined as co-presence of texts or a text within a text, intertextuality takes the form of quotation, plagiarism, or allusion (Genette, 1989: 10; Beristáin, 1996: 32-33).
Paratextuality	The relation between a text and its paratexts:  titles, covers, epigraphs, (Genette, 1989:11-12), and also author’s interviews, reviews, posters, etc. (Cavalcante, 2013: 87). These texts provide a conceptual frame to direct the meaning of the work.
Metatextuality	A critical commentary or literary criticism, acting as a metatext and a particular genre (Genette, 1989: 13; Beristáin, 1996: 34).
Architextuality	The result of ascribing a work to a specific genre, thus leading the reader’s expectations in terms of conventions, outcomes, etc. (Genette, 1989: 13-14).
Hypertextuality	The relation between a text (or hypertext) and a preceding text (or hypotext). A particular form of hypertextuality is burlesque transvestism, where the hypotext’s theme is degraded through devaluating systematic transpositions of style and theme (Genette, 1989: 4, 37).

Table 2. Genette’s five types of transtextuality.

The texts that accompany Tracie are three poems and five songs that play an essential role in the narrative:

Poems	Songs
“I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud” (also known as “Daffodils”), William Wordsworth (2018), published in 1807 (British Library, s.f.).	“Bliss”, Muse, from the album Origin of Symmetry, 2001 (video file: [Muse], 2010).
	“Time After Time”, C. Lauper, from the album She’s So Unusual, 1983 (video file: [cindylauperTV], 2009).
“The Lady of Shalott”, Lord Alfred Tennyson, 1842 (Tennyson, 2018).	“Could You Be The One?”, Stereophonics, from the album Keep Calm And Carry On, 2009 (video file: [Stereophonics Official], 2010).
“No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief”, Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1880’s. Also known as Sonnet 65 (Eron, 2003: first paragraph), it belongs to the group of “Terrible Sonnets” (Interestingliterature, 2017: first paragraph).	“She Makes Me Wanna”, JLS, from the album Jukebox, 2011 (video file: [JLSOFFICIALMUSIC], 2013).
	“Young Hearts Run Free”, Candi Staton, from the homonymous album, 1976 (video file: [toombsjames], 2012).

Table 3. Presence of texts in “Tracie’s Story”.

The viewer may infer several assumptions about the story, theme, mood, or the characters’ personality only by looking at the list, and the authors rely on this previous knowledge of the audience to build the meaning of the new story. Among these texts, Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” plays a relevant role: while the other texts appear only once, this poem is quoted thrice and is transformed as burlesque transvestism the fourth time it appears. Thus, the final interpretation of TS seems to depend on our understanding of the Lady’s story. After delving in the many textual layers, the Arthurian myth of the Lady and her unrequited love for “bold Sir Lancelot” revealed itself not only as a co-presence, but also as a hypotext, a text established as a model for the new story or hypertext.

“The Lady of Shalott” can be defined as a literary myth: the narrative framework of the text embodies a conflict between opposing principles, or human affective, ethic or spiritual issues, offering a particular answer through the protagonist’s behavior (Herrero Cecilia, 2006: 66). If the myth gives shape to and directs the literary narrative, reciprocally, the narrative selects among the motifs of the myth and highlights certain traits to the detriment of others (Rajotte, 1993: 30).

Plasa summarizes the traditional reading of Tennyson’s poem as “a reluctant manifesto for the romantically isolated poet” (1992:248); however, he offers a new possibility:

While “The Lady of Shalott” addresses [the woman question], it does so, as will be shown, in a systematically ambivalent manner, at once upholding and dislocating patriarchal assumptions about the issues which the question entails —those of gender, sexuality, the institution of marriage, and the space occupied by women in society. (Plasa: 1992: 248)

In summary, TS tells a narrative of transgender identity through a transtextual discourse, and a possible guide to the viewers’ comprehension of the story is the reenactment of Tennyson’s literary myth of “The Lady of Shalott”.

3. Methodology

This section is divided into three parts: first, the review of the narrative structure; then, the analysis of the functions of the texts in the video, and finally, an overview of the general meaning and the role of peritexts (paratextuality).

