“My Girlfriend Enid” – Behind the Viral Trans Indie Animation

By Ashley Epner

My Girlfriend Enid is an independent animated short film centered around the trans experience through a sci-fi musical lens. The story is about a closeted transfem scientist named Enid who is trying to build the perfect clone of herself in an attempt to avoid transitioning because of how deeply the prospect terrifies her. The clone Enid creates, (dubbed, ‘The Project’) resembles a supermodel femme fatale version of Frankenstein’s Monster. The Project is everything Enid has wanted to be, except, it’s nothing like her. Enid falls for a transmasc drag queen named Jamie, and realises that there’s more than one way to be trans, showing her the beauty in the parts of herself she finds repulsive. Ultimately, this leaves Enid with a difficult decision; choosing between her happiness and her safety. Overall, the film centers on the themes of gender dysphoria and perfectionism, and how these topics tend to intertwine.

Created by Flynn Arvythis (@towflyn on Instagram), the film is currently in development with its Kickstarter launching in June. You can learn more and find updates on the film’s Instagram, @girlfriend.enid.film or on the film’s Kickstarter page linked in the bio.

To learn more about the inspirations behind this film, I sat down with Flynn Arvythis for an interview, which can be read below:

Q: How did the idea for this project come about?

A: “I never actually planned on talking about being trans in any of my artwork because it’s really scary being trans. I was scared of doing anything that would mark me as someone that is genderqueer, but I think that fear is why I was pushed to do the project. And in terms of the aesthetics and how the weird, new-wave sci-fi element of the story came into fruition, I had generally become kind of tired of the narrative that is being presented specifically with trans people in animation. I feel like there’s a lot of  emphasis on coming out and dysphoria like it’s some weird abstract monster. There’s not enough fun stuff about being trans.”

Q: In what ways do you want to break the mold with this film?

A: “A lot of it comes down to me trying not to be tropey about the way that I portray dysphoria. I’ve seen quite a lot of films where the trans narrative is focusing on the first time you discover you’re trans and come out to family. A lot of them are very grounded in reality, and I feel like we’ve got to the point where we can be more experimental and celebratory about being trans.”

Q: What were some of the main influences behind the project?

A: “In terms of films, one of my favorite films is Frankenhooker. I often say that the film is not so much a Frankenstein adaptation as it is a Frankenhooker adaptation. A cult classic, it’s raunchy, it’s out there, and it’s weirdly feminist at the same time? And of course, a lot of aesthetic influence came from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Aside from B-Movie Horror Flicks, a lot of the influences came from real life. With the aesthetics, I tried really hard to stay within the Australian Drag Scene. Because, I think it’s really important if you’re honoring a community, you need to stay true to how that community represents itself.”

Q: Were there any unique ways that the Australian Drag Scene influenced the film?

A: “Yeah! Australia has a really vibrant drag community, there are certain pockets of different suburbs that are considered ‘gay areas’. Usually within cities, especially Sydney, that are considered historically queer. Which I think is really cool and interesting.”

Q: One of the main characters of the film, Jamie, is a drag queen. 

Could you talk more about his place in the story?

A: “It’s pretty funny, the story for My Girlfriend Enid is kind of my way of talking about how I’ve navigated being trans in different relationships. I’ve been in a lot of T4T relationships where I’ve served the role of both Enid and Jamie if that makes sense. Enid is mostly based off of my girlfriend and Jamie is based off of myself. Jamie’s role in the film is as a love interest for Enid but more importantly, to express that there are a lot of different ways you can be trans. And Enid realizes that she can love someone for reasons that she hates herself.”

Q: What were some of the musical influences for this film?

A: “A lot of the really heavy influences are in British New Wave around the 80’s and 90’s. And, with New Wave, there’s this really strange subset of artists that do a lot of Mad Scientist themed songs. Specifically, Thomas Dolby, and Oingo Boingo. The musical number currently written up for Jamie is much more Riot Grrrl influenced.”

Q: Do you plan to have more musical numbers in the film?

A: “One song is our minimum. Once we launch the Kickstarter, we’ve got a couple of stretch goals which will allow us to have a couple more musical numbers.”

