Press for Soldier’s Girl

Thursday, January 09, 2003

Categories: Diary • Favorites • Product Reviews • Film & TV

* Today was quite eventful… Yesterday I screened the film for the first time, which was an experience in itself, and today was the first press event for the movie. It was the TCA (Television Critics Association) event. This is where the television networks (Showtime, of course, is a TV network) fly in several hundred of the foremost critics from around the country, put them up in a swanky LA hotel, and play all the new TV shows and movies on closed circuit TV in their rooms. Then all the stars, writers and directors of these shows and movies do interviews and panel Q&A sessions all day. It’s complete Hollywood…
* So Andrea & I have been preparing for everything for many months. Thanks to all that hard work, I had our lovely new business cards, our websites were up and running, and I had gone through the ideas and thoughts I wanted to get across. I had scrimped together enough money last month to get a lovely white suit and some nice shoes, got my hair cut, so on and so on. So today, when the car arrived to take me to the event, my hair was up in a slick and shiny French Twist, my white suit was immaculate, and I had everything I would need in my little purse. I was super nervous riding over in the car, but the driver talked to me and was very friendly. I don’t think my nervousness really showed, but I sure felt it.
* The hotel was big and beautiful… there were glass sculptures and great views and everything was brightly lit and elegant. They had stocked little snack setups every 25’ or so, and a line of fancy cars passed by the front door constantly, dropping off actors and industry people. Very posh. A handsome doorman opened the door of the big car for me and helped me out, and I was immediately whisked inside to get ready for everything.
* Once inside I ran into some agents and managers I knew, and met with some of the VP’s at Showtime. Everyone was running around with headsets and pads of paper, making sure their respective stars got to where they were supposed to be. I looked around for Troy, Lee or Shawn, but didn’t see them at first. One of the Showtime people took me to hair and makeup, but the girls there said I had done a good job by myself so they didn’t have much work to do. The hair girl added a few pins to my twist, and the makeup girl put some clear lipgloss on me. Everyone was bright and cheerful and nice. It all felt really good. Eric Stoltz was in there with me, getting fixed up. He looked handsome and nice, but we didn’t talk.
* I finally ran into Lee, and he got fixed up a little, too. He was (of course) in boy mode, and looked very cute and handsome. Then Shawn and Troy showed up, and finally Frank. We all talked and hugged and kissed and said hello, and then it was time to split up and do solo interviews.
* I went into a room and did an interview with Jeanne Star, a famous syndicated writer. She was very very sweet, a real old-school writer and just seemed to love me. We talked for awhile, and then it was time for the panel.
* Frank, me, Lee, Shawn and Troy all went up onto a stage in front of all the reporters and sat in super-comfortable chairs while they put microphones on us. Then behind us clips from the film played on giant TVs. Then the lights came up and everyone started asking questions.
* They asked me and Frank alot of questions… I felt like I answered pretty well, keeping everyone focused on Barry and his story and how important the movie would be to help people to understand that TS women are normal and can have normal love and lives. I told them about my website, book and the upcoming Deep Stealth projects, as well, without sounding mercenary about it. Frank and Lee answered most of the other questions, and they Asked Troy if he would ever want to work with his mom (Jane Fonda), which he hated. He always gets asked about her, which I’m sure gets old.
* Afterwards we split up again and I did interviews with Extra, TV Guide channel, Showtime, CNN and some other people… I could hardly remember them all. Each one was slightly different, and they were all polite and kind and sensitive. Each one had a personailty like their network… the CNN guy was older and serious, and I could see crawling the trenches of Iraq with him. The Extra reporter was fun and dishy. Etc etc…
* It was all over in about three hours. We all just kinda split out after that, saying “See you at Sundance!” Everything happens so fast here… and people just sort of fade in and out of things, without really hanging out alot outside of the “work”. I got back into the lovely car and was taken home with a lovely gift basket of bath products from Nieman Marcus as a thank you. And here I am… still in makeup, still kinda keyed up, but ready to get back to work!



(My hair was up before I got home! =)

The real scoop...
I wanted to tell you, though, that the movie “Normal” and Showtime’s two trans documentaries ("The Opposite Sex” featuring “Jamie’s Story” and “Rene’s Story") had major elements which were very negative, and which went unnoticed by most media reporters who are still learning about the issues themselves.
“Normal” was well acted, especially by Jessica Lange, and beautifully shot. It does show the story of a certain kind of person, a late transitioner with a family. Most of the press for Normal was done at the same time as press for Soldier’s Girl, so I was present at the same events, showcases and festivals. Wilkinson always referred to his character (Ruth) as “he” and “him”, as did the rest of the cast. He said that he didn’t really do much research for the role, if any, because he had played “King Lear” and other roles far from his own life experience and felt he could do the same with Ruth.  Following his example, reviewers of the film almost universally referred to Ruth as “he”. I don’t feel that anyone in the film, nor the writer and production team, ever truly saw Ruth as anything but an old man on hormones who wore earrings to work. The message that “Normal” delivered to it’s guilty liberal audience was “Looking at this beautiful tale of an old man on hormones, we should realize that calling him Ruth and letting him wear his drag is the right thing to do.” If the actor playing Ruth didn’t care much about her or recognize her womanhood, then why would anyone else?
The Showtime transition documentaries featured some horrifying scenes. Why on Earth was the FTM flown to Los Angeles and encouraged to audition as a male stripper on camera?! What did that have to do with his transition, other than perhaps illustrating in the most demeaning possible way his desire to be accepted as male, and an instance of rejection. I think a page from a Jerry Springer/Maury Povitch script found it’s way into the shooting schedule. It looked like it was filmed at the well-known 7969 club on Santa Monica, famous for it’s transgendered prostitutes, which doesn’t even normally feature male strippers. I suspect the entire scene was manufactured by the director.
And the MTF documentary featured all the stock shots that make up a canon of condescension in media featuring transwomen: closeup of lipstick application in the mirror: check. Closeup of brightly painted fingernails: check. Closeup of feet slipping into high heel shoes: check. Look for these shots in any documentary and most movies featuring a transgender women. You’ll find them. Until the recent “Transgeneration”, I can’t think of any documentary on television featuring a young, passable transwoman living a normal life. I’m sure there is an example somewhere, buried beneath the overwhelming converse. Young transwomen are always shown as prostitutes or punchlines, and older transwomen are always shown as hetero men in midlife crisis who just seem to get it “wrong” in a sad, awkwardly comic way. 
These are shades of insight that most sympathetic reviewers aren’t aware of yet, and because I appreciate the press for the larger cause I try to write when I can and express my thoughts. There will be others who feel differently, of course.