3.1. “The chaos of nature”: Narrative structure of “Tracie’s Story”

The TV series Accused belongs to the genre of legal or courtroom drama and presents different cases in each episode. Its narrative structure is as follows: “The tale usually kicks off with the defendant (occasionally multiple defendants) being led into court after their trial to await the jury’s verdict.” (Nethercott, 2013: third paragraph)

According to Rzepka: “In one sense, all detective fiction deals with the past, for all authors in the genre write about acts already committed, or attempted, against the mores and conventions of society.” (2010: 222). Rzekpa considers that those stories allow the viewer a safe distance to observe crime, but also show a contemporary interest in “minor” stories related to sex or gender issues (2010: 223). Accused makes the viewer immediately aware that there is a crime, but instead of focusing in the police investigation:

What we don’t know is what crime he/she has been accused of or who the victim of that crime might be. The narrative structure then brings us back to the events that led up to the trial. We start off in common settings—a kitchen, a taxi, a pub—with people going about their everyday business. The tension arises from the fact that we know, in some as yet unimagined way, things are going to go south. Badly. (Nethercott, 2013: fourth paragraph)

So, the otherwise comedic or psycho killer image of the transvestite (Cavalcante, 2013: 88-89) may lead or mislead the viewer to several possible outcomes in TS. However, the viewer knows for sure that Simon/Tracie will make it until the end of the story, since he/she is the one waiting for the jury’s verdict.

As for the time and place setting, TS is set in Manchester, with some general views of the city, but long sequences focus in private spaces (especially Tracie’s bathroom and boudoir as part of the transition from male to female and vice versa), and the final part of the love story takes place in the Lake District (symbolic source of romantic poetry). The time setting is the present, and the story takes two months from the moment Tracie meets his love interest until the crime, and an unspecified period of the trial process.

The protagonist’s two identities are male Simon Gaskell and bon vivant female Tracie Tremarco. The contrast between the two personas is clear even from the colors used to portray them: Simon’s clothes and scenes are markedly grey to show his lack of luster and his ‘fail’ as a man, whereas Tracie lives in a colorful world filled with her witty verbosity, a strong tool to answer back when someone questions her way of being.

Tracie’s love interest is Tony Baines (Stephen Graham), a married man that engages in an affair with her. Other characters include Alan (Tony’s brother), Karen (Tony’s wife), and people in the courtroom: judge, prosecution and defense barristers, jury and audience (among others, Alan, Tracie’s friend and Simon’s students are present). The following is a plot summary of TS in parallel with Tennyson’s poem:

Tracie’s Story Sections in grey indicate present time in the courtroom.	The Lady of Shalott
Simon waits for trial. Flashback: Tracie heads to Victoria Street. SONG 1. “Bliss”. Bullied by the cab driver and later by Alan, Tracie deflects offenses, meets Tony and he stays at her apartment. Simon enters the courtroom.	The Lady is isolated, and she knows that there is a curse if she stops working to go to Camelot.
Tracie wakes up the following morning, feeling of loneliness. POEM 1. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud…”
Simon reciting the poem, bored students. He analyzes the poem and talks about the ‘chaos of nature’. Simon as an English teacher.
Simon goes on with his ordinary and lonely life. POEM 2. “The Lady…” In his classroom, he leans against the window.
Tony comes back. Simon-Tracie’s transformation. SONG 2. “Time After Time”, overlapped with Tracie’s idea of real poetry, POEM 3. “No worst.” Tony and Tracie have sex, he says that his wife is dead.	Her work consists on looking ‘real’ life as projected in a magic mirror and then weaving a tapestry with the things she sees on the mirror.
Simon recites POEM 2 with passion.
POEM 2 overlapping with the beginning of SONG 3. “Could You Be The One”. Several visits from Tony, but he shows less and less care. They argue. Tony agrees to ask her out if she looks more feminine.
Simon recites POEM 2, this time students pay attention. Simon shopping, preparing flowers, etc. Tony doesn’t arrive.	One day she sees Sir Lancelot approaching to Camelot and falls in love with him.
Tracie goes to a night club with a male friend. SONG 4. “She Makes Me Wanna”. She dances among other transvestites.
Tracie gets home with her friend. Tony appears and is jealous of Tracie’s friend. He invites her to go on a trip. Simon in the courtroom, trial about to start.
Simon goes shopping and sees Tony’s wife, Karen. Tracie visits Karen for a makeover. Confrontation with ‘real’ femininity. Karen tells Tony about Tracie’s visit. Tony calls Tracie, they agree to meet at a bar. SONG 5. “Young Hearts Run Free”. Simon confronts Tony and they argue. Tony goes back home. Karen has his cell phone and asks: “Who is Tracie?” Simon walks around the city and then gets home. Tony calls Tracie and agrees to leave the following morning, then Karen’s dead body is showed.	She utters ‘I’m half wearied of shadows’ and decides to break the rules.
Tracie goes with Tony in his car, daylight. Simon is asked if Tony called him to talk about plans to murder Karen.	She stops working, the mirror cracks ‘from side to side’ and the tapestry flies out the window.
They get to the Lake District. Tracie tells how Simon came out ‘the closet’. Tony confesses to the murder of Karen and asks for Tracie’s help.	She knows the curse is fall upon her, but still leaves the tower and takes a boat to row to Camelot.
Tracie calls the police and opens the car’s trunk. Simon explains that his fingerprints are in the murder weapon because he tried to defend himself from Tony. Tracie runs away. Tony tries to kill her. Police arrive.
Simon is accused of being Tony’s accomplice in Karen’s murder. Simon is incapable of explaining his situation, so he asks for a favor.
Tracie appears in court. “For the avoidance of doubt, this is the accused. How shall we call you?” “Tracie Tremarco, your Honor.” Tracie’s speech: she shows her female attire (clothes, nails, shoes) and proves it impossible to dress like that and take part in a crime. She also justifies Tony: “Life in prison for a man who kills his wife for a woman like me, that’s hell”.	On her way to Camelot, she sings a song. The Lady dies before reaching the shore. People gather to see her corpse.
Simon is declared innocent. Tony goes to prison.	Lancelot speaks about her beauty. His words close the poem.
Once free, Simon brings Tracie back and leaves for City Center. POEM 2. Transformed.

