#beyond 'wow if you have this many ex wives maybe the problem.... is you...!'

[synthaphone]

okay so i started making this but then i realized that there is a critical flaw: I skip every Ben Folds ex-wife song that isn’t a banger because i don’t have the patience for that. someone else will have to finish this for me

[theliterateape]

The Therapeutic Approach to Nationalism

by Don Hall

When it came to Chicago Thanksgivings, I could be a real cunt.

Sure, Jen and I would host Orphan's Gatherings—Thanksgiving for people stuck in Chicago and unable to travel to their family's homes over the holiday. I would drop a couple of hundred bucks and make a huge spread of food but the transaction for coming was to have to listen to me bitch about how shitty the holiday was.

"Enjoy the turkey. Afterward, I'll be providing each of you blankets covered in small pox and steal your property. I mean, I'm thankful for a lot but I'm mostly thankful I wasn't native to this country because, man, then I'd be fucked, amiright?"

This screed went all day long and became more and more incessant as I drank Scotch and beer and cooked. Depending on the year, it would spread out from the genocide of Native Americans to the American military industrial complex, the woeful state of our civil rights, and how evil the Republicans were.

"Here's some food and some vitriol as gravy. Happy Fucking Thanksgiving!"

What an asshole. It's hardly a surprise that most of those people in those early days don't bother to talk to me today.

I used to think that blunt honesty was always the best approach to all situations. It's, well, honest, and it's mildly therapeutic to simply air your truth to those around you. I used to believe that until I lived with Alice.

Alice was like me at Thanksgiving but every day of the year. Her inability to accept less than exactly how she wanted things was maddening. She was always brutally honest about her feelings (unless it was something she decided needed to be kept a secret and then it was as if she locked it away in a trunk she bought at a yard sale and hid under the stairs).

"I hate your hair." "This is a stupid Christmas gift." "I can't believe you're wearing that to dinner." "Wow. You're really getting fat." "Don't embarrass me by talking politics with my University friends, OK? You're practically right wing."

After a few years of this constant honesty, I found myself walking around like Eeyore, head down, eyes on the ground, feeling a sense of dread overcoming me with the now drilled-in idea that nothing I did could possibly be enough or correct. If Alice wasn't happy it was because I was inadequate. She now had someone to blame for her disappointments in life.

What I learned from Alice was that for blunt honesty to be effective and useful rather than merely a bludgeon of self importance leveled upon those who are willing to put up with it, it was about seeing how that honesty could be used by them.

If the criticism couldn't be utilized for the betterment of someone or something, it was just noisy, pointless bitching. Childish complaint and attempts to beat down those around into some aspect of submission. Looking for someone to blame as if the recipient's guilt and subsequent anguish could be healing in some way.

Common wisdom suggests that by thoroughly revisiting our traumatic experiences to understand why they happened and how to move past them is therapeutic. Unfortunately, like the movies in the 1980s subsidized by the Pentagon to help recruit kids with a Top Gun drumbeat of "How Cool is War, Right?," the therapy industry proliferates this constant vomiting of pain and search for who to blame for it is in contrast with new research.

"New research is showing that some people only get worse by continuing to brood and ruminate,” Stanford psychologist Mischel said. “Each time they recount the experience to themselves, their friends or their therapist, they only become more depressed."

SOURCE

It's quite possible that I have had uniquely bad therapy experiences. A few when I was younger felt pointless, the couple's therapy I went through with my first and second ex-wives felt disingenuous. While skewed for maximum satire, the talk therapy groups in Fight Club ring more true than anything else—sad, busted up people sitting in a circle complaining about how hard their life has been next to another room with another circle complaining about theirs next to another.

Talking about your problems to be heard seems fine but it also a cul de sac of constantly re-opening the wounds over and over without any sort of solution provided. Even if one discovers an abuser in their past to pin the blame upon, even if there is some sort of reckoning and accountability, neither talking about it or understanding your place in the grievance hierarchy manages to solve the inability to move past the trauma.

