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When I was in Paris this past summer–yes, Ducks, again–as I was checking in to my unairconditioned hotel in the Marais, I saw a poster for a Jacques Demy retrospective at the Cinemathèque Française. So I went; it was quite nice, although I remember thinking, he made so many movies, and I’ve only seen one.

Wouldn’t you know it, the Film Forum solved that problem for me with their Jacques Demy film festival, just wrapping up now with a one week showing of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg), Demy’s masterpiece. But I also got to see most of his other movies (of the ones I missed, I really regret only Baie des Anges) and I’m here to report on something that struck me about his films–their subversive, surprising feminism.

Or perhaps not so surprising. Demy trafficked in using tropes in unconventional ways, after all. What makes Cherbourg work so well isn’t the luscious musical score–it’s that underneath all that Michel Legrand sumptuousness, there’s a completely unsentimental love story playing out. Recast it with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina, mix in a few jump cuts, and you’d have something that looks close to a Jean-Paul Godard film.

One thing strikes you immediately if you manage to see so many Demy films in a row–the presence of single mothers. Widows, teens separated by war, or just flings in the past, Demy’s films abound with vibrant mothers who have not let their motherhood stop them from still striving towards the life they want–except, perhaps, Genviève in Cherbourg, his most fully realized tragedy.

Lola, la-la-la-Lola…

At the center of the Demy mythos, the key to almost all his work, is Lola (1961), his first film, in many ways his most honest and complete work. In this film we find so many of his characteristic themes: the single mother; the doubling of characters and circumstances; and most importantly, I think, his technique of approaching his heroine obliquely, through the anomie of a young man.

Because while Demy keeps his focus on Marc Michel’s aimless Roland Cassard, robbed of innocence by the war and purpose by modern-day existence, who is the hero(ine) of Lola if not Lola herself? The movie is the story not only of her fierce resolve to stay independent while still enjoying affection and love (seen both in the American sailor Frankie’s attempts to wring a declaration of love out of her and Cassard’s glowering torch-bearing), but of all the characters she is the only one with a happy ending: reunited with her husband Michel, returned rich from overseas after abandoning her and her son seven years prior.

Lola is truly the map to Demy’s art–the wandering through the closed-in streets of Nantes (especially the shopping gallery, a location he will return to at least twice more), and the widow-daughter, mother-young child doubling that we see again in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Young Girls of Rochefort (although here the widow has a young child herself) and Un Chambre en Ville. All of these women are fierce survivors, willing to fight life on its own terms and make the best way they can despite their setbacks; but none match Lola’s dauntless quest for love (and sex) in a world of men who seek only to possess her.

Backwards to the past

I’m going to do things slightly backwards. I’m going to address the later films first. I think they show off his themes in a simpler way, although still beset with complication. None of them match the heights of Lola or Cherbourg, but all fail in interesting ways.

If you had to build a case for Demy as a New Wave director (I’d say it’s not completely clear where he fits in with that movement), your best case would be made by Lola and his only American movie, Model Shop. In many ways, Model Shop is an American Lola; it even has Lola herself, divorced from Michel, separated from her son in Paris, and working at a “model shop”, a storefront where men can make shoot their own pornographic photos. Gary Lockwood’s George substitutes for Marc Michel’s Roland; like his predecessor, he’s given up his art (architecture) and wanders around, bumming money from his friends, and trying to remain interested in his live-in girlfriend.

Model Shop is a much darker film. Where Lola looked to the romance of overseas travel, flight into the bold American century (the opening scenes feature Lola’s returning husband Michel’s enormous white Mercury driving along the Nantes waterfront), in Model Shop we feel an alien’s aloneness in the vastness of the California cityscape. The best parts of the film are George’s wanderings down Los Angeles’ straight boulevards, with their anonymous storefronts and the general air of mid-60s dilapidation. This tawdriness has descended on Lola herself; she is no longer a performer, someone who has a craft and art to pursue, but simply a mannequin onto which men project their longings and loss. And hovering over George is his discovery that he is to report for the draft and service in Vietnam.

What sabotages Model Shop ultimately is the performances–the studio forced Gary Lockwood on Demy; he had wanted to cast an unknown actor named Harrison Ford, and Alexandra Hay gives a very strained performance as George’s girlfriend Gloria. The film really comes alive only when Anouk Aimée is onscreen. The other weakness is the sudden declaration of true love George makes to Lola. To her (and Demy’s) credit, she disregards it–“you just wanted to say that to someone” she tells him. As in the earlier film, Lola is really the hero of the movie; George’s problems never seem to really connect with him or the audience, and his declaration at the end of the film that “you have to keep trying” comes nowhere near Marc Michel’s angry glower as he stomps down the road, watching Lola and her husband drive away, heading towards the ship that will take him to South Africa and adventure.

