Science Fiction films dealing with sex-change?

June 11, 2009 7:05 AM

Science Fiction films dealing with sex-change?

We are going to have a reading of Neil Gaimans short story "Changes" in which a cure for cancer "has the side effect of ‘reformatting’ the subject’s body into the opposite sex."
Now we would like to show a science fiction film with a somewhat silmilar topic afterwards. Is there anything that would come to your mind?

posted by kolophon to media & arts (21 comments total)

Would something like Junior count?
posted by Sys Rq at 7:14 AM on June 11

Myra Breckenridge?
posted by spec80 at 7:15 AM on June 11 [1 favorite]

Here's the list from IMDB for the keyword "sex change". A quick look down the list shows that they're stretching the definition of "sex change" (i.e. including The Hidden, an SF movie about an alien parasite that takes both male and female hosts); SF might include something like Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde, although it's not what you'd call hard science.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:21 AM on June 11

Junior? Not really I guess. But thanks for suggesting anyway. Myra Breckenridge sounds awesome, I have to try to find it. Also thanks for the imdb-list. I haven't thought of searching there by keywords.

I just remembered a film myself: ZsaZsa Zaturnnah (imdb), but I don't know if this really fits...
posted by kolophon at 7:49 AM on June 11

Myra Breckenridge came up here a few weeks ago. According to everyone it's awful. I downloaded it a few weeks ago and skimmed through it -- it looked pretty goofy. I'm not sure if it counts as sci-fi.
posted by creasy boy at 8:14 AM on June 11

creasy boy: " I'm not sure if it counts as sci-fi."

As the Myra poster, I feel I should point out that the movie and the book frame the gender switching in different ways. In any case, in neither version does it meet the Wikipedia definition of "involves speculations on current or future science or technology".
posted by Joe Beese at 8:23 AM on June 11

A bit of a stretch, but maybe Orlando? Not SF, though.
posted by widdershins at 8:24 AM on June 11

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zerophilia ? Might be too sexy for your purposes though.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:49 AM on June 11

'Vegas in Space' involves sex changes induced by simply taking a pill. However, it's more of a campy sci-fi parody than actual science fiction. It's full of drag queens.
posted by eatyourcellphone at 8:52 AM on June 11

Possibly Enemy Mine? If parthenogenesis counts.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:26 AM on June 11

Thans for Zerophilia and Vegas in Space, both films I have never heard of and need to find very quickly now! Campy sci-fi parody sounds a bit like ZsaZsa Zaturnnah...
I just wished there was a more serious approach to this too. After all that topic has been around in SciFi literature for a while now...

What I would really like to show, and what I think is right up that alley is the fantastic SciFi anime Kaiba, wich deals with posthumanism, not just gender-, but body switching: from a male to a female-, even animal body, or just on a chip...
which unfortunatly is an 11 episodes series and too long for one evening...
posted by kolophon at 9:38 AM on June 11

Oh, good lord. 'Rocky Horror', people!! Spaceships, transexuals (though not sex change) aliens, AND singing!
posted by 8dot3 at 9:39 AM on June 11

(Yes I realize that's not at all what you were looking for. But I had to submit it.)
posted by 8dot3 at 9:40 AM on June 11

Enemy Mine is a fine film that I just recently watched again. (After Das Boot and Neverending Story, how could he go on to direct stuff like Troy, I wonder?) But not really what I was looking for though. As is Rocky Horror...
posted by kolophon at 9:46 AM on June 11

Not really science fiction, but the Virgina Woolf novel Orlando deals with a sex change of a person. There is a movie version starring Tilda Swinton in the lead role. Quite good, IMHO.
posted by Argyle at 10:15 AM on June 11

Not exactly science fiction films, but the british series Boy Meets Girl deals with gender switching in a pretty serious and darkly humorous tone.
posted by joewandy at 11:13 AM on June 11

They Were Eleven has a minor subplot that involves an alien youth of indeterminate gender.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:16 PM on June 11

It's a book, but "I Will Fear No Evil," by Robert Heinlein. Narrator/protagonist has his brain transplanted from his dying male body to that of his attractive young female assistant. Hijinks ensue.

(Caution: it's deep, deep into the weird-Heinlein era...)
posted by zap rowsdower at 12:59 PM on June 11

His short story All you Zombies is pretty good.
posted by Artw at 1:57 PM on June 11

I Will Fear No Evil is the only book I have ever thrown across a room.

YMMV.
posted by elsietheeel at 3:15 PM on June 11

Not a film, but the TNG episode The Outcast has a similar pretense.
posted by mohrr at 3:37 PM on June 11