That's the goal, right? Move past it? It may not be an easy task but, at the end of the process, learning to get on with things, heal the pain, live with the scars is the goal, yes?

It is the same when it comes to big picture items as well.

As someone decidedly Left in political views, I can't say I've ever been in a huge Bitch Session of Truthtelling with anyone right wing. Not my monkey, not my circus. On the hand, I can't count the number of Leftist circle jerks I've been mired in, often contributing more than my fair share of discourse and blockading to the mix. It is the Choir Preaching to the Choir so that One Solidifies Membership in the Freaking Choir.

So many of these sessions amount to telling the truth and identifying who is to blame for that truth.

"There is no reason for the evil that is represented by the Billionaire Class. How much money does anyone need? And at the expense of everyone else? The System is rigged by the wealthy, for the wealthy."

"The systemic racism in the country's policing stems from its racist beginnings and that's why so many black men are indiscriminately killed by cops. How many videos do we have to endure before things change?"

"Fossil fuels are the source of climate disaster. Everyone can see that. If we don't change course, the planet is going to be destroyed in our lifetime!"

All true, I'd think. But I heard that last week and the week before and the week before that. Sort of like my Thanksgiving rants.

Who’s to blame? The rich. The police. Big Oil. Where are the solutions to the problems?

Playing the blame game never works. A deep set of research shows that people who blame others for their mistakes lose status, learn less, and perform worse relative to those who own up to their mistakes. Research also shows that the same applies for organizations. Groups and organizations with a rampant culture of blame have a serious disadvantage when it comes to creativity, learning, innovation, and productive risk-taking.

Harvard Business Review

Blame, beyond personal accountability, is likewise pointless without a plan and “Hold Those to Blame Accountable!” isn’t a great plan.

Truth without pragmatic action is meaningless.

And so … the birthday of the nation comes up. The therapeutic gripe sessions begin. Instead of celebrating the country’s progress, the ideals it is founded upon, any sense of national pride, we have a host of Thanksgiving Don Hall’s pissing and moaning about the missteps and outright horrors committed by those long dead.

There is a lot of blunt trauma truth tossed out just before, during, and after our national day. Things like the fact of indoctrinated worship of the Founders without some serious views upon their flaws as human beings. Like the intentional absence in our collective history of the contributions made by those not in the majority. As I would've said on a typical Thanksgiving, an absence of any genuine reflection on the near genocide of the natives.

Not so much the next step of how to fix the issues or even the simple truth that most of the problems in the past cannot be fixed rather the recurrent results modified for a more just and equitable nation. Lotsa bitching. Not lotsa solution building. Tons of blame. Ounces of creative problem solving.

A whole bunch of Thanksgiving Cunts holding court and demanding that if you want to shoot of fireworks, wave the flag, eat some grilled meat, and get a bit drunk in celebration of the enduring experiment in democracy and multi-culturalism America strives to be, you are forced to listen to them piss all over the parade.

The thing about Alice was that for all of her brutal honesty, none of it made me want to change my hair, I stopped buying her gifts altogether, I intentionally wore things and said things that would embarrass her and the only reason I lost weight was because the gym was a place I could escape her for a few hours. Her mean spirited honesty accomplished the exact opposite of what she was aiming for.

The United States ain't so united and maybe it never has been but wallowing in the painful trauma of the past only has value if the next step is to focus on what we can do together to avoid the mistakes made by our elders. That's the entire point of America in the first place.

So, Happy Birthday, America. Let's keep trying to improve.

[phaylenfairchild]

The Ongoing Problem With Trans Representation in Media

The Crying Game

In 1992, as a budding Transgirl who hadn’t yet heard the word “Transgender” nor knew anything about gender or sexuality, I watched an film by Neil Jordan called “The Crying Game.” It was dubbed “The Most Shocking Film Of The Year” by entertainment magazines. At the time, I had an insatiable longing for people I could relate to on film, and often had to substitute women as figures of my future intent; I wanted Richard Gere to sweep me away like he had Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. I wants to slither around like Catwoman, with that brilliant confidence that was the perfect mix of bad ass girl power and unapologetic confidence. She was my revenge idol. I wanted to flip-flop, cartwheel and yoga pose into school and kick the shit out of my bullies while making them all love me at the same time.

