OK, OK....yeah, I haven't written in like 18 days. Wow. Where has the time gone?
I'm on my lunch break now, so I don't have time to write about all of it, but some of the topics include my creative writing class discussion from last week, the JonBenet case, a conversation after my softball game yesterday, and a few other items.
So, last week was the first meeting for my writing class. I arrived slightly early, with about half of the class already chatting with the instructor about our backgrounds. One of the last guys to enter was definitely gay. I don't know what it was about him...the saunter, the 80's style clothes, or what...but he was definitely gay. Ding, ding, ding went the gaydar.
Over the course of the next hour or so, we chatted about stories...movies...you name it. Brokeback Mountain was mentioned, by the gay guy, I believe. He said he didn't particularly care for the movie...but discussed his reasons why it didn't win Best Picture. After that, he asks, "What did you think about...."
Somehow, right before he said the movie name, I knew what he was going to say. I'm not sure if it was the tone or what....but I knew. He wanted to know what she thought about Transamerica. Our instructor had seen it and said she loved the movie. So did the gay guy. I didn't think it was that great, although Felicity did a very good job acting in it. I wanted to pop up and say, "I wonder if you didn't like Brokeback for the same reason I didn't care for Transamerica"...but I didn't. I wanted to tell the teacher that perhaps so many people that saw it seemed to like it because they had never seen something like this before...but I didn't.
I just didn't think Transamerica was that realistic in many aspects of transition, but since neither of them could relate to that part of it, they had no idea what type of inaccuracies were propogated in the film. Sure, there were a lot of facts, but numerous realistic items were sidestepped in order to allow the premise of the movie to propogate. I'm sure the same can be said for parts of Brokeback...but I haven't seen the film yet.
OK, that's it for now...more later.
4 comments:
Okay, maybe I'm going to get into a lot of trouble over this one, but I never learned anything by *not* asking a dumb question, so here goes:
Which parts did you think portrayed transition inaccurately? I've only seen it once, and I'm less than a year into my own transition, but honestly I was touched by how close it hit to my own situation. I don't mean that the literal details were at all similar (they aren't), but that the feelings and the theme made me feel like it was my life.
Will you elaborate, please Kara, on your thoughts? I am very interested in a critical analysis.
Kara -
I started to giggle when I was reading your blog because I knew what was coming :-) I probably wouldn't have said anything either.
Gwen, I will let Kara elaborate for herself as to the areas of the movie that aren't "typical" of the "average" transsexual, but Rachel Thompson wrote a little about the issue in an article for the Advocate. Her comments mirror many of my own issues with the movie.
http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid31715.asp
I don't know how to publish website address on this forum. The correct website is found below. I had to break up the website on to two lines:
http://www.advocate.com/
exclusive_detail_ektid31715.asp
Thanks for the link Tiffany. Yeah, Rachel points out many of the things I noticed in the film. I think the most important thing to realize in this movie is that it is a movie...and it was a dramatized situation...as are many movies and TV shows.
One thing I think Rachel left off her review was the amount of issues Bree still hadn't tackled at her stage of the game. Her psychologist should have been more worried about those issues rather than the issue with her son.
I mean, I love watching Rescue Me on FX even though the whole firehouse situation is overly dramatized. The same can be said for Nip/Tuck, CSI, ER, etc. Most shows are dramatized because real life just isn't that interesting or face paced.
I still thought Transamerica was a decent movie, but the situation was overly dramatized. To be honest, I think I liked Different For Girls a lot better than Transamerica because it had a male play the role of the transsexual and portrayed many of the issues that transsexuals go thru. The only issue I had with that movie was the wacky ending to clear it all up.
And in case one wants to read the review by Rachel Thompson, one can try this link.
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