History Film / GlenOrGlenda

* [[UnderstandingBoyfriend Understanding Girlfriend]]: Barbara becomes this by the end, where she says that she will always love Glen, no matter what.

* SweaterGirl: Including loaning the sweater.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* BreatherEpisode: This may have been the purpose of the shot in Glen's dream of a woman combing her hair, which comes inbetween a LesYay-filled kidnapping and a [[HornyDevils demonic rape scene.]] Even the Scientist seems to calm down when it appears.
* [[ButNotTooGay But Not Too Transgender]]: This might be why it was decided to make Anne a "pseudohermaphrodite" (intersex person), as this makes her transition seem less like her changing her sex and more like her choosing one.

** The movie teaches crossdressers are often perfectly nice people who deserve to be treated with respect, not looked down upon or laughed at.
** The movie teaches ot is better to stay true to who you truly are inside, than to live a lie.

Creator/DavidLynch has cited this film as one of his personal favourites, and a huge source of inspiration, and many modern audiences find that, while it's undeniably pretty weird, it's not as glaringly incompetent as a lot of Wood's other work.

** The Scientist is also one, as he is telling the story to the viewers, but also meets both Glen and Anne, reacts to the girls in Glen's dream, ([[DivineDate One of them even seems to hit on him.]]) and even adresses the Big Green Dragon, [[UpToEleven a character who only seems to exist as a methaphor in the Scientist's own ramblings.]]

-->'''The Scientist:''' "Man's constant probing of things unknown, drawing from the endless reaches of time, brings to light many startling things. Startling? Because they seem new? Sudden! But most are not new. The signs of the ages!"

* {{Bookends}}: The movie begins and ends with a scene of Bela Lugosi sitting in a chair, [[{{Main/BreakingTheFourthWall}} talking directly to the audience.]] The first scene begins with the camera moving away from Lugosi, and the last scene begins with it moving towards him again. A litteral example, since he is actually reading a book in both scenes.

* HollywoodNatives: Played straight. A tribe of these {{Noble Savage}}s in masks and grass skirts is presented as an example of the "state of nature" in which the male is expected to adorn himself, in opposition to present-day Western society where male clothing is rough in texture, and drab.

** Right from the beginning of the film, this trope is in full force. The opening caption promises among other things that ''"this is a picture of stark realism"''... and then cuts to Lugosi sat in a haunted house going on the first of many nonsensical monologues.

** ValuesDissonance: This ''was'' the [[TheFifties early fifties]]. Although compared to something like ''Film/BoysBeware'', this movie actually doesn't age too badly.

-> ''"Pull the string! PULL THE STRING!"''
-->-- '''The Scientist''' (Creator/BelaLugosi)

-> ''"It’s about this guy, he’s crazy about this girl, but he likes to wear dresses. Should he tell her? Should he not tell her? He’s torn, Georgie. This is drama!"''
-->-- '''Creator/EdWood''' explaining his overhaul of producer George Weiss’ sex change exploitation script., ‘’Film/EdWood’’

* ContemptibleCover / NeverTrustATrailer: Both the poster (pictured above) [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24OT5OTDE90 and the original trailer]] basically claims that Glen gets gender confirmation surgery at some point. He doesn't. There is a transgender character in the film, but she is a completely different person named Alan/Anne [[SirNotAppearingInThisTrailer (who isn't mentioned at all in either.)]]
** The TwoFaced, half-man half-woman on the poster seems more like a portrayal of gender dysphoria in general than a portrait of any actual character from the film. Their female half mostly resembles Barbara, who isn't transgender, they are more well-built than either Glen/Glenda or Alan/Anne were, and they are blonde, whereas both of the protagonists have dark hair (though Glen wears a blonde wig when dressed as Glenda.)
** The tagline ''"STRANGE LOVES... of those who live and love but can never marry!"'' is an outright lie. Anne is never given any kind of love interest, and nothing is stopping Glen and Barbara from getting married. He is just worried that she will leave him when she finds out about his crossdressing, as this had happened to a friend of his (who had already gotten married to his girlfriend at that point.) Barbara doesn't leave him. The movie actually ends with their wedding.

* {{Transgender}}: Anne is an intersex trans woman.

* [[ButNotTooGay But Not Too Transgender:]] This might be why it was decided to make Anne a "pseudohermaphrodite" (intersex person), as this makes her transition seem less like her changing her sex and more like her choosing one.
* CastingGag[=/=]AsHimself: The [[{{Main/OpeningScroll}} opening text]] claims that this is the case.

** The TwoFaced, half-man half-woman on the poster seems more like a portrayal of gender dysphoria in general than a portait of any actual character from the film. Their female half mostly resembles Barbara, who isn't transgender, they are more well-built than either Glen/Glenda or Alan/Anne were, and they are blonde, whereas both of the protagonists have dark hair (though Glen wears a blonde wig when dressed as Glenda.)

