Biography, Autobiography, Memoir discussion
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Pageboy by Elliot Page
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Great, Koren! I’m still reading it and it’s definitely interesting enough to hold your interest even if you aren’t especially interested in this actor, which I wasn’t. I’m finding it interesting anyway. He’s young ie only about 35 right now I think but his childhood and experiences around queerness sound so much longer ago than they actually were - very recent really. The amount of change around LGBT in such a short time is striking.
Ps to above, I am aware that the level of LGBT acceptance varies widely in the world and even between different places in the same country. I know there are still people experiencing worse than Page did currently.
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I have no idea who this guy is but willing to try the book as long as I can get it from the library.
Still waiting on mine but sounds interesting.I put bios/memoirs like these in the 'gender diverse' category.
Paige was born a girl I think and was in the movie Juno as the pregnant teen. But now Page transitioned to male? The last I saw he was in Tales of the City tv show as a guy. Tales of the City is a long running series about San Francisco and the mostly LGBT population there and a bunch of them living together in flats owned by a trans landlady. It was originally a column in the SF newspaper but got published into novels and then turned into tv.
Has anyone read or familiar with that series? Its written by Armistead Maupin.
It says in transit at my library, so I should be reading it pretty soon.I think in cities with big populations LGTBQ is widely accepted and even promoted as a drawcard, especially in mine.
I think since legislation has changed, it has certainly made things more visible. There is now not the AIDS paranoia that was going round now as it was in the 80s. I know parents who have to deal with their child being trans or coming out or whatever. This is as hard for them as it is for their offspring. Children are now discussing whether they want to be male or female. I think its all become very fluid especially with the amount of hormones in foods and endocrine disrupting chemicals around these days. ?!
Started reading Pageboy. Am up to chapter 10.Interesting so far.
I have only seen Juno. The part about the Halifax explosion was interesting. Page's parents divorced when he was two. He hasn't really said why or how he became an actor - it just seemed like he got an agent and was suddenly in all these movies?
The gender dysphoria must have been very bad. But he did play Charlie in Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. I just wonder if what was then known as tomboys is something girls feel they have to hide when they reach puberty.
But then Elliot is only relating his personal journey and coming out it wouldn't be the same for everyone who is gay. It seems his single mother just let him be but only made him do all the feminine things like wear dresses and barettes in public, I suppose its just like being an actor. Imagine having media write things about you like Is Ellen Page Gay. And not being able to say anything, because they could have just asked! I don't understand why it would be important for actors to hide that..its shouldn't matter as they are acting right? They don't really have romances all the time or sleep with others. And if they do that's their off screen/stage life and often not anything to do with the persona they are playing on screen/stage right?
I found out why Ellen chose Elliot for his name - because of the movie ET. Elliot phone home. Also I suppose not to get mixed up with the other gay Ellen - Ellen DeGeneres.
I have not read her memoir or bio, but I think it would be interesting.
Page was stalked and then taken advantage of as a teen. I wonder whether those formative experiences had any relation to her/his coming out later. But he did write that he kind of knew when he was young before any of that happened, that he wanted to be a boy, and going to toilet was a problem.
The other thing interesting is that in Page's view 'queers' are just artists?
Not read Armistead Maupin, have you? Anyone? Is he any good? I know he is part of the canon for LGBT. G anyway.
His memoir is definitely focused on the gender, orientation bit for him, yes. The show biz part is less prioritised. I was surprised about the big deal over coming out in Hollywood too. I thought of Hollywood as a more politically progressive culture and that has had a history of workers in it who were queer. But he says that Hollywood reacts and follows on from the way society is going. I get that it’s a business. I guess he’s saying it’s pragmatic and caters to what the market wants. That that filtered down to the culture of the workers and that being out was a big deal is what surprised me.
I also was a bit surprised by what a problem it was for him growing up too. I know it’s still a big problem for many in different parts of the world but I was a bit surprised at it being such a problem in Canada so recently(he’s pretty young).
Re the show biz experience, he certainly experienced trouble, abuse etc. This seems to be an enduring theme for children working in the industry. Very tough. Re making it in show biz, he doesn’t focus on it but he does say at one point that going for auditions he had an equanimous mentality of maybe he’ll get this one maybe he won’t and that’s ok.
Kit wrote: "Not read Armistead Maupin, have you? Anyone? Is he any good? I know he is part of the canon for LGBT. G anyway."Gay or straight, if you relate to the San Francisco culture of the sixties and seventies Tales of the City (and I suppose its sequels) is delightful reading.
I suppose Halifax and Toronto Canada is not like SF or LA in the US.I also suppose too that being a child actor meant certain expectations. One thing that struck me was that straight actors are praised for playing gay or trans eg Tom Hanks, or John Travolta, Felicity Huffman, Hilary Swank...but gay or trans aren't praised for playing straight - or being themselves!
