[I’m so pleased to announce the debut of our next contributor, long-time commenter Dr. Morbius! Do yourself a favor and check out the movie reviews on her blog, because they’re amazing! And now she’ll be doing the same for us at The Second Awakening, plus tossing in our usual mix of feminism, trans-activism, and merciless burns of the New York Times. So without further ado, take it away, Doc…]
My initial reaction to C. L.’s invitation to contribute to The Second Awakening was along the lines of Jeff Smith in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: “I can’t help but feel like there’s been a mistake.” I’m an amateur and untrained feminist, and I said so to C. L., to which she replied: “Amateur and untrained is how we do things at TSA!” So I guess I’m qualified to be here.
I’m guessing that most of the people who read TSA have no idea who I am, and that’s understandable. I mostly write about movies on my own blog(s) to a small audience that’s probably not much larger than my own circle of friends. Therefore, introductions are probably in order. My name is Christianne. I’m a movie addict. I’ve been writing about movies for my own edification since I was a teenager. I used to fill thick spiral-bound notebooks with movie reviews. I’ve been publishing my movie writing on the internet since 1997 on a vanity web site called “Monsters from the Id,” and later on my blog, “Krell Laboratories” (I have a thing for Forbidden Planet, as might also be evident in my nom du guerre, “Doctor Morbius”). I was published in a book on horror movies called “Horror 101” in 2007. I presented a seminar on transgender imagery in mass media at the Southern Comfort Conference in 2005. I’m currently a screener for a film festival, though I’m prohibited from saying which one. I also used to run a video store. Those are my bona fides.
I’m also trans.
Movies and being trans are probably what I’ll write about here in varying combinations. I might even write about trans movies, but, frankly, trans portrayals in movies are usually such a festering cesspit that I may not have the intestinal fortitude to do that very often. When the most empowering cinematic depiction of being trans that I can think of is Bugs Bunny, I know that thinking about it will drive me to pistol and ball eventually if I’m not careful. Still, I might have something to say about the curious subgenre of transgender kung-fu movies or the persistent transgender themes that crop up in the films of David Cronenberg. Or something like that.
That’s all for the future. Right now, I’d like to talk about a little bit of political synchronicity that happened to me yesterday. Early in the day, I read this piece by Dr. Jillian Weiss over on Bilerico, in which she basically gives up on politics in favor of hands-on activism. The whole piece is dispiriting and disillusioned and all I could think of while I read it was my own collisions with politics over the last year or so. In December, I attended a meeting of my town’s board of aldermen to speak in favor of a non-discrimination ordinance. I live in deep red-state bumfuck, so the very fact that this ordinance was even being considered had me a little bit gobsmacked. I almost wish that it wasn’t being considered at all, because it would have spared me the spectacle of a parade of fundie Christian pastors, each with a story of how terrible GLBT people are, replete with the usual comparisons to child molesters, polygamists, and drug addicts, and of how an anti-discrimination ordinance would infringe on their freedom of religion and freedom of speech (“Thou shalt not bear false witness” being one of the more fungible beliefs, I guess, because this ordinance, like all others like it, would have done no such thing). One particular speaker for the opposition wanted to know how people were supposed to identify “real” transsexuals and was in favor of some kind of identifying badge–I’m not kidding about this; he really suggested this. Fortunately, this guy was shouted down and not by someone from the GLBT continuum, but by an audience member who was Jewish. All told, there were about twenty speakers against the measure and only three in favor. It failed on a 2 to 4 vote, and I went home feeling EXACTLY like Dr. Weiss doubtless feels right now (or how I surmise that she feels based on her Bilerico post). I didn’t have quite the same kind of let-down after lobbying my state legislature as part of a GLBT lobby day a few months later, but when I got the email from the organizers after the end of the legislative session informing us all that they hadn’t moved any of the initiatives on our agenda, it was still demoralizing. Anyway, as I say: I think I know how Dr. Weiss feels.
The second thing that happened was a phone call from the local Democratic Party inviting me to an organizing meeting for the upcoming campaign season. Two years ago, I might have jumped on it. This year, on this particular day, after reading Dr. Weiss’s post-mortem on the ENDA debacle, I’m hesitating. On the one hand, I really want to work against guys like Mister “Bring Back the Pink Triangle” and his clerical enablers, because keeping people like that out of politics is a matter of life and death. Further, GLBT issues do better locally than they do nationally (I mean, there are places in friggin’ Utah where it’s illegal to discriminate against GLB and T people; Utah!). Tip O’Neill was right when he said that all politics is local. On the other hand, I don’t believe in the Democrats right now. I have a problem with the idea that a choice between a far right and a center right party is any kind of viable political choice at all. It took me a long time to come around to the idea that conservatism is a march to the tar pits, but I firmly believe that these days and when I see Democrats tacking to the right, it makes me weep for the future. Lately, and not for the first time, I’ve been thinking that Sweden or Denmark might be lovely places to live. And then I think of the portrait of Sweden provided by The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and I realize that life is a shit sandwich for women everywhere, no matter how progressive the government might be. That’s doubly so for trans women.
All of which makes my little obsession with movies seem frivolous in the end, but it’s what I know most intimately. I go to movies like other people go to church. In the absence of any kind of religious belief, art is where I find transcendence (only very occasionally, unfortunately). Even in the face of late-capitalist civilization, I think there’s still great meaning in human expression. Hell, in the face of late-capitalist civilization, I think art is even MORE important than it’s ever been.
So this is what I have to contribute.