Mary Helena Clark

The Dragon is the Frame

The Dragon is the Frame by Mary Helena Clark is an elegy that is somewhat paradoxically organized as a film noir or murder mystery, one that pays direct homage to Hitchcock’s Vertigo. But the parts don’t fit, and it is only in the eventual recognition of this faux raccord that Clark’s higher purpose becomes apparent. As we hear Bernard Herrmann’s score, we see the Golden Gate Bridge, Mission Dolores, and other Vertigo locations in the present day. But they are only fragments, and Clark pays particular attention to their details, like the rivets and suspension cables on the bridge. We also see close-up details of women’s fashion, such as an entire screen filled with an undulating hounds-tooth pattern, and several scenes superimposed with broad bands of sequins, a dress that recalls those displayed in Kenneth Anger’s masterpiece Puce Moment.

In the midst of these elusive (and allusive) shards of memory, Clark provides images of her actual subject: Mark Aguhar, the late transgender/race activist whose assertions of brown-femme pride in her Tumblr blog and art exhibitions provided inspiration to so many, not just the “gurls” who were her target audience. Clark’s tribute is a reckoning with the fact that, despite Aguhar’s messages of body-positivity and self-worth, she took her own life at age 24. By invoking Vertigo and adopting the outward framing and organization of a detective story, Clark problematizes the “verdict” of suicide, implicitly indicting the white heteronormative psychosis embodied in Hitchcock’s film as Aguhar’s killer. (Aguhar’s own words: “It’s that thing where you grew up learning to hate every aspect of yourself and unlearning all that misery is really hard to do.”) In this regard, The Dragon is the Frame—which takes its title from one of Aguhar’s exhibits—pays homage to an activist and pioneer, celebrating Aguhar’s beauty and power. But it is also a reminder of the difficulty in being a gender outlaw in a society intent on throwing you away.