Table 4. Plot comparison between “Tracie’s Story” and “The Lady of Shalott”.

Some moments in TS are specifically linked to the poem through quotation, but in general there is a common storyline that deviates only at the end. The hypertext as burlesque transvestism accounts for the transformation and degradation of style and theme. Tracie and Tony are ordinary people and, instead of magic artifacts and curses or noble Camelot, they are implicated in a murder. However, the contemporary setting offers Tracie a way out when she resorts to her identity as a proof of innocence. Thus, unlike the Lady, she can stand against the system and survives.

3.2. “O, the mind has mountains”: Functions of co-texts

Contrary to the sober style that characterizes Accused, TS is a flabbergasting auditory and visual experience, at least during the first 15 minutes, packed with vibrant music and poems. The rest of the episode resorts to incidental music by Adrian Johnston (IMDb, 2012) and only at the end, while Tracie sets on a new night adventure, Simon’s voice recites a new version of “The Lady of Shalott”.

The texts present in TS appear through diegetic conventions. The poems are recited by Simon/Tracie and the songs come from sources according to the situation: “Bliss” might be played in the cab’s radio, “Time after Time” comes from a turntable that the audience see, “She Makes Me Wanna”1 sounds in the nightclub while Tracie is dancing,“Young Hearts Run Free” is playing at a jukebox. Only the fifth song, “Could You Be The One” is partially extradiegetic, since there is no explicit source on screen. A summary of the texts’ functions in the story is offered here:

