Friday, December 14, 2007
14th December
Difficult day in the office of the university which partly employs me.
I stumbled across this quotation from Michel Tremblay, in connection with his play Hosanna:
"Hosanna is a man who always wanted to be a woman. This woman always wanted to be Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra. In other words this Québécois always wanted to be a woman who always wanted to be an English actress in an American movie about an Egyptian myth shot in Spain. In a way, this is a typically Québécois problem. For the past 300 years we were not taught that we were a people, so we were dreaming about being somebody else instead of ourselves. So Hosanna is a political play."
And although he is talking about being Quebecois, he could as well be talking about being transsexual.
Because to an extent we all want to be somebody else. And representations of transsexualism are full of performers, generally silent, miming to the words of someone else.
And it takes a huge amount of courage, even, as a transsexual, to go on a stage and pretend to be someone else.
And even greater problem, and one that calls for even greater courage, is to learn to go out into the world as your own self.
Difficult day in the office of the university which partly employs me.
I stumbled across this quotation from Michel Tremblay, in connection with his play Hosanna:
"Hosanna is a man who always wanted to be a woman. This woman always wanted to be Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra. In other words this Québécois always wanted to be a woman who always wanted to be an English actress in an American movie about an Egyptian myth shot in Spain. In a way, this is a typically Québécois problem. For the past 300 years we were not taught that we were a people, so we were dreaming about being somebody else instead of ourselves. So Hosanna is a political play."
And although he is talking about being Quebecois, he could as well be talking about being transsexual.
Because to an extent we all want to be somebody else. And representations of transsexualism are full of performers, generally silent, miming to the words of someone else.
And it takes a huge amount of courage, even, as a transsexual, to go on a stage and pretend to be someone else.
And even greater problem, and one that calls for even greater courage, is to learn to go out into the world as your own self.
Labels: being quebecois; being transsexual
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