And also, beyond here there
be spoilers! And fangirling!
I
have SO many things to say about “Carol.”
I have seen it 7 times since it came to Denver the very last days of
December – 4 times in the theater and three times (so far) on DVD, which
obviously I bought immediately. I’ve read “The Price of Salt” 4 or 5 times now,
and the last half (starting with the road trip) even more.
I
have SO many things to say about “Carol.” But to start, I have to tell you a
little about the year I turned 12 – 1982.
Many things happened to me that year, most of which is a long story for
another time. But those things, I’ll tell you, left me feeling very alone, and
lonely, and afraid.
“Tootsie,”
released in December of 1982, was one of those things that happened to me. If
you’re not familiar with the story, Dustin Hoffman’s character dresses up as a
woman in order to get an acting job, and then, on the job and so “in character”
as a woman, falls in love with Jessica Lange’s character. (I used to think it was hilarious but now I’m
a little worried about transmisogyny and homophobia and heterosexism...)
Anyway…I
still remember how it felt in my belly when Jessica Lange was on the screen,
when Hoffman-as-a-woman touched her hair when they lay in bed, and when they
almost, almost kissed on the couch. I
still remember riding home in the car, staring out the window, playing those
scenes over in my head, and knowing in a deep deep place that I couldn’t even
admit I knew, that I looked at Jessica the same way Hoffman-as-a-woman (and
the camera) did, that I wanted to touch her the way Hoffman-as-a-woman
did. And I wondered why it got awkward
(or became a joke? I mean, it’s played for laughs) when they almost kissed.
There
was nobody, nobody I knew who I could talk to about it. I didn’t know what it was I felt, had no words
for it, for what I knew. I didn’t know
“lesbian” or even gay. I did know
this: All the girls around me were so
into boys, and I pretended, but knew (in not quite so deep a place) that I was lying.
I
was really lonely.
And
that was it. That was all the
representation I had, on screen, of some piece of truth of me. A story about a man dressed as a woman just to
get a job who falls in love with another woman while he’s dressed as a woman
and…well. The point is, it was not actually my truth exactly, right?
And
then…as a teenager my parents introduced me to Hitchcock movies. I loved them, was fascinated by them as
filmmaking (I ended up taking a film class on Hitchcock in college) and, let’s
be totally honest, I LOVED Grace Kelly.
I’m
dying.
Also. HER MIDDLE NAME IS CAROL.
I
couldn’t get enough. (Still can’t.) I
watched “Rear Window” (especially) and “To Catch a Thief” and “Vertigo” (not
Grace, but the mesmerization of gaze and longing hooked me) whenever I
could. There was no Google Image then,
but I cut out pictures of Grace, and Kim, (and Kiri, hello queer opera friends)
when I could find them and pinned them to my bulletin board. My friends had pictures of Rob Lowe and
Emilio Estevez.
 | |
| I also had this album. I didn't understand the flowers, but I sure did understand that gaze. |
Well.
But
the only way to imagine myself in those stories – was to imagine myself as Cary
Grant, or Jimmy Stewart (or a tenor, but I hadn’t discovered Rosenkavalier yet). I did not know how to imagine me, myself as a
cisgender woman, into those stories, because none existed (so let’s ask: did I exist?). (Note: “PersonalBest” also came out in 1982, but I never heard of it until many many years
later, when I was already out. Which says something about whose stories get
told, and distributed, and lifted up.)
So
I would imagine myself as Jimmy Stewart in “Rear Window,” looking at Grace
Kelly the way he (and the camera) did when she first enters. I also wrote stories during those teenage
years as a safe place to imagine myself into a story where I-as-a-man got to
kiss or be kissed by a woman. Like I saw on screen. I knew I was doing this
even though I also didn’t know, at the same time, if that makes sense.
I’m
a cis woman. I knew that then. I knew I was a girl who was utterly
enthralled by Grace Kelly, and the only way I found to be a part of that story
was to imagine myself to be something I wasn’t (am not). Because those were the only stories I read or
saw, anywhere. And those stories weren’t
really mine anyway, weren’t made for me.
It
was a confusing, and lonely, time. I
remember in my body the aching loneliness of *looking* and knowing I wasn’t
supposed to, knowing that look wouldn’t be returned.
And
then this happened:
When “Fried Green Tomatoes” came out in January, 1992, I just about nearly came out of my skin. I felt like I was flying. I saw it over, and over, and over. And over. After the first time I saw it I made my best friend Mickey take me shopping for a denim shirt so I could feel like Idgie. Finally, FINALLY here was something on screen, a story that felt like what I felt. I could see myself-as-me in it for the first time. I didn’t have to imagine myself into something I wasn’t. Something shifted and felt possible.
By
June of that year, I had come out.
Stories
matter. Stories can show us pieces of
ourselves, tell us things about ourselves, affirm parts of ourselves. Stories,
whether written or on screen, help us to imagine what is possible – for each
other, and yes, for ourselves. This is
why representation matters. This is why
we have to ask: whose stories are being told, celebrated, funded, awarded,
distributed? This is why campaigns like
#OscarsSoWhite and #BuryYourGays are so important. (I wrote about this last year after the Oscar
nominations, in the context of race.)
What
would it have meant to have had that representation when I was a lonely 12-year
old girl, a closeted, scared, queer adolescent longing for Grace Kelly but with
no stories to guide me?
Now
I know, because now we have “Carol.”
On
to Part 2 here!