Text	Moment of the story	Function
Muse, “Bliss”: Everything about you is how I'd wanna be Your freedom comes naturally Everything about you resonates happiness Now I won't settle for less…	Tracie heads to Victoria Street in the cab while looking at passing-by women smiling, having fun and enjoying their lives.	Giving voice to Tracie’s thoughts. The song embodies her thoughts of jealousy since women can express freely and naturally their femininity and perhaps the last line implies that Tracie won’t give up her attempt to live by that standard.
Wordsworth, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”: And all… at once I saw a crowd A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees Fluttering and dancing in the breeze…	Simon’s voiceover reads the first verse while Tracie wakes up alone in her bed, and then starts to remove the makeup from her face. In class, Simon analyzes the poem: the trisyllabic word ‘fluttering’ breaks the rhythmic pattern when the lyrical ‘I’ comes across the field of daffodils. This effect is described as “the chaos of nature”.	Defining the character. The chaos is linked to the protagonist’s dual identity, with an unconventional female alter ego, but this chaos is part of his nature, as the daffodils belong to the landscape.
Tennyson, “The Lady of Shalott”, 1st quote: But who hath seen her wave her hand? Or at the casement seen her stand? Or is she known in all the land,        The Lady of Shalott?	Simon is in class, looking through the window. No students on screen.	Isolation. Like the Lady, Simon only looks to the world from a distance. He didn’t even care about his students’ reaction. The fragment expresses Simon’s feelings of isolation and estrangement.
C. Lauper, “Time After Time”: Lying in my bed, I hear the clock tick and think of you / Caught up in circles, confusion is nothing new / Flashback, warm nights almost left behind / Suitcases of memories, time after... / Sometimes you picture me, I'm walking too far ahead / You're calling to me,…/  I can't hear what you've said / Then you say, "Go slow", I fall behind / The second hand unwinds / If you're lost, you can look and you will find me / Time after time / If you fall, I will catch you, I'll be waiting / Time after time	Tracie is delighted to see Tony coming back to her apartment.	Beginning a relationship and foreshadowing. The idea of “time after time” may express Tracie’s wishes for a long-term relationship with Tony, but also foreshadows a moment in the future when Tony will ask for her help. Tracie will be there for him but won’t accept to help him dispose of Karen’s body.
G. M. Hopkins, “No worst. There is none.”: O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall Frightful, sheer, no-man-travelled [sic]. Hold them cheap May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! Creep… (minor change of the poem in [TwoOfUsUk], 2013)	Tracie explains Tony that Simon pays the bills working as a teacher of romantic poetry (“DI DUM DI DUM DI fucking DUM”). She then recites Hopkin’s poem to show what great poetry really is.	Conflict between the traditional and the modern. The poem is recited overlapping with “Time After Time”. This sonnet describes a downward trip into nothingness (Eron, 2003), a pain from within the mind (David, 2013). Tracie shows her lack of interest in tradition in favor of the modern (not only poetry, but also mores), but at the same time reveals her inner state of mind with sinuous mountains and cliffs.
Tennyson, “The Lady of Shalott”, 2nd  quote: Willows whiten, aspens quiver, Little breezes dusk and shiver Thro’ the wave that runs for ever By the island in the river        Flowing down to Camelot. Four gray walls, and four gray towers, Overlook a space of flowers, And the silent isle imbowers        The Lady of Shalott By the margin, willow veil'd, Slide the heavy barges trail'd By slow horses; and unhail’d The shallop flitteth silken-sail’d Skimming down to Camelot: A bow-shot from her bower-eaves, He rode between the barley-sheaves, The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves, And flamed upon the brazen greaves        Of bold Sir Lancelot.	Tony tells Tracie that his wife is dead, she smiles after he leaves, foreseeing a long-term relationship. Simon recites the poem in class, he is the center of the scene.  Simon shaves his body in the bathtub. Simon transforming himself into Tracie before the mirror. Simon going downstairs. Simon doing shopping, buys flowers. Tracie puts flowers in a vase, lights candles. Tracie opens the door for Tony’s third visit.	Summarizing preparations for a date. Illusions. A sequence of brief actions that start from Tracie’s illusion. The poem is recited over the musical bridge of the following song. Here the hair going down the drain is compared to the waves of the river that surrounds the towers and the Lady. Like the Lady, Tracie has a special mirror, but it works as a bridge between her and Simon. Tony is seen as “bold Sir Lancelot”. The overlapping of poem and song expresses Tracie’s expectations of a love story, but still the question remains: “Are you really the one?”
Stereophonics, “Could you be the one?”: Could you be the one (x3) Every single thing you do is magic baby Every little thing that you do is cool Every little thing you do is fashionably hip Could you be the one Could you be the one for me…	The final part of the previous fragment overlaps with the beginning of this text when the video presents Tracie opening her door to Tony several times, assuming the passing of weeks.	Summarizing the love affair. Disillusionment. With every repetition of the scene, Tony’s degradation is obvious: from bringing gifts and wearing fine cloths, to arriving drunk and with cheaper booze.   Tracie is sad because Tony takes her for granted. There is irony in the text, since Tony’s actions are not so cool.
Tennyson, “The Lady of Shalott”, 3rd quote: She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces thro' the room, She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume,        She look'd down to Camelot. Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror crack'd from side to side; "The curse is come upon me," cried        The Lady of Shalott.	After arguing with Tracie, Tony says that he doesn’t go out with her because she doesn’t ‘put too much effort in looking as a woman’. She asks if they will go out, Tony replies with his catchphrase “Long time dead”. THE POEM BEGINS. Simon recites the first part in class, this time with passion, to an amazed class. Simon doing shopping again.	New illusions. Foreshadowing. Simon decides to double his efforts to improve his appearance as a woman. This is compared to the moment when the Lady decides to quit her work to follow Lancelot. Amidst the positive expectations of love, the curse is mentioned. Like the Lady, Simon is unaware of its meaning, but perhaps he has a general feeling that so much happiness cannot last.
JLS, “She Makes Me Wanna”	When Tony doesn’t show up for their night out, Tracie goes to a transvestite nightclub with a friend.	Environment and mood. The characters dance with the song and Tracie’s mood reflects happiness while being surrounded by “women like her”, that is, other transvestites.
C. Staton, “Young Hearts Run Free”: Young hearts run free Never be hung up like my man and me My man and me…	After discovering Tony’s lie, Tracie agrees to meet Tony in a bar, but it is Simon who appears. He approaches Tony talking about a misunderstanding with the line “My man and me” as “My memory”. Tony refuses Simon’s approach saying that he is ‘straight’. Simon quotes Tony’s catchphrase. Only then the former recognizes the latter as Tracie’s male persona.	A cue for conversation. The song is playing on the bar’s jukebox and seems a casual background. However, this 1976 song describes domestic abuse and the intention of getting rid of a relationship. Crawford wrote the lyrics for his friend, Candi Staton, based on her personal experiences (Frederick, 2018). The song announces Simon’s confrontation of Tony for his lies and double cheating on Tracie and Karen.
Tennyson, “The Lady of Shalott”, 4th quote, this time rephrased as burlesque transvestism: From the original poem: There she weaves by night and day A magic web with colours gay, She has heard a whisper say A curse is on her if she stay to look down to Camelot. Transposition: Lancelot said her case is won, Knickers off, let’s have some fun. And then the little bastard gave her one. The Lady of Shalott.	At the end of the video, Tracie heads to city center in a cab, smiling.	Resilience and self-acceptance. Tracie moves to the center of her own story embracing what she is. She helped Simon to overcome the trial and his voice is now able to operate a transformation (or a literary transvestism) on the Victorian poem that guided his love relationship with Tony. Perhaps there will be only casual sex, but at least Tracie will be true to her transgender identity.

