Direct-to-trans: Aloma and proto-queer VCR technologies of gender in 1980s Greece

Abstract

This article seeks to reflect how a minority group takes advantage of new media, such as the videocassette recorder (VCR), to self-represent and identify. In particular, it follows the late Aloma (1948–2015), a middle-aged Greek transgender woman who, in the late 1980s, produced and directed three direct-to-video porn films. While foreign trans visibility at that same time was relatively small as well, this was the first time a transgender person and non-professional person in Greek media history was involved in the flowering local video circuit. Accordingly, this article argues that such an initiative broke older preconceptions of gender representation in the vernacular cultural industry of the time and that alternative pornography acted as an emancipative medium, providing positive trans images for various audiences.