Trim Season’s characters are the kind of people who introduce themselves thus: “I’m Dusty, they/them.” Consequently, three other characters are compelled, quite needlessly, to add to their own introductions, “she/her.” To quote David Mamet, fuck you. Oops, I meant, fuck them.
I don’t really care about gender identity. If you’re a ‘he’ who wants to be known as a ‘she,’ or vice versa, then more power to you. If you’re Stan but would like to be called Loretta, be my guest. Piss-poor grammar, on the other hand, that’s what I find offensive.
The other characters keep referring to Dusty (Bex Taylor-Klaus) in the nominative and accusative forms of the third-person pronoun, whether Dusty is present or not: “They don’t like talking about it,” or “I couldn’t find them,” and so on. Even when everything goes to shit, everybody still has the wherewithal to make sure their discourse remains politically correct:
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Not without Dusty.”
“I don’t hear them.”
“They could still be alive.”
“Yeah, but they’re probably not.”
Are there people who talk like that for real? And if so, don’t they realize how fucking stupid they sound? The above-quoted dialogue, for example, is drained of all urgency because of the filmmakers’ insistence on walking on eggshells. From a narrative point of view, it would do more to convey the gravity of the situation if the characters actually reverted to an (allegedly) inappropriate speech.
I’m aware that there is a singular ‘they’ that predates gender-inclusive language, but that’s for when you don’t know who you’re talking about (or for demoniacs whose names are Legion, or for Baron Ashura). In this case, Taylor-Klaus is, or was, biologically speaking, a woman who underwent male chest reconstruction (the result of which is visible in the movie) and is married to a straight-up woman (well, not so much straight, but you get the idea), so what’s wrong with ‘he’?
For what it’s worth, at least I know where the film stands on that issue, which is more than I can say for its stance on drugs. The heroes like to get high, and one of them goes on and on about the extraordinary properties of cannabis — but then so do the villains.
Moreover, everyone here — good guys and bad guys, users, farmers and trimmers, he and she and they alike — pays dearly for their weed-related activities. So, marijuana bad? Mind you, I don’t have a problem with that. Weed is definitely not my drug of choice.
It’s just that you don’t see too many ‘reefer madness’ cautionary tales anymore. Most movies, regardless of genre, tend to defend, if not glorify, the use of cannabis. That’s precisely what you’d expect from a film as otherwise ‘progressive’ as Trim Season, which is why I can’t help suspecting that they may be more than meets the eye.
As it turns out, there is less. The plot, such as it is, is nothing to write home about, and that’s no surprise since the script is more concerned with pandering to the nomenclature police.
All things considered, I’m reminded of Dave Chapelle’s The Closer: “A nigga came up to me on the street the other day. He said, ‘Careful, Dave, they after you.’ I said, ‘What? One they, or many theys?’”
90% of Everything is Crap 