Table 5. Functions of co-texts in “Tracie’s Story”, quoted from [TwoOfUsUk], 2013.

As can be seen, transtextuality is more than quoting. In TS every text has a relevant function to shape the narrative and the experience of the viewers. Meaningfulness is achieved after a sinuous path of expectations, inferences, and contradictory clues, thus framing a verbal tapestry that parallels the Lady’s work. She represented shadowy images of the real world while Simon /Tracie weaves words to create a new world.

3.3. “A magic web with colours gay”: Tracie’s victory

The protagonist’s transgender identity, otherwise seen as imperfect or socially disruptive, and her verbal skills trained and reinforced by her textual tapestry, are acknowledged in court. This helps Simon/Tracie to come out of the experience with a resilient identity:

Resilience has been conceptualized as the ability to positively navigate through significant adversity or threat (Reaching IN, 2010), necessitating the presence of both risk and avoidance of risk, and involving the development of skills to adapt and buffer the negative outcomes associated with risk exposure (Fergus & Zimmerman, 2005; Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000; Mustanski et al., 2011). (In Craig, McInroy, McCready & Alaggia, 2015: 255)2 

In the final scene, Tracie goes back to her initial love pursuit in bars, but this time she heads for the “city center”, while Simon’s voice recites a final stanza in his own style. However, Tracie’s victory can play a major role in other people’s lives as well by means of paratextuality. Peritexts have proven to be helpful resources that lessen the impact of transgender themes, but at the same time grant access to wider audiences, thus harmlessly permeating mainstream culture (Cavalcante, 2012:99-100). In this sense, an element that contributes to the normalized view and acceptance of transvestism in TS is the presence of Sean Bean as the dual protagonist:

