A short movie by Loni Paone about a person realizing their identity as a trans woman
music: Tricky (False Idols, 2013)
writer/director/editor: Loni Paone
Loni Paone explains for us the concept and experience of making the video
Nothing’s Changed is a narrative music video about a young person first discovering her identity as a transgender woman. The narrative offers two glimpses into the character’s life– one in childhood, the other in young adulthood. As the character in the music video ages, her feelings about her identity remain constant and she continues to face adversity. Though time has passed, nothing has changed.
In an interview with the musician, Adrian Thaws (“Tricky”), says the song is about his disillusionment with fame and success, however the song also seems to speak directly to a person in a prolonged struggle to feel some change within themselves. The lyric “said if I change my stride, then I’ll fly” is what triggered the idea of depicting an individual’s struggle with gender and finding one’s own sense of self. In the case of our character, she needs to change “strides” from male to female gender.
As a heterosexual cis female I was drawn to this story because I found it incredibly relatable. I think we’ve all been in environments that stopped us from being ourselves, shunned us for being different, or made us feel unwanted.
The more I invested myself into this project the more I realized how little I actually knew about the transgender community, let alone gender itself. My school never talked about it, my parents never talked about it, my community never talked about it. After I had the overdue epiphany that the existence of gender education and gender equality in our public consciousness is gravely inadequate, the project became something more than just making art.
