We need more Tilda Swintons

Tilda Swinton is one of my favorite people.

Through her fashion and lifestyle, she is one of very few women who maintains her femininity while remaining uninhibited by gender.

She is able to both embody and walk the line most women attempt to strike between their femininity and its social implications.

She transcends the applied rules of gender. She is able to maintain her womanhood without offering it as an object of desire.

However, type her into any search engine and I can guarantee at least the third result will be about her lack of general “woman”-ness.

Or it will be about some outrageous fashion choice — a formless dress, a pantsuit cut and tailored at an odd angle. It will be something criticizing her casual disregard for the constraints of gender.

It will then go on to say that she is ugly, or maybe a man in drag. Forget her gorgeous turn in “I Am Love.” She does not appeal sexually; therefore, she is not a woman.

For me, this treatment of her is symptomatic of a larger, more misogynistic gender normative problem.

She is a woman who is able to appreciate her body for its artistic purposes, not for its sexual, gender-specific ones. Therefore, she is considered by most media as less of a woman or as faulty and missing something.

This reputation enters the room before she does. It precedes any discussion about her talent. Say “Tilda Swinton” and you’ll probably wind up talking about how she doesn’t wear any make-up, not her ability.

The fact remains that women, and men to some extent in this argument, cannot put their gender on the bottom of their priority list. It becomes everything.

To be more specific, I’m talking about people whose gender and biology agree.

The transgender argument applies here as well. If you are someone who does not rely on your gender or sexuality to define who you are, you are automatically considered transgender whether you identify as such or not.

If you argue, you’re considered weird.

People cannot transcend their gender. People cannot operate without it becoming the thing that will define them whether it’s important to them or not.

That’s why I find Tilda Swinton an inspiration. She manages to find a way to be undefined by gender.

She forces society to find another way to view her — an artist, an actor, a whatever.

She makes society uncomfortable because she does so.

She’s not lacking — she’s just not characterized by the fact that she’s a woman. And I think if we want to have an open discussion about gender norms, we need more people like Swinton.

People who demonstrate what it means to be a person, not just a man or a woman.

­— ewenning@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Emma Wenninger on Twitter @EmmaWenninger.