We should have more boring egomaniacs
At this rate in a year or two most people will be LGBTQ+.
Elliot Page has taken aim at the notion that queer films only have a small audience.
What are “queer films”? Of course NBC News doesn’t say.
Speaking at the BFI Flare, London’s LGBTQ film festival, the actor said that “30% of young people identify as LGBTQ,” referring to a survey released earlier this year about Gen Z adults in the U.S. “So I’m sorry, but this is not niche.”
Oh I see, that kind of “queer.” The kind that just means “more interesting than you.” 99% of that 30% are that kind of queer, as opposed to lesbian or gay or bisexual. LGBTQ is just a shortcut for people who want to be less boring.
Reflecting on his current status as a working actor and filmmaker through his own Page Boy Productions banner, Page said he felt fortunate.
“I hate that I have to say this because it should not be the case, and we should have lots of trans actors,” he said. “But I feel really lucky that I’ve gone through what I’ve gone through and still get to be here and make things.”
Why? Why should we have lots of trans actors? It’s a tiny tiny tiny niche after all, so why should we have more of it? You might as well say we should have more stamp-collector actors, more flea-trainer actors, more allergic to marmalade actors.
I studied to be an actor under one of Australia’s greats of the stage. I had self-esteem issues and I also saw the precarious nature of an actor’s life.
So, I became a Stage Manager which ensured I worked every show, not just some.
Now, 50 years later, I discover I never was a Stage manager, I was a Trans Actor.
…and how many “queer” movie goers are there in the People’s Republic of China? It’s Sundance stuff…
Side note: “Pageboy”, Elliot Page’s memoir, only sold 67,038 copies despite sold to Flatiron books for about $3 million:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/11/07/can-streisand-top-prince-harry-or-britney-spears-here-are-2023s-celebrity-memoirs-that-sold-and-didnt/
Page’s interview has “I’m still relevant, dammnit!” all over it.
Golly, that was a costly mistake.
I think many companies and institutions have grotesquely overestimated the interest in and support of all things “trans.” This overestimation might arise from its magnified presence on social media and its constant flogging by captured media. They might also be miscalculating the effectiveness of the propaganda efforts they’ve been engaged in, with all those “daily reminders,” and the trans related stories loaded into news feeds. Never mind that the constant barrage would seem to indicate some level of resistance to the campaign. If acceptance was that widespread, the continued efforts wouldn’t be necessary.
Our local library branch has a table set up for “Trans Day of Visibility,” with a display of trans themed books, and a little basket of buttons in baby blue, pink, and white (the slogans on which I did not stop to read). To be fair, they have displays for Black History Month, International Women’s Day, and lots of celebrations, holidays and commemorations. But I’ll bet that there will be more such displays for transness as there are so many Trans Days and Months of whatever spread over the calendar (see above regarding the never-ending promotion). Pride will see more than its share of transitude thanks to forced teaming. I don’t know if they’ll be doing Drag Queen Story Hour again or not; I think they might get some pushback on that this time round, though.
As noted here recently, part of the resistance to trans ideology (as with Gay Rights) is just the “ick” factor. But beyond that, resistance to Gay Rights couldn’t really point to any harm that wasn’t based on purely religious grounds, which, in a secular society, isn’t sufficient reason for public policy; gay marriage, for example, was never going to “hurt” or “destroy” heterosexual marriage. Protecting the basic civil rights of gays and lesbians simply extended those rights to another category, and didn’t cost anyone anything but their bigotry.
But with trans “rights” the story is different. Demanding “identity” claims be unquestioningly respected and obeyed, access to wrong sex spaces, etc., aren’t basic civil rights, they are privileges. They harm women. The recruitment of children and putting them on a lifelong path of medicalization harms children. Opponents of Gay Rights had no similar harms that they could point to in their own campaigns. Trans activists have to hide these facts, and are eager to portray their opponents as right-wing, religious bigots, and that the struggle for “trans rights” is just a replay of the struggle for Gay Rights. Nope. Show me where the Gay Rights movement attempted to bully people into normalizing the drugging, mutilation, and sterilization of children, the violation of women’s boundaries, or anything remotely similar.
Trans appropriated rainbows are everywhere. Shop clerks eagerly overshare pronouns on their name tags. Silence in the presence of the messaging doesn’t mean the messages have been taken to heart. Page Boy didn’t climb the bestseller charts. Major brands have to walk back campaigns built around trans “influencers.” People might nod and smile on the outside, duck and cover when they can, mouth the platitudes and use the pronouns when they must, but in their hearts, they still do not love Big Brother.
