Bear Week is over in Ptown. So if you go down to the woods today, you're going to be on your own. I am one sad Lesbruin.
I took to my bed and that's how I happened to watch Renée Zellweger in one of those Bridget Jones Diarrheas, in her real-life, form-fitting fat suit pre-dating Edna Turnblatt in Hairspray and Eddie Murphy in his Norbit suit, so offensive it lost him the Oscar. Hey, it was raining, Netflix doesn't come out this far and our one movie theater in town has been turned into a Crepe Place which I attacked on Bastille Day just because. And since when did weight gain mean acting? Thanks a lotta, Mr. Lamotta.
Since it was so excruciating to watch Zellweger/Jones desperately seeking suitors, I flicked between her and Tom Cruise, the sofa-hopping Scientologist, in Minority Report, a sci fi flick in which Tom plays a DC cop in a pre-crime unit. Based on intel from pre-cogs floating in a sensory deprivation tank, Tom arrests people before they commit a crime. How to try them if they didn't commit a crime? Now you know where Gonzo got the idea for Guantanamo.
That filmic afternoon gave me the idea to write a review of the trans-genre Hairspray, the-movie-based-on-the-Broadway-play-based-on-the-movie, [Dramamine drip, please] before I leave the country for ten days. But I refuse to watch it on a blueberry crepe, so I decided I would pre-review it. Pre-reviewing is a time honored tradition among right wing conservatives. They write reviews without the inconvenience of actually having to see the movie. Think pre-crime.
I could hardly get across the huge picket line. Kidding. The Washington Blade has called for a movie boycott because of John Travolta's membership in the "Church" of Scientology. The Blade said that because of L Ron Hubbard's rhubarbs of opposing homosexuality and of funding reparative therapies for gays, that we should boycott the movie. I remember no call to boycott Minority Report, or I never would have watched. From what I remember of the play, the KKK, not gays, should boycott based on Tracey Turnblatt's passion for integration. She would be undeterred by the Supreme Court's back to segregation decision.
In most press junkets interviews, Travolta has said that he is not playing a gay character and Scientology is not homophobic. Therefore it is so. He said he wanted the challenge of playing Edna so that the audience would just see Edna, a vulnerable, voluptuous housewife gone to flesh, not John Travolta being amazing. And unlike Renée/Bridget, you wouldn't have to worry about the long term effects of yo-yo dieting. She ate so many yo-yos. And Travolta pointed out that he was not like Robin "he's such a bear" Williams playing a guy playing Mrs. Doubtfire who actually looked like Glenn Close in the Greta Cammemeyer story. Nor Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie. You could tell Hoffman, Williams and Travolta think they make better women than women ever do. Mary Martin in Peter Pan was my first butch role model.
The whole pre-pre-review process made me have one of those trans-anxiety attacks where you practically have to get out a chalk board and diagram: Okay FTM, that's female to male, Mary Martin, flies out long, and MTF that's male to female, Travolta, does a quick in and out pattern. I hate my pronoun slurring embarrassment despite the patient, amused reassurance of my trans friends. That and my ursine grief or the fact that I have to go pack for India, made me so tired, I just decided to watch Napoleon Dynamite for the nth time. I'm learning his "Vote for Pedro" dance. FYI: you can't do that Saturday Night Fever disco thing in moonboots.