I have finished reading..I wasn't really interested in all Elliots relationships or cruising or even marriage I think really what is at issue is he's a child of divorce and that's more traumatic than anything else, and thus tried to find love with others and seemed to be using sex as a kind of affirmation. I also think being an only child would have been isolating and he can't even think of others being brother or sister. That his parents aren't stage parents is also kind of different in that he was more abandoned to whatever acting gig he took on to be more his family.
But then I've read of trans people in large families too that are more accepting, though imagine being labelled all the time as dyke from when you are young but not being able to really do anything about it would have been hard for Page. After coming out, he did the typical thing go to a gay bar and go crazy desperate for connection. But really the issue is, can he be comfortable in his own skin and accept himself?
He wrote that it cost $12,000 to have gender affirming surgery and takes testosterone, I wonder if its kind of like how some women get breast implants and HRT to feel like a woman surely it costs as much. I don't know if everyone has a right to that...but I suppose if you have the money...? And you want to feel ok and validated rather than you don't know whether you should even exist.
I think of Pages performance as Juno and it also reminds me a bit of Cynthia Nixon playing the lawyer in Sex and the City sort of I was not really surprised that she came out later too because it was a sort of 'I'm playing at being a woman doing things woman might be expected to do, but I'm not at all feminine' I guess its in the mind? Rather than the body. Gender I mean. It must be very confusing to be male in a female body and vice versa. I've yet to read many memoirs about what its like to be bi, though I expect it maybe they accept both masculine and feminine aspects of themselves, so wouldn't that really be the way to be anyway. It's just when men go trans, they seem to go the drag queen route and really go all out. While for a lot of 'ordinary' people, unisex clothing is just default. I mean nobody wants to be locked into wearing skirts and heels all the time if that's the only way to identify as an attractive female. You may as well bind your feet.
Mike wrote: "Kit wrote: "Not read Armistead Maupin, have you? Anyone? Is he any good? I know he is part of the canon for LGBT. G anyway."Gay or straight, if you relate to the San Francisco culture of the sixt..."
I don't really know anything about SF or its culture in the 60s and 70s (I wasn't born then) but I found it entertaining. It's sort of like Friends, but instead of NYC its SF and it follows a bunch of young people living together under the umbrella of a trans landlady who likes a spliff and their unconventional love lives and follows them as they grow up and live in a city where you try to make your own life.
The 'fish out of water' or Rachel of the group is Mary Ann Singleton, who is from...Cleveland.
Page turns up as one of the character's love child, Shawna I think it is. But this is a lot later in the series. There was a tv series made of it with Laura Linney as Mary Ann. I can't really watch it as its a lot more graphic in some scenes. But the book series is funny.
I did find Pageboy a bit graphic but the sex being described is like anything..when it comes down to mechanics of it, its kinda all the same anyway whether for men or women. I'm like I don't really need to know all that. I don't really know if there's like a medical test or some kind of indication that this or that person is gay but interesting that Page felt like having to go to the doctor to check it out. And who knows of possible damage that being molested or rejected as a child can do to you?
Just want to add I now recall another memoir also of a child actor who came out as bisexual, not Anna Paquin but the girl who played Matilda Where Am I Now? Mara Wilson.It did remind me a bit of Pageboy with the details of all her relationships trying to make sense of it, but also, Mara had to deal with OCD.
Both books are very confusing journeys and not easy reads though I think both were precocious at a young age as child stars can be and exposed more to adult world at a time when they were vulnerable. They would have seen a lot more of the world than an average child. Page started acting when she was 10.
Mike wrote: "Kit wrote: "Not read Armistead Maupin, have you? Anyone? Is he any good? I know he is part of the canon for LGBT. G anyway."Gay or straight, if you relate to the San Francisco culture of the sixt..."
Must check it out sometime. I'm interested in that time and place.
I've finished it too. I definitely found it interesting. Lots to think over.
I found a book about the other Ellen - Love, Ellen: A Mother/Daughter Journey so be interested to read it.It's by her mother.
I don't know that much about Ellen deGeneres except she did get married and came out a while ago. Apparently she, like Ellen/Elliot is a child of divorce too. I wonder about parents reactions to their gay child whether it's the same for both parents or they tell one and not the other or how that works.
Elliots mother thought it was something it would be hard to live out in the open and that she should hide it because it wouldn't be acceptable. But she didn't discourage Elliot growing up.
Then you get the other kind of parent who brings up their children in the other gender, or maybe has huge expectations for the gender. I'm not sure if its anything people actively choose, or it just gets placed on them. They say its like your eye colour or skin, but then...what about parents who raise their children to be faafine or whatever. And then they don't really want to be that as they grow older.
Halfway through Ellen book. It's mostly about the mother though, and some of her Christian Science beliefs. She says she had no idea homosexuality existed (everyone was closeted in her day?) or that Ellen could have been gay though her daughter joked about a photo that had her wearing a tie and said wasn't that a clue?