Still, Model Shop has an edgy, nervous energy; it feels as used up as Lola herself, but still pushes forward, struggling to find a way out. It’s a fascinating heartbreaker of a movie, almost as much as his last great epic, Un Chambre en Ville.

Next time: fairy tales, and the absolutely stupid last five minutes of Un Chambre en Ville. Allons-y, mes canards!

So, I had hoped to work on my Jaques Demy post tonight, but I’m absolutely burnt out and wrung out today, so it will have to wait. I haven’t forgotten, and I want to get it up, but tonight’s not the night.

So what, you ducks want to breathlessly (well I hope not literally–I post so infrequently you’d be long out of oxy) know, does CL do with herself, since you don’t entertain and infuriate us lately?

I game.

I also work for a living and deal with worrying about getting fired, but I game a lot nowadays. And gaming eats a significant portion of whatever bandwidth I have between work and the things I do to keep me sane from work.

One of which is gaming. Have I mentioned that?

Gaming, ducks, means RPGS. Role playing games, the pen & paper and funny dice kind, not your Zeldas or Final Fantasies or what have you. For the first time since I was an itty-bitty trans gamer, I’ve been consistently getting a lot of gaming in.

One of these days I’m going to write about what it’s like to hit the table as both genders. Of course, three years ago people would actually have read it. Now? Who cares?

C. L. Minou went from being a D-List internet blogger to a has-been that never was. Or something.

Right, no pity party here. So, I play yer traditional Dungeons and Dragons clones, but for the last year or so I’ve been interested in what folks like to call Story games. RPGs, you see, that focus on storytelling and not tactical positioning. It’s interesting, and creative, and possibly a new genre of story telling.

So I hang out here, Story-Games.com, and it’s a nifty place, if a bit obscure for the newbie. And lately they’ve been having a discussion about getting more women involved in gaming communities.

This is a good thing. Women have a lot to contribute to gaming. I endorse it.

And of course the thread isn’t really being about including women.

I don’t know how many of the folks on the thread identify, but there’s sure a lot of butthurt and dismissal and…oh, WEV.

This is why it’s hard for me to blog lately.

‘Cos the fight is so bloody draining, and I have such limited bandwidth. And somewhere a while back I lost my fastball, and I don’t think there’s anything I can say that people care about.

And yet…not writing wears on me. I think about it. A lot. I miss the days of this place being a real going concern. But the inertia is so high.

Plus, I painted myself a bit in a corner here; I feel like I can’t expand the focus of the blog to other things in my life, can I?

Wait.

I guess I could.

I have to think about this…

Anyway, if you care about gaming and women in gaming, take a look at Story Games. And stay there! It’s a very cool place. Including the folks on the thread. Even if we have the irony again of a thread about women being dominated by men’s very special feelings.

Right, yeah. So this happened. Remember Fallon Fox? Remember I was going to write about her? Lucky days, Ducks, I’m actually keeping a promise.

I don’t much go for the ultimate fighting; about the only fighting I do of late is with polyhedral dice, which don’t hurt anybody. (Except the d4; that nasty little tetrahedron is the gaming geek’s caltrop of choice.) The one martial art I studied was the one with no attacks.

But now comes Fallon Fox to the bar. Or octagon. There’s something geometric involved. (Maybe a d4. Ouch!) So it turns out, she is trans! And a fighter in Mixed Martial Arts.

Of course, she didn’t set out to be a trans fighter in Mixed Martial Arts. She’s a female fighter in Mixed Martial Arts.

According to most people.

Maybe not Steve Crowder. (O my ducks, beware, for that link goes to Fox…)

Unless you were born and raised a woman, you don’t go around hitting chicks.

It’s only natural for human beings to get squeamish at the sight of a lifelong male pummeling dames mercilessly, but it’s not an argument. So let’s use a scientific one! Surprisingly, human biology is not the homophobic, intrinsically anti-transgender medium that leftists would have you believe.

So let’s assume for a second that one can completely change their genetics (rather than the likely reality of having merely pushed certain, inconvenient gene expressions at bay) after having Bobbitt’d their wiener. It is still undeniable that for this person’s entire life, that he had the hormonal profile and capabilities of a man. This is of course to say nothing of the ligaments, bone density and overall musculature that has been built over a lifetime of… well, being a man. Let’s just talk hormones for a second.

Well! Biology may not be homophobic, but I know somebody who is.

So let’s assume for a second that one can completely change their genetics (rather than the likely reality of having merely pushed certain, inconvenient gene expressions at bay) after having Bobbitt’d their wiener. It is still undeniable that for this person’s entire life, that he had the hormonal profile and capabilities of a man. This is of course to say nothing of the ligaments, bone density and overall musculature that has been built over a lifetime of… well, being a man. Let’s just talk hormones for a secondWell! I think I just threw up in my mouth, which is still a more pleasant image than the ones Steve fed you.

