Literature, Art and the Democracy to Come: A Legal Approach to The Danish Girl

Abstract

Abstract This paper intends to be a legal-philosophical approach to the film The Danish Girl, which tells the story of the first person to undergo a sex change surgery. However, the paper does not attempt to address the preeminent question in the movie, concerning gender issues. Our proposal comes from the hypothesis of art as the best conceivable place for the invention of an “other” that comes. The reflections brought about by the film point to the very heart of the Law and Humanities movement, since it shows how otherness may precede any conceptual dimension, as well as the important question concerning the possibility (or necessity?) of transformation of Law through art. Therefore, we will try to show how the idea of literature, based on Derrida’s concept, Jacques Derrida, Positions (Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2001). could indicate a possible ethical path to implement the confluence between legal and artistic narratives, presenting itself as a fertile soil for the opening to the otherness that comes, towards the transformation of the very idea of justice.