Now am thinking what about her girlfriend Anne Heche. Also what about Ellen's dad, whom her mother divorced, because he wasn't fulfilling or sensual or whatever. Then her mum's new boyfriend came on to Ellen. Now I just think everyone's terribly confused and people just want to be with whoever doesn't make them feel horrible.
Selina wrote: "Halfway through Ellen book. It's mostly about the mother though, and some of her Christian Science beliefs. She says she had no idea homosexuality existed (everyone was closeted in her day?) or th..."
Actually, not everyone knew about homosexuality, especially if they lived in a more sheltered community, and almost everyone was closeted so they wouldn't lose their jobs, etc. One of my brothers didn't realize he was gay until he was an adult, but my dad knew from the time he was tiny. My mother didn't at first because she had no brothers growing up and thought that his mannerisms and things he liked to do were because he had two older sisters; once we had another boy she realized differently. This was before they were able to adopt my gay brother (he came as a foster child and it took his father several years to decide to let him be adopted by a Protestant family.)
I remember marriages breaking up in the 1980s and 1990s as men came out of the closet after years of marriage when the stigma was lifting. In Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated the author discusses how her mother proposed to her gay father knowing he was gay to help him keep in the closet and stay in his profession. However, this wasn't as common as men hiding it and getting married.
I didn't know anything about it until I was 10 and read the word homosexual in the newspaper (we had moved to San Francisco for a couple of years). I had to ask my mother what it meant.
I had a gay workmate who shared that he was adopted but I don't know exactly when he knew he was gay or came out. He did say he had a crush on Rachel off Friends before he found out he was gay. He went to a boys high school, so I suppose in amongst other boys, if you are gay you find out pretty quickly. The other thing is girls high schools where friendships can be intense among girls but not spoken about. At coed schools I don't remember too much about it but at university it seems like it was 'the cool' thing to be out (even if you not) as by that time our town was having Pride Parades and things and people wanted to cash in on the 'pink dollar' gay people were seen to be bigger spenders than straight couples that had children. Which is rather ironic and not really true (only true for those upper middle class types) and they were called DINKs double income no kids.
Selina wrote: "I had a gay workmate who shared that he was adopted but I don't know exactly when he knew he was gay or came out. He did say he had a crush on Rachel off Friends before he found out he was gay. He ..."When I grew up things were changing for gays. I look back and can think of at least two teen boys I knew who were definitely gay that I didn't realizes were because they didn't tell me. One I knew in university for a while as well when he temporarily came to my university for a year (can't remember if he transferred or what happened now, but we did hang out together sometimes while he was there.)
I think its now very open and there's support in place. At least in my town they even had a Heroic Garden Festival which was gay gardeners raising money for hospice AIDs sufferers. It was around the 90s that AIDs was a big scare for everyone, and I was growing up at the time where 9 year old Eve Van Grafthorst contracted HIV from a blood transfusion, she was shunned out of Australia for having HIV and her family brought her to NZ to live. I remember her saying that if you love someone wear a condom. At the time people were saying things about 'safe sex' and horrified that an activity lovers did could potentially kill you. (But even sex can be separated from love)
It seemed to me once there was a homosexual law reform (it was no longer illegal) people were ok to come out instead of being afraid to be put in jail for it. This was passed in 1986 and then several laws after that (anti-discrimination, civil unions, same sex marriages) served to make it all mainstream. Politicians seemed to make it so and it seemed like most got into politics because of it! We had a transexual mayor of one town, two politicians dressed as women on the cover of Auckland magazine, and now theres pink shirt day in schools. If this seemed overkill to most it definitely served to make it increasingly visible and not something criminal provided its done with consent but who can truly say if it is. Consent is a tricky issue even in hetero relationships and young people's bodies are often abused as they navigate this, like Page was.
The Hollywood casting couch has always been problematic for women.
Yes, it's very open in most places now, but bear in mind that I am closer to Koren's age than yours (probably obvious) so we grew up in a different era.
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Most of what I know I learn from my grandchildren. It sounds like it is 'the cool' thing now to be gay.
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I saw Bohemian Rhapsody movie. I remember the time Freddie Mercury said he had AIDs and then died the next day. He was gay but didn't want to admit to it back then. I don't know if the movie portrayed it as accurately but it seemed he had a predatory record exec and then male groupies and then just went all out flamboyantly gay after that. Those in music seem to be fare better than actors/actresses? His bandmates were loyal to him though, because he was absolutely brilliant.
Now there's drugs for AIDs and people living a lot longer who contract HIV. Since its STD though people weren't put in lockdown, but I think for a time they were shunned until straight people got it too via contaminated blood transfusions so the stigma lessened. But they could also get it the other way. In the 90s the condom was promoted like the mask was in 2020.
Biography, Autobiography, Memoir
Books mentioned in this topic
Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated (other topics)Love, Ellen: A Mother/Daughter Journey (other topics)
Where Am I Now? (other topics)
Pageboy (other topics)
I have started reading it and it's interesting so far.