I won’t keep the Fox regurgita…right, forget I said that. I’m going to stop quoting now. The rest is as bad, talks about musculature, and the amount of hormones in your body. Even if we were to posit any of that to be true (and it’s a bit dubious), let’s check two things:

• Ms. Fox has a body that is currently no more capable of producing testosterone than any other woman’s.
• Ms. Fox has been that way for more than two years.

 

Which is, you know, good enough for the International Olympic Committee!

Look, folks, I get it: this is controversial, even among us, the trans. There are many reasons why you might not want to compete in women’s sports, provided the you in this sentence is a woman of trans experience. Were the world as we wish it to be, and there was equality between all, well, then, no worries. But it ain’t. There are very good reasons for women to still have segregated sports, and segregated spaces. Though it needn’t have to be this way; I remain unconvinced that there isn’t a woman anywhere in the world, no matter what her path to womanhood was, who couldn’t learn to throw a knuckler well enough to pitch at least long relief, or pass well enough to play point guard for five minutes, or goalie for sixty. I myself would do away with segregation by gender and just go with rational divisions like weight class or fastball speed, or acting ability if you like soccer. (Meryl Streep could make any side in Europe a contender! I kid, folks, I love the beautiful game.)

What isn’t a good reason is the crass, knee-jerk, gender essentialism of folks like Steverino up there (sadly mirrored, sometimes, by folks on what should be the side of the angels. Or cupcakes, if like me you don’t believe in angels.) Nobody should beat up on anybody, male or female, is what I says; unless, of course, everyone’s signed up for it in some polygon of some kind.

And for the record, taken with a large amount of salt, and the realization that I eat like crap and have had a milestone birthday in between: I am a shade of what I used to be able to do, prehormones. It’s damn near impossible for me to keep my weight down, let alone lower it. Things that I used to lift without even thinking about it are now major problems sure to cause me pain down the road. I walk slower, breathe heavier, and if anything my larger frame is a hindrance, because I lack the muscles to push it around.

It’s been four years now since my own surgery. Food for thought.

Greetings, Ducks! I do have a few ideas for new posts floating around. It’s a thing! A thing I do in fact plan to do. But my writing time is currently being sucked up with making a prop for my Cthulhu game. Yes, yes, I know. Sheesh.

In the meantime, check this out. Yours mostly truly got her creaky Gen-X self interviewed by the very bright, very awesome folks at The Student Journal, in the UK. Apparently we are big, not so much in France (hélas!) but in l’Angleterre. Seriously, it was a fantastic experience and helps reaffirm my belief that you Millennials are the last best hope of Earth.

Jesus, I mean to write about this soon: the always awesome Fannie on the Ultimate Fighter who has had to out herself as trans.

Hey, we have  new pope! I guess the blessing I got (me and 10,000 folks in St. Peter’s Square) from Pope Emeritus has expired!

Enjoy the links. I’ll see you all again soon.

creeak

Boy, things sure haven’t changed since I was last here…

*bump*

Didn’t remember leaving that there…

*cough*

Sure is a lot of dust here…

*CRASH*

Ouch! That’s where I left the desk…

Greetings ducks, and Happy New Year, which is what the title of the post says. I think. I’m listening to Jacques Brel as I type this, but that doesn’t make my French any better.

So! I thought I’d drop by the old haunt and see how things are going. It seems everything is functional, so I gave the old girl a new look. Bit less cluttered, bit more modern. Hope you enjoy it.

At this point, every time I’ve threatened to come back and start writing, I’ve lied. So this time, I’m announcing…my retirement! That’s it! I absolutely won’t have anything to say ever again.

Well, except for this, which the Guardian was gracious enough to ask me to do.

Which means I’ve already lied! That could actually work out…

 

Hey! I actually wrote something! Not here, but over on the Guardian’s Comment Is Free. It’s about Tom Gabel’s imminent transition:

Like anything, it’s just the beginning of the rest of your life, but that’s the point, isn’t it? To begin to really live your life. I’m not going to even bother talking about all the things that are happening to your body. By now you know the details, gruesome, enlightening, and even delightful; if our readers want to know them, they’re a click away.

Check it out!

I’ve been away.

(Where O where have you been, C.L.?)

I’ve been to love, ducks. Love love super lovey love. Although I might not be for much longer, after that sentence.

Also, work. Work is good. I’m glad I have it. But it does eat into one’s blogging.

And D&D!

(Pause while my one remaining reader flees.)

So, OK, I’ve been busy being amorous and financially fit and pretending to be a sorceress. (What? you were expecting a hobbit?)

What else?

