This article has not yet been rated on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Film: American This article is within the scope of WikiProject Film. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see lists of open tasks and regional and topical task forces. To use this banner, please refer to the documentation. To improve this article, please refer to the guidelines.FilmWikipedia:WikiProject FilmTemplate:WikiProject Filmfilm This article is supported by the American cinema task force. Comedy Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Comedy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of comedy on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ComedyWikipedia:WikiProject ComedyTemplate:WikiProject ComedyComedy Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

I think there should be a discussion of this movies transphobia. Lois Einhorn is a trans woman who is brutally sexually assaulted by Ace, and there is no mention of that in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.65.70.36 (talk) 05:29, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually Finkle engages in rape by fraud in the movie, so he is the one who sexually assaulted people not the other way around. And obviously someone getting breast implants does not necessarily indicate any kind of trans status. He still has testicles, was never diagnosed with gender dysphoria, and was never granted a legal sex change by the government. You might be unaware of this but many schizophrenic people attempt to have trans treatments done to them. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10226303

Spoken like a true transmisogynist. Trans women are women regardless of surgery, legal status, professional diagnosis, neurodivergence, and every other nitpick you might come up with - if someone tells you she's a woman, she's a woman. It's in absolutely no way "fraud" for a trans woman not to tell someone she's trans, especially not a violent transmisogynist who goes on to assault her. This film is shockingly reactionary in its transmisogyny and incredibly harmful to transfeminine people, and Wikipedia's article should at least acknowledge the issue. 00dani (talk) 00:34, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that there should be discussion of transphobia in this article. Many commentators have talked about this, so there are plenty of good articles for sourcing/referencing. The film really is horrendously transphobic: it ends with THE GOOD GUY fucking hazing a trans woman in front of a crowd of cops. When I was a child, I walked away from this film in absolute tears.

And yeah, you can try to make the argument, "Oh, Finkle wasn't really trans! He was just crossdressing as part of a wacky convoluted revenge scheme!" But here's the thing: loads of movies try to get away with transphobic violence by having obviously trans characters be "technically not trans". Remember The Silence Of The Lambs? That movie has done more to cement the "trans people as crazy murderers" image in people's heads than any other in history.

Ace Ventura – Pet Detective is widely considered a transphobic movie by commentators, you can find many good sources supporting this analysis, and I think it should be mentioned in the "Reception" section.

Lionboy-Renae (talk) 17:53, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have been returning to this article periodically to check if anyone had touched upon the blatant transphobia exhibited in the film - as of today (11 January 2018), no one had, so I went ahead and added a subsection under reception to touch upon this. I have also noticed that in the plot description the author of that section intermittently switches pronouns when referring to Lt. Einhorn - I intend to resolve this at a later time (among other grammatical inconsistencies), unless someone else can get to it first.

Ghostsax 16:23, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ghostsax, BuzzFeed may be challenged by others. I recommend looking up results in Google Books. You can search for "ace ventura" transphobia|transphobic to find results like this. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 16:39, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Erik, thank you for pointing this out, I had kind of figured that it might be. The article that I cited did seem well researched and written, but I will work on finding another one regardless. Ghostsax 16:51, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is why wikipedia is so shitty. This right here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.138.213.196 (talk) 06:43, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is a space for unbiased encyclopedic information, and this film is objectively transphobic. There's no motive or bias at work here, just plain old historical accuracy. If you don't find that to your liking you might want to reconsider your reasons for being a contributor here (although attempting to remove an entire section out of spite and personal distaste isn't necessarily much of a contribution).

Ghostsax 9:41, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

I've re-removed that section per WP:UNDUE and WP:SYNTH. I suggest you yourself consult WP:CIVIL. Jtrainor (talk) 08:08, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Jtrainor, Meredith Talusan is a BuzzFeed News Reporter, which is different from just any BuzzFeed contributor. The reliability depends on the context of the piece. The Guardian has a description of her: "Meredith Talusan is a transgender writer and photographer based in New York. Her work has appeared in The Nation, The American Prospect, and is upcoming in Vice." Furthermore, the Google Books link I provided above shows that there are additional sources about the topic in this film. Pinging KNHaw as an involved editor. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 16:36, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for pinging me on this. My original concern was the removal of the section that I saw had no comment referencing discussion on the talk page, making me suspect a vandal edit. That issue is resolving itself as we discuss this here, though.

EDIT: As a personal favor, I ask anyone making edits to this section please be sure to flag a reason and indicate any consensus in the edit comments when you make your changes. Otherwise, it looks a lot like a vandal edit and might get reverted by someone else on vandal patrol. --KNHaw ^(talk) 20:13, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Weighing in on the merits of this discussion, I remember watching the film years ago and the word "transphobic" literally was not in my vocabulary. Reflecting on it now, though... yeah, the Einhorn character is basically mocked/humiliated for laughs because she is trans. The kidnapping plot is pretty much irrelevant to the characters' reaction after that revelation. She's basically (in the logic of the movie) a sexual predator by nature of being trans. Yes, the notion of rape by fraud/deception in this context and the possibility that she is schizophrenic are both valid and would make a great idea for a movie - but that movie is definitely not Ace Ventura. Einhorn is not arrested for the supposed rapes - instead she's publicly punished in full view of the entire police department. If that isn't singling out her behavior for special punishment, I don't know what is.

I like that the section has multiple sources now. It also clearly labels the opinions of those who feel it is transphobic as opinions. If someone wants to weigh in in the section and make a well sourced counter point (the rape/schizophrenic discussion above might be the foundation of such a counterpoint - taking care not to get into "she deserves humiliation" territory), I think that'd be a great thing to see. But I think the section as it stands should stay. I haven't seen a call for a formal vote on this, but if there is one I vote it should stay.

--KNHaw ^(talk) 19:17, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of points about the section as it currently stands (a) I think the section title should be Transgender representation downplaying the transphobia, because as the sources point out, the film was a product of its time and Transgender representation is a more neutral term. (b) the first sentence of the section doesn't mention the film making the whole section seem to come from left field, this needs to be tweaked / rearranged. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:21, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

To update on this discussion, I've updated the section heading to be more to the point per Stuartyeates's suggestion, not because I find it necessary to "downplay" anything, but to make the heading more succinct. The discussed transphobia is a reaction to the transgender character. Also, while Kleuske condensed the section, I thought it a bit too much since I found the academic sources to qualify as due weight. Not that I had an issue with BuzzFeed News or Slant Magazine, but I was fine with focusing on the academic ones to avoid a "coatrack" concern (meaning much more focus on this sub-topic than any other sub-topic). In this vein, I've also expanded the box office and critical reception sections to move away from this appearance. Not sure if there is any retrospective coverage about this film beyond the transgender representation sub-topic, but if there is any, we can include it to continue making the article well-rounded. Lastly, due to IP vandalism, I've requested semi-protection of this page. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 13:37, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Just for the record. I agree with Eriks decondensation of my condensed version. Good job. Kleuske (talk) 15:15, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]