Genderfluid Person of the Month

Nimona from Nimona

I have to admit, I was not thrilled at the first glimpse of Nimona in the teaser for the film named after her. Between the Dreamworks Smirk (so punchable) and Chloë Moretz’s singsong delivery of lines like “this is the part where you run” and “that would be me,” my first impression was that she was going to be agonizingly obnoxious.

But almost as soon as she appears in the film itself, it becomes clear that her attitude is a protective front against a world hellbent on destroying her. The most surprising thing about Nimona is that she’s technically not a child – she’s over a thousand years old, and the monster of legend that Gloreth defeated in order to found the kingdom.

That’s given her a lot of time to build up her defences, and when we first see her she’s very much embraced her role as an anarchic villain in a Then Let Me Be Evil sort of way, with a gleeful excitement about the thought of causing fear, mayhem, public damage, and even death (though I don’t think she ever goes that far).

I love her design: she’s simultaneously round and soft and circular, denoting youth and innocence, but also clad in spiky armour with pierced ears and little fangs, illustrating the protective layers she’s put up between herself and the world. And yet she’s also pink, the colour of warmth and love and vulnerability. Her entire personality is all there in her default appearance, which is ironic considering she’s a shapeshifter.

A flashback sequence about three-quarters of the way explains her history, and it’s a heartbreaker. A shapeshifter with no family of her own, she attempts to integrate herself among various groups of animals before finding a human friend. The two get along well, and Nimona even finds the courage to divulge her shapeshifting abilities – which her friend accepts.

But it all goes wrong when others discover what Nimona is capable of, and soon the inevitable torches and pitchforks emerge. Most tragically, her friend (revealed to be Gloreth) turns on her, not out of genuine malevolence, but peer pressure and the contagious nature of fear. Sometimes that’s worse than an out-and-out betrayal, and it neatly explains Nimona’s profound distrust and dislike of other people.

Because even though it's subtle, you can’t talk about Nimona without discussing the transgender allegory. For the record, Nimona presents as female throughout most of the film and (if memory recalls) is referred to with she/her pronouns. But she shapeshifts into a little boy a couple of times, not to mention all those animals, and there are plenty of conversations that take place which have her explicitly reject any labels put upon her: “I’m not a people” and “Easier to be a girl? Easier for who?”

Eventually a poignant conversation between Ballister and Nimona takes place in which she divulges how she can change and what that means to her. She’s given the opportunity to describe how the process feels: “I feel worse when I don’t [change], like my insides are itchy. You know that second right before you sneeze. That’s close to it. Then I shapeshift and I’m free.” Her shapeshifting isn’t just a device to set her apart from others, it reflects her own rejection of a fixed identity.

It might be lost on very young viewers, but the subtext is woven deeply into the narrative, from the Director preying on the fear that Nimona is a shapeshifter and therefore cannot be trusted, to Nimona going to such a dark mental place that she considers ending her own life. It’s so easy to manipulate people’s fear, to gain power through their dread of the unknown, and to scapegoat anyone who is the least bit different. The machinations of the film’s true villain are frightening because her tactics are so familiar.

And in the end, all it takes is someone to simply see Nimona for who she is, and let her know that she's not alone. The story is filled with these sorts of reflections and analogies, right down to the final tearing down of the fortified wall, originally built for the safety of the citizens within, but eventually revealed to be hiding a beautiful vista of mountains, valleys and streams. The unknown isn’t always terrifying.