Some of it is being busy. And some of it…some of it is that I lost a lot of faith.

The last year or so has left me (and some of you, I’ll wager) feeling a lot more hopeless about…everything. Social justice. The world economy not crashing or reforming itself into the latest take in feudalism. Everywhere you go, at least in this country (and a bunch of others), the forces of reaction, of kyriarchy, are on the march and nothing we do seems to slow them.

Here in the good ol’ U.S. of A., our choices basically amount to voting for the guy who wants to drive the car off a cliff, and the guy who just wants to drive it out to the middle of the Mojave and wait for things to turn up.

And I think I lost a little confidence because of that. In the idea that what I have to say will matter to anyone. Even to readers of blogs. Because what can I say that Liss or Amanda or Sady or…well, lots of folks haven’t already said, and better.

I’m still not sure I know the answer to that. But maybe I’m willing to give it a try again.

So….I’m back. Kind of.  For a while. Hope you enjoy the show.

And stay tuned for some announcements soon.

that would normally have a decent collection of words after it. If I had an idea. Which I don’t tonight. But I might soon!

This is also a post to say that my Tiger Beatdown commitment is likely going to be lessened soon and I’ll be writing more for my own blog again! Um, hooray?

This is also a post to say that one of the reasons I can’t even be bothered to put up a link post to my recent stuff (though have you seen the cool widget on the upper left? It’s pretty good at finding me!) is that the new job keeps me hopping and I’m remembering why it was so damn hard to write when you work full time; because you come home completely burnt-out, even when you really like your job.

This is also a post to say that the other reason you see less of me of late is because I am ridiculously happy because I have met a wonderful person and we are too busy coming up with ways to make each other joyous for me to have any creativity left for writing.

And finally this is a post to say that I will have real posts up soon. Because I’ve been away too long 🙂

So, I feel kind of embarrassed that I clicked on the news links for pictures of the first successful full face transplant last week. I’m not entirely sure why I did it. It’s more complicated than just the attraction of a freakshow–not that I think the man who received it is a freak, just that some of the people who look at him may be doing so for the same reason people used to go to sideshows. This is part of why I’m embarrassed to admit that I clicked the link. But not all of it.

I’m fascinated by plastic surgeries. I’ve spent hours looking at the before and after pictures of people who have received facial feminization surgeries. I’ve even had consults myself. FFS is kind of a raw nerve for me. On the one hand, I don’t actually think I need it. On the other, I like the idea that it would reduce the chances of random people identifying me as trans. I think my motives in this are similar to C. L’s motives for getting breast implants (as detailed in her interview here). There are times when I’m sure that this is the crazy part of my brain talking, because I know perfectly well that I look fine. If you saw me on the street, you probably wouldn’t think twice. Be that as it may, when I look in the mirror every morning, I see the male face I wore for a couple of decades staring back at me. I don’t know that bankrupting myself on FFS would even change that perception for me. It’s all in my head, but the impulse remains.

All of which got me thinking about Eyes Without a Face, the great 1960 French movie about a mad plastic surgeon who kidnaps and murders women to harvest their faces in a vain attempt to restore his own daughter’s ruined face, and how it completely demolishes the beauty myth as an instrument of patriarchy. The movie portrays an attempt to enforce a standard of beauty by force. The recipient of our mad doctor’s radical treatments never asked for them. At the end of the movie, she retaliates against her oppressors and wanders into the night.

It goes without saying that Eyes Without a Face is a ghastly movie if you’re even a little bit squeamish. It’s notorious for its scenes of surgical gore, expertly faked. It looks real and it’s filmed with a striking clinical clarity and dispassion. It’s less obvious that this is a feminist movie, given the outrageous violence perpetrated against women in it. But it is. It’s an indictment of what patriarchy values in women: beauty and obedience. During most of the film, Edith Scob’s character wanders through her father’s palatial mansion with a featureless mask. To the world, she’s dead. The combination of this plot point and the visual of the mask suggests that a woman without beauty is a woman without identity. There are persistent images of animals in cages–especially birds–that further suggest that Scob is imprisoned by her father’s obsession and that her function is decorative, like a songbird. The actual depiction of Scob’s disfigurement suggests the horror patriarchy feels for the physical bodies of women, though it’s greatly exaggerated for effect. Also built into the fabric of the film is the doctor’s accomplice, a nurse played by Alida Valli. Her character is a stand-in for the way that patriarchy co-opts women themselves as enforcers of unrealistic beauty standards.

Trans women feel that enforcement more keenly than most, I think. We’re sometimes held to an impossible standard relative to cis women in order to even be accepted as women, so I feel for Christiane Genessier, the character in Eyes Without a Face, because she’s an avatar for anyone who submits to the surgeon’s knife in order to have her identity as a woman, or even as a person, validated.