The Adventures of Sebastian Cole by Trevor Pampalona

1) The Adventures of Sebastian Cole is about a 17 year old boy played by Adrian Grenier (Vince from Hbo’s Entourage) who decides to learn his lessons and have his fun  in life through adventures and not school. A Teenager who’s parents are divorced and his father is a pre-op transsexual. The father announces he is going to have a sex change and the mother takes her and Sebastian to England to live. Sebastian spends most of his time smoking and drinking with his friends and makes a choice to live  with his stepfather who is going to have a sex change over his mother.  He lives with his transsexual parent figure in New York and is striving to be a writer.  His adventures which consist of smoking, drinking, destructive activities and riding his bike through school are supposed to be the backbone for his writing.  Through the movie he slowly develops a very strong relationship with his transsexual father which also adds a nice touch to the movie.

2)It deals with sexuality/gender is that his father announces to his wife and her two kids at dinner about how he is going to have a sex change and how he copes with it himself and while being a father figure for Sebastian.  LGBT people are represented in the father figure who is a transsexual. It gives a positive representation of LGBT people in that Sebastian and the transsexuals father become father close throughout the movie, he becomes a great backbone for Sebastian, gives good advice and is a very positive part of the movie.

3)Not totally sure how this movie challenger my view of transgenderism.  I never really had a negative view about it.  It did however shine a positive light on transgenderism and LGBT in that the father was a very positive character in the movie in helping raise and guide Sebastian with his writing and being a teenager in New York where he finds trouble on a daily basis.

4)Personally This film was average in my opinion. It had some good actors (Adrian grenier) and the father(Clark Gregg) did an incredible job as a transsexual father and in my opinion played that role perfectly.  The story coming together for Sebastian and his father to me was the best part of the movie as opposed to sebastians so called “adventures” to base his desire to become a writer around.  I wouldn’t say it was bad by any means, but it wasn’t something I would say to someone, “you really should rent this.”  Its hard to relate this movie to personal experience because I have had non with transsexual’s, especially in a parental figure and have no experience with Big cities such as New York, growing up in the suburbs of Shelby Township and Rochester, Michigan.

5) Resources for this movie…some great reviews and information on the movie, actors, producers, etc..   It was available for rent at Blockbuster.

http://www.reelingreviews.com/reel213.htm#theadventuresofsebastiancole

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168449/

http://www.reelviews.net/movies/a/adventures_sebastian.html

Trevor Pampalona