Q: Why did you decide to make it a musical?

A: “I’d started out with a musical number for Jamie because I didn’t really consider it a musical number so much as it was a demo that I thought Jamie would sing for about a minute within the film. But at one point, I was like, I really like musicals and I think that this film would be really elevated if it was just a mini musical as well. And I have a friend Charlie, who produced Blinkomania, which is also a musical. He’s one of my closest friends when it comes to animation and his work pushes me to get more ambitious with my projects.”

Q: You’ve said that you learned how to make music for this film. 

What has that experience been like?

A: “Wow, you’ve really done your research. I used to do music pretty frequently, I’m 20 years old and I was mostly focusing on music like literally a decade ago. So most of my musical skills come down to critique and general understanding of music but I haven’t written any songs for a number of years. But I was like, I need a demo for this. So I started writing up an instrumental track and I used my girlfriend’s version of Logic Pro to scratch things up. It was pretty simple honestly, I didn’t have any issues so I hope it sounds fine, haha. 

I can’t take all the credit though, we’ve got this amazing composer named ANJi (@anjicomposer on Instagram) who helps us out with the arrangement and mixing.”

Q: This film has both 2D and 3D elements, 

can you go into the thematic reasoning behind that?

A: “Yeah, it’s a hybrid film! The only element that is in 3D is The Project; Enid’s Clone. My reasoning for that is that I kinda want to represent that what Enid is feeling in her dysphoria is not about how feminine or perfect she could theoretically look, it’s about the fact that her expectations are so abstract and unachievable that they’re nothing like what is natural to the world. Because I feel like if I made The Project in the same medium as Enid, the emphasis would be on comparing their designs and I don’t want the focus to be on how Enid looks as of right now. It doesn’t matter how she looks so much as how she feels.”

Q: Why did you decide to make this film a Kickstarter?

A: “With the Kickstarter, I didn’t initially have a Kickstarter in the books, just as this weird little pipe dream. But a lot of it came down to, I’m making a film with a bunch of students and emerging professionals and I want to be able to platform and allow for people to be paid for their work fairly. With a lot of the Enid team, it’s their first proper animation project of this scale. I also thought that it would be a really fun time since there’s a lot of hype and fantasy about making a Kickstarter and crowdfunding your work. There’s also the idea that I get to pay my friends for working on the film that I’m doing and it gets to be as large as I want it to be when there’s money involved. I don’t think that Enid wouldn’t get made on a $0 budget, but it would be a lot easier and fun for everyone involved if I were able to compensate them as well.”

Q: What do you want to accomplish with this film if the Kickstarter is funded?

A: “I just hope that the film comes out and that it’s as fun as I want it to be, really. After the film is done, I’m doing a film festival run and putting it on youtube.”

Q: Any tips you want to pass on to queer animation students?

A: “My number one tip, with artwork and projects like this or anything on social media involving your peers and getting them interested in your work is: You need to find a way to invite people in to want to look at your work. I see a lot of the time with young artists, they’re not really doing anything that is trying to pitch to their audience as much as it is posting the artwork they’ve worked really hard on out into a void and then just kind of praying. The main strategy I’ve done with Enid is that every single thing I do about it I am consistently re-pitching and allowing new eyes to get a comprehensive look on what the project looks like. And that is something that I think is so important, letting people have a good snippet of your work and giving yourself a good introduction and putting the best foot forward no matter what.

I don’t think that I would have been able to pull off having such an amazing team for Enid if not for the fact that I kind of went around my campus and re-pitched my work to everyone.”

Q: Anything else you want to add before we end the interview?

A: “I think that’s about it. Thank you so much for interviewing me!”

My Girlfriend Enid is a film that dares storytellers to be innovative with how trans narratives are depicted by drawing from the creator’s lived experience. It is a trans-surrealist artwork that breathes life into real inner-conflicts that trans people face, elevated by a flair of genuine inspiration.

It was a pleasure talking with Flynn Arvythis for this interview, and I look forward to seeing the Kickstarter for My Girlfriend Enid go live on June 1st!