But the Character of Dil in “The Crying Game” was most accurate to who I knew I was becoming. This androgynous, beautiful woman captivated me. Dil was the lover of a soldier, Jody, played by the incredible Forest Whittaker, a man held prisoner by the IRA who pleads with a fellow solider and friend, Fergus, to protect Dil. She unwittingly becomes the subject of both fascination and affection of Fergus.

Through the course of the film, the two fall in love, and when it comes to the pivotal moment where the characters start becoming intimate- it takes a dark turn.

As Fergus begins to disrobe Dil in the bedroom of her bedroom, he gets on his knees, expecting to find female genitalia and instead reveals a penis.

Yes, right there. A penis. And if you saw it in the cinema, a 12 foot tall image of a penis. On a woman. Fergus twisted away in disgust and proceeds to vomit immediately. Then, he hits her.

I remember being horrified- my breathe caught in my throat- not because she had a penis, but because he acted with such sudden and unexpected repulsion over someone he was just kissing and intending to bed.

The film was marketed on the Trans “Surprise.” Studios launched campaigns for audiences not to give away the ending.

In the afterglow of The Crying Game, Transphobic rhetoric became more aggressive than ever in cinema. Who can forget Ace Ventura, played by Jim Carey, belllowing “Einhorn is a man?!” in reference to the character played by Sean Young, and then heaving into the toilet at the very notion an attractive woman might not have a vagina.

Transwomen were reduced to bawdy, comedic or grotesque twists by lazy writers in Hollywood. The go-to joke. The trend continued throughout the 90’s and well into the 2000’s. With what little Trans characters there were on screen, they were always the subject of comedy or villainy. Because, for some reason, it’s still an outrageous knee-slapper to see a sexy woman you suddenly discover has male genitalia or much easier to hate her, so they make her the freakish bad guy, such as in Sleepaway Camp, like some dangerous modern day Frankenstein who will curl their hair, twirl their penis then sit your throat.

More recently, the Trans representation in film has changed in context- with sweeping period dramas like “The Danish Girl” — which won an Oscar for the cisgender actor, Eddie Redmayne, playing the role of a Trans woman. Or, the “Dallas Buyers Club” — which won an Oscar for the cisgender actor, Jared Leto, playing the role of a Trans woman. However, the year that Redmayne won his Oscar for putting on a dress and pretending to be Trans, a film that had been far better received critically, Tangerine, which featured two actual Transwomen played by Transwomen, was snubbed, despite receiving nominations or awards by every other organization the entire awards season. The Academy demonstrated they’d rather give an award to a man tepidly playing a Transwoman, than a Transwoman giving an incredible performance.

Of course, those Transwomen were playing sex workers. I have it on good authority from my Trans identifying actress friends that it’s almost impossible to get roles for anything else. “All I get offers for are prostitutes,” one accomplished actress told me. “If we want access to work we either have to be a prostitute, a mistress, a self-hating trans person, dead or dying of AIDS, or willing to be ridiculed for comedic value. That’s where we are. In 2018.”

But, some will argue the merits of “Transparent,” The Amazon series that features a middle aged man, portrayed by Jeffery Tambor, who transitions from male to female later in life. It is the first television show to take viewers on that journey, one which details the experiences of those in the orbit of the transitioning main character, including her children and ex wife, without exploiting it as sensationalist. “Transparent” features a plethora of Trans identifying artists, both in front of the camera and behind it. While the primary stars are all cisgender performers, Alexandra Billings, Trace Lysette and the iconic Candis Cayne are all series regulars. Zackary Drucker and Our Lady J feature as producers. It appears to be our staple; our one single thing we’re allowed. Unfortunately, although heavily awarded, it’s not got very broad appeal. It’s a series by Transgender people, about Transgender people… so mainstream remains a little stand-offish. It’s “That Transgender show.”