I was just thinking about that – about the gap between all the official rah rah and the real life probabilities. The officials can yell about inclusion all they want but they can’t make us want to have sex with or marry or even be friends with trans people. That stuff is still up to us; we still get to make our own choices. Maybe part (or all) of the reason the rhetoric is so constant and frenzied is that yawning gap. Endless solidarity on Twitter but still nobody wants to sit next to Willoughby at the movies.
I had a closer look at the basket o’ buttons on the “Trans Day of Visibility” display at our library; they said “Protect Trans Kids.”
GRRRRRR. I’ve expressed my extreme dislike for the concept/diagnosis of “Trans Kids” here on B&W on a number of occasions. If I weren’t afraid of being reported and or banned from the library, I’d love to put up my own little sign infront of the basket saying “Protect Children from Trans Ideology,” but I’m too much of a coward to do so. I’m just not up to going against the grain in this instance.
Outside on the steps and sidewalk, a child was busy chalking hearts in “trans” colour s, as well as other pro-trans propaganda. “You are Loved! You belong here!” I don’t want or need my library to “love” me, I want it to have books. Offering some kind of dutiful, syrupy “love” and “belonging” to anyone is outside its remit.
“Diversity not Division.” “Radiate Positivity.” I couldn’t help but think “Physician, heal thyself” at these two. Trans activists would do well to take these slogans to heart, but they’re not expected to. Respect, and obedience to such exhortations is a one way street.
The child doing the chalking (My guess is she was in the 8-10 year old range) seemed to be working with a library staff member. I found it kinda creepy that this child was being recruited/deployed by the library (or offered up by her parents) to write out these slogans and demands that I believe would be beyond her young understanding. I’d have been equally uneasy if she’d been inscribing slogans for a political party, promoting the merits of particular tax or immigration policies. But essentially, that’s what she was doing: trans “rights” are a political campaign, not an actual “rights” movement, and tied up as they have become with sex and sexuality, “gender identity” and such contested, adult concepts, not really appropriate for foisting upon a young child. In other words, I believe someone else put her up to it; I don’t think she would have come up with the idea of doing this without an adult’s help. I don’t think a child would have come up with the slogans she was writing out without a grown up feeding them to her. “Radiate Positivity?” Please.
This is less extreme, but it reminded me of seeing footage of young children in the UK during the Thatcher era’s miners’ strikes of the 70’s and 80’s, joining their parents on the picket line screaming “SCAB!” at workers crossing it. They couldn’t possibly know or understand what was going on, or the meaning of what they were screaming. Call me naive and privileged, but I believe part of the responsibility of parenting involves shielding children from the burdens, pressures, and realities of the adult world until they are old enough and mature enough to understand them to some extent, at which time they can choose to to engage with them. Let kids be kids. I realize that sometimes that is not possible, as in the case of Black children in the US South trying to go to school in the days of segregation.
I am fortunate in that I live in circumstances that are less dire and immediate than many others, where there is no urgency to recruit children to join in adult issues and struggles. But then again, there is no need to recruit children in the name of trans “rights,” and the concept of “trans kids” is something that should not be foisted on children. How many would ever have considered themselves to be “trans” at all if they had not first been exposed to the idea by adults with an agenda? How many would have come up with this particular self-diagnosis and lifestyle without being lured and recruited by the promise of special attention and love bombing that even the state itself, through the schools, have heaped upon “transness”? They’re being enticed to sign up for the Rainbow Glitter Army, where every meal is cupcakes and ice cream, instead of the boring broccoli and boiled potatoes they get served at home by their boring moms and dads. They’re being offered the chance of a new, special, glamourous, brave and stunning secret existence, like a real-life superhero. Who wouldn’t join?
“Flea-trainer actors”
I submit that we really need more references to flea-training.
“Endless solidarity on Twitter but still nobody wants to sit next to Willoughby at the movies.”
This is social-media trans activism in a nutshell. Or, as we used to be told back in the halcyon days before widespread Internet access, “actions speak louder than words”.
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YNNB #7
See also children of Westboro Baptist Church members holding signs reading “God Hates Fags”.
From “transacting my business” to “trans acting: my business”.