For those familiar with Bean’s turns as Boromir in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Ned Stark in Game of Thrones, you might mistakenly think that Bean is, in real life, some sword-wielding, semi-barbarian throwback who directors have somehow wrangled into playing roles natural to him. His work in Accused should convince anyone that he’s an Actor with a capital A. […] Bean provides a strong, poignant portrait of a man hoping against hope for love and companionship […]. He’s excellent as the complex Tracie and, deservingly, won the Royal Television Society’s best actor award for the role. (Nethercott, 2013: tenth paragraph)

So, Bean’s two major roles stand as a new form of paratextuality and call the attention of mainstream audience, thus reducing the conflict to mere acting, as shown in non-transgender reviews which emphasize the actor’s courage and talent to perform a non-traditional role (Frost, 2012; N. A., 2013; Nethercott, 2013; Hughes, 2017). Transgender media reviews also praise the video on the grounds of a well-researched —though not completely accurate— depiction of the protagonist (Kevin, 2012; Vivienne, 2013). So, in the long run transgender identity benefits from media representations, since “we are far less likely to consider the sexual thrill associated with gender transgression as sinful, and are therefore less inclined to give in to guilt-induced repression.” (Phillips, 2006: 173).

4. Conclusions

TS shows the complexities and conflicts of transgender identity and resorts to transtextuality to revise a myth where a rebel woman died from a patriarchal curse and, instead, this new narrative absolves a transgender person. Famous poems and songs offer their beauty and popularity as a textual tapestry that nurtures Tracie and makes her story clearer for the audience.

When this video was discussed in class, students learned about several methods, but also became aware of how other texts function at various levels to shape the meaning of a narrative. The role of Nineteenth century poetry becomes relevant to convey different meanings like the chaos of nature in Wordsworth, or mind’s mountains and cliffs in Hopkins, mediated by Tennyson’s Lady and her guide to a queer love story. Tracie’s conflicting thoughts and feelings are also expressed through songs familiar to the viewer. In summary, co-texts help to explain transgender identity in mainstream culture’s terms and the students developed empathy towards the protagonist, as the reviews accounted for the viewers’ response.

Transtextuality is not unfamiliar to the students, but they learn to go deeper into the textual layers and find the ways in which texts interact and transform each other to tell new stories. Myth criticism also allows young readers to understand the permanence and constant revision of myths according to a period’s needs and pursuits. As future English teachers, Comparative Literature offers the students a wider perspective to include books, films and other media in class and suitable methodologies to cope even with forthcoming narrative innovations. Finally, students also learned about the role of media to discuss delicate topics like transgender identity, and perhaps this will contribute to their finding creative ways to do the same in the classroom.

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* María del Consuelo Santamaría Aguirre:Licenciada en Lengua y Literatura Hispánicas y maestra en Estudios México-Estados Unidos (UNAM). Es profesora de tiempo completo en el área de Lingüística e imparte Literatura Inglesa y Literatura Comparada en la Licenciatura en Enseñanza de Inglés, FES Acatlán. En la misma facultad, fue docente de japonés y español para extranjeros, y colaboró en el diseño del Diplomado de Traducción Inglés-Español. Fue becaria de la Fundación Japón (2002) y de Proyecta 100,000 (2015). Fue expositora del Diplomado de Formación de Traductores en la Universidad Iberoamericana (1999-2005). Ha dado conferencias sobre el uso de la poesía en el salón de clase y sobre diversos temas relacionados con la enseñanza de lenguas. Fue jefa del Departamento de Español para Extranjeros y Lenguas no Indoeuropeas y coordinadora del Centro de Enseñanza de Idiomas de la FES Acatlán.

1 These three songs are likely to resonate in the audience given their tremendous popularity. As of September 2018, the number of views is as follows: “Bliss”, 30,493,511 views ([Muse], 2010); “Time After Time”, 304,223,275 views ([cindylauperTV], 2009); “She Makes Me Wanna”, 20,394,945 views ([JLSOFFICIALMUSIC], 2013).

2 The authors explored real-life development of resilience in LGBTQ youth with the help of media (2015:269-271), so representations like Tracie’s are likely to place transgender identities as part of mainstream culture while offering an example of self-acceptance to those for whom binary sexuality does not apply.