* {{Transgender}}: Anne.
* [[UnderstandingBoyfriend Understanding Girlfriend:]] Barbara becomes this by the end, where she says that she will always love Glen, no matter what.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Barbara's ''"I'd like to tie you in knots."'' line would probably have qualified if two actual bondage scenes hadn't been added later, albeit featuring other characters.

* StockFootage: Used alot, with varying degrees of success.

** The question is avoided entirely with Anne, who never shows a romantic interest in anyone. The alternative would have been to have her be gay either before or after her transition [[TakeAThirdOption (or making her bisexualm asexual, etc.)]]
** They may have gone a bit too far in averting this trope, [[NoTrueScotsman as Dr. Alton apparentely doesn't think that gay crossdressers are "real" transvestites.]]

Creator/DavidLynch has cited this film as one of his personal favourites, and a huge source of inspiration.

** ValuesDissonance: This ''was'' the [[TheFifties early fifties]].

* BMovie

* AllHallowsEve: A flashback scene reveals that a younger Glen wore his sister's dress for a Halloween party. He won first prize.
** ''[[{{Narm}} "Then one day it wasn't Halloween any longer"]]''

''Glen or Glenda?'' (title changed from ''I Changed My Sex!'') is a 1953 exploitation film written by, directed by and starring Creator/EdWood. It features [[{{Creator/BelaLugosi}} Bela Lugosi]] and Wood's then-girlfriend, Dolores Fuller.

The movie consists of two parts, the first following a narrator called The Scientist, played by Bela Lugosi, making cryptic comments about humanity. At the beginning of the film proper, Inspector Warren finds the corpse of a male transvestite named Patrick/Patricia, who has committed suicide. Wanting to know more about cross-dressing, Warren seeks out Dr. Alton, who narrates for him the story of Glen/Glenda.

The second part is shorter, following Alan, a pseudohermaphrodite who fights in the Second World War wearing women's underwear. After "his" return, Alan becomes the woman she always was, through surgery. The third part bridges the two stories by returning to Glen/Glenda as he learns the story of Alan/Anne from Dr. Alton (whom Alan/Anne also visited) before managing to cure his transvestism.

* AllHallowsEve: A flashback scene reveals that a younger Glenn wore his sister's dress for a Halloween party. He won first prize.

* AuthorAppeal: Ed Wood was famous for being a transvestite and he plays one in his film--which is very up on women's clothing. In fact, the film was going to be entirely about the sex change story, but Wood insisted on giving the lion's share of screen time to his own personal habit.

* [[ButNotTooGay But Not Too Transgender:]] This might be why it was decided to make Anne a pseudohermaphrodite, as this makes her transition seem less like her changing her sex and more like her choosing one.

* ContemptibleCover / NeverTrustATrailer: Both the poster (pictured above) [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24OT5OTDE90 and the original trailer]] basically claims that Glen gets a sex change at some point. He doesn't. There is a transgender character in the film, but she is a completely different person named Alan/Anne [[SirNotAppearingInThisTrailer (who isn't mentioned at all in either.)]]

** Dr. Alton also implies that Anne has more of a right to transition than Glen has, [[{{Hermaphrodite}} as she is already part woman.]]

* EarlyBirdCameo: Early on in the film, we are shown a newspaper with a headline about somebody's sex change. Later in the movie, we learn that this person is Anne, the protagonist of Dr. Alton's second story.

* GayngstInducedSuicide: The film opens with a {{transvestite}} called Patrick/Patricia having killed herself with the suicide note explaining that she had been arrested for public crossdressing four times and being constantly persecuted was too exhausting, believing that she would be happier and freer in death.
* GenreBusting: The movie keeps changing between an education film about gender dysphoria, a relationship drama based around a ComingOutStory, a SurrealHorror film, and an erotic movie with a RandomEventsPlot. The change between these genres can be rather sudden, leading to massive cases of MoodWhiplash.

** A scene where some characters claim that transgenderism is unnatural is also quite strange, as it consists entirely of closeups of their eyes and ears.

* MrExposition: Dr. Alton, the resident sex change expert, and the movie's main narrator.
* NestedStory: Dr. Alton is telling the story of Glen - which Glen presumably told him personally - to Inspector Warren, but Dr. Alton is himself a character in a story told to the audience by the Scientist. Glen is at one point also told a story by a friend of his who was divorced by his wife when she found out that he was crossdressing, giving us four layers of narration in total.

* OnceMoreWithClarity: In the beginning of Alan/Anne's story, we are shown footage of a woman. The context doesn't make it entirely clear who this is, and it seems like it might be Alan's mother. It's only at the end that it is clarified that this is in fact Anne after her sex change.

* RippedFromTheHeadlines: The movie [[AccidentalPun came out]] only one year after Christine Jorgensen's sex change, which had given her a front page news story in the New York Daily News.

* TransEqualsGay: Averted. Glen is a transvestite, but he is not a homosexual.
** The question is avoided entirely with Anne, who never shows a romantic interest in anyone. The alternative would have been to have her be gay either before or after her transition [[TakeAThirdOption (or making her bisexual.)]]