Tomboy is a 2011 French drama film written and directed by Céline Sciamma. The story follows a 10-year-old transgender child (given the name Laure by his parents) who, after moving with his family to a new neighborhood introduces himself to his new friends as Mikäel. The film opened to positive reviews, with critics praising the directing and the performers, particularly Zoé Héran as the lead.
Laure is a 10-year-old child whose family moves to a new address in Paris. One day Laure sees a group of boys playing outside the window and goes to play with them, but they disappear quickly. Instead, Laure meets Lisa, a neighborhood girl, and Laure introduces himself as Mikäel. Lisa then introduces Mikäel to the rest of the neighborhood children stating that "he" is the new kid in the apartment complex. A bath scene in the film reveals that Mikäel has a vagina, and a following scene confirms that Mikäel was assigned female at birth as his mother addresses him and his sister as "girls." Mikäel becomes friends with Lisa and the boys and tries to hide his genitalia to appear like a boy (make it seem that he has a penis). At one point this leads Mikäel to pee his pants, which originally makes him embarrassed, but is soon forgotten. As they all play, Lisa and Mikäel develop crushes on each other and after swimming one day, Lisa kisses him. At this point, Mikäel also seems to be accepted into the group of boys.
A tomboy is a girl who exhibits characteristics or behaviors considered typical of a boy, including wearing masculine clothing and engaging in games and activities that are physical in nature and are considered in many cultures to be unfeminine or the domain of boys.Tomboy, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), "has been connected with connotations of rudeness and impropriety" throughout its use.
The OED dates the first use of the term tomboy to 1592, but an earlier use is recorded in Ralph Roister Doister, which is believed to date from 1553, and was published in 1567. In nineteenth-century American culture, the usage of the word "tomboy" came to refer to a specific code of conduct that permitted young girls to exercise, wear "sensible clothing", and to eat a "wholesome diet". Because of the emphasis on a healthier lifestyle, tomboyism quickly grew in popularity during this time period as an alternative to the dominant feminine code of conduct that had limited women's physical movement. In her 1898 book Women and Economics, feminist writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman lauds the health benefits of being a tomboy as well as the freedom for gender exploration: "not feminine till it is time to be". Joseph Lee, a playground advocate, believed the tomboy phase crucial to physical development between the ages of eight and thirteen in 1915. Tomboyism remained popular through the First and Second World Wars in society, literature, and then film.
Tomboy is a free and open-source desktop notetaking application written for Unix-like (including Mac OS X and Linux) and Microsoft Windows operating systems, written in C# using Gtk#. Tomboy is part of the GNOME desktop environment personal information management software and achieved widespread popularity as the default note taking app in early Ubuntu releases. As Ubuntu changed over time and its cloud sync software Ubuntu One came and went, Tomboy inspired various forks and clones. Its interface is a notepad with a wiki-like linking system to connect notes together. Words in the note body that match extant note titles become hyperlinks automatically, making it simple to construct a personal wiki. For example, repeated references to favorite artists would automatically be highlighted in notes containing their names. As of release 1.6 it supports text entries and hyperlinks to the World Wide Web, but not graphic image linking or embedding.
Some of the editing features supported:
Tomboy is an educational Canadian short animation film that debuted in 2009 on CBC. It is a 14 minute 2D animated video/movie that follows a day in the life of an elementary school Latina Canadian girl named Alex, as she maneuvers her way through the obstacles of being a gender neutral tomboy who wears unisex clothes and has short hair. This film explores issues of gender expression, bullying and diversity, bringing light to the issues that surround children, through the choices they make, and the emotional repercussions that follow.Tomboy is based on the book Are You a Boy or a Girl?, by author Karleen Pendleton Jiménez, which was a finalist for the 2001 Lambda Literary Awards.
Tomboy was developed by filmmaker Barb Taylor and Karleen Pendleton Jiménez in association with Coyle Productions. On its initial debut after being completed Tomboy was the recipient of the CBC Canadian Reflections Award (2006), Jury Award & Audience Award, Short Animation, Reeling Festival (2008), Best of Festival, Austin Women’s Film and Literary Festival (2008), Jury Award Up and Coming Toronto Film Maker, Inside Out Festival (2008), KIDS FIRST! Best Award! (2009), Best Animation, Urban Mediamakers Film Festival (2009), Jury Award Animation, Orlando Hispanic Film Festival (2009), Best Web Animation, Savannah Animation Festival (2010).