Revisiting Queer and Trans Representation in Junior

Abstract

The 1994 film Junior (dir. Ivan Reitman), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the world's first pregnant man, has been the subject of much scholarly debate since its initial release. Specifically, feminist critiques have both called attention to the film's androcentric usurpation of reproduction and lauded its break from more traditional and gendered forms of this labor. The following analysis of Junior and its reception builds on this critical feminist foundation while reconsidering the film's potential as an early blockbuster work that explores alternative modes of queer family-making. This reading draws on the work of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, applying her analytic framework of binaristic formations to the film. In so doing, a series of dyads emerge—feminist/misogynist, feminist/queer, trans/cis, queer/heteronormative, masculine/feminine, passive/active, hard/soft. Navigating these divisions not only offers a more reparative reading of the film, it also produces a fruitful study for addressing the ways in which queerness on-screen so frequently operates through such binary formations. Lastly, new insights regarding the way male pregnancy, as a theme, has historically been depicted in Western film and television are born out of this queer re-reading. By revisiting Junior through this approach, zaniness—as conceptualized by Sianne Ngai—illustrates yet another division where queer modes of family-making reside—the binaristic formation of horror/humor.