That’s not surprising. We Trans people working in media have to pave our own way, create our own projects, self produce them, star in them. If we try to intermingle cisgender society within our works, we’re typically turned away. As a writer, I’ve had my screenplays turned down by many companies exclusively because, despite having a cisgender lead, it has a trans character. In a fantasy film I wrote which was a finalist in Outfest International’s Screenplay competition, the response I received from interested production companies wanted me to turn the Trans girl into a “traditional” girl. Every film I write has a Trans character, not just because I’m politically advocating the normalizing of Trans people in everyday society, but because I refuse to create worlds in which we do not exist simply for the comfort of mainstream audiences. “Why does she need to be Trans?” An agent once asked me.

“Why not?” I answered.

Orange is the New Black was lauded for it’s inclusion of a Trans character, played by a Transgender woman, Laverne Cox. Because gender diverse characters in media are so rare, it catapulted her well beyond the boundaries of performance into the realm of social activism. That same attention and expectation destroyed Caitlyn Jenner who was no longer just allowed to be the tabloid mainstay by proxy of the Kardashians, but now had to be our fearless leader, our ambassador to cigender tribes. There are about five Trans figures that cisgender audiences can name: Caitlyn Jenner being the most notable along with Cox on a lesser scale. Others paying attention know that the Wachowskis, directors of the successful Matrix franchise both transitioned and Jazz Jennings, the teenager with her own reality show on that channel that also shows My 600 lb Life and Sister Wives. Cis people don’t know Janet Mock, although her work is invaluable, but they heard a Transgirl took on Rose McGowan at a book signing. Our names cross their facebook feeds when the news reports our deaths. Beyond that, we’re people not allowed to use bathrooms in certain states, a word that is banned by the CDC, and reduced to that one Transgender person who did something that one time which the media loves to exploit for a headline in a fleeting story. Especially when it’s salacious. When former Playboy Playmate, Kendra Wilkinson’s basketball star husband, Hank Baskett, had an alleged affair with a woman, the media latched on like a thirsty tick to the ass-end of a fat dog because that his mistress was Transgender. Of course, despite evidence, he denied it, and the couple leveraged the scandal to maximize ratings and profits by following the controversy on their reality show. They even starred in their own one-hour special to discuss it. Similarly, the media pounced at the opportunity to reveal the alleged affair that Jennifer Lopez’s then boyfriend, Casper Smart, was having with a Transwoman he met on Instagram. Then there was the story of Michael Phelps, the olympic gold medalist who had an ongoing, but secret relationship with an intersex woman- one which he never denied, but ignored instead. In every case, the transwoman is vilified by the media, like some sexual predator; A succubus who cast a spell of seduction on innocent men. That’s when the media pays attention.

That’s problematic. The fact that mainstream society possesses more general awareness of cis actors who play Trans characters, or random Transwomen involved in scandals does nothing to improve our actual visibility, or integrate us into mainstream culture. It alienates us further onto the fringes of society.

We’re like the unicorns of media. When one of us pops up and garners any attention for something other than simply being Trans or scandalous, people react with; “Wow, you really do exist.”

Far and few are the opportunities for Trans actors and actresses, filmmakers and film writers. It’s not because there are too few of us, it’s because when Hollywood looks at us, they don’t see our potential, they see a political cause. An embattled, marginalized person. When we disclose our trans status to people, they suddenly lose sight of our face and instead see the last anti-trans headline they read splashed across out forehead- and maybe they feel sad. Maybe they feel that if they’re uncomfortable or distracted exclusively by the fact that we’re trans, moviegoers, television viewers and the greater cisgender community will be too.

Perhaps this is why we haven’t really seen a transgender performer portray a non-trans role- unless you count Candis Cayne playing a fairytale creature in The Magicians. Cayne is such a brilliant performer she could play anything. She’s stunning, she’s captivating onscreen, she’s a staggeringly talented actress…

But apparently, despite the multitude of cisgender actors playing trans in media, she isn’t allowed to play a ciswoman… just trans, and maybe a unicorn.

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