David Kaufman in The New York Post:
Unlike the conventional Kardashian franchises, “I Am Cait” is delivered as TV with a message: Caitlyn Jenner’s transition is valid, her activism vital and her future very much a work-in-progress...
Valid.
Gone are the wife, the dad pants and the gaggle of kids, replaced by... [a] boring chief protagonist whose minority status does not a personality make. Indeed, throughout the Kardashian television canon, no character was . . . well . . . duller than Bruce Jenner. He was a good husband, great dad and enviable golf player (and, of course, Olympic deity). But a scintillating on-air presence? Meh — not so much. Bruce worked well as a background presence; Caitlyn, however, struggles to carry a scene.
Ultimately, Jenner suffers from an acute sense of ho-humness that no amount of makeup, surgery or Vanity Fair covers can erase. As Cait, she may now be the most visible member of America’s most-talked-about minority group. But no matter how hard she tries, Cait simply can’t undo Bruce’s decades of boring white-dudeness.
Why not just come out as boring? Boringness is also an orientation. It's
valid. It's not much of a TV show, but it's something many people are ashamed of and struggle to hide. Why does Kaufman imagine that a boring man would become interesting by taking on the various outward and inward trappings of womanhood?! Women are quite often boring. Theoretically, perhaps, Jenner was boring because Jenner was hiding Jenner's true self. But I watched enough of "I Am Cait" to form a permanent working assumption that Jenner really is boring. And being a woman, like being a man, is boring.
With her hilltop mansions and forest hideaways and endless SUVs, Cait just can’t cut it as the trans community’s activist-in-chief. Instead of preaching — albeit nobly — about how she and her sisters seek to live, Cait should simply just live. And not as an officially sanctioned trans person, but simply as a person.
A
boring person?
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32 comments:
Tags: Autogynephilia
Bruce still has his man gear. Because of this he is just a drag queen. Yawn.
I could stand for him to vanish.
"Boringness is also an orientation. It's valid."
Not as entertainment, not as tool to advance the Prog narrative.
Transgenderism is supposed to épater les bourgeois, to take down ordinary bourgeois culture, with its gender distinctions and heteronormativity, another peg or two.
Sure, Bruce's boringness normalizes insanity, but that's so very 60s. Been there, done that.
Of course, a conservative-woman-with-a-penis could be viewed as transmuting all the categories, including the pieties of Progressivism, but no self-respecting NYT reviewer can afford to go there.
I hate it when women have to be "sisters" due to some weird grouping.
Once people get over whatever shock and opposition they feel, a person doing hair and makeup and choosing outfits to wear is really boring. If you've been a man and are switching to presenting yourself as a woman, you might imagine that these woman things are interesting, but they are crushingly boring! Boring women are boring and doing hair and makeup and clothes is, in most cases, boring.
It's possible to be interesting about putting your clothes on. Little Edie. Joan Rivers, perhaps. I could think of a few more. I think I once saw a funny video of a woman putting on makeup (putting it on all wrong). But basically, if you want to be an INTERESTING woman, it's got to be about something other than self-beautification. Get your stuff on and then do or say something.
I stayed on to the point of watching Jenner play tennis. Now, there are interesting ways to play tennis. But muttering and hitting the ball into the net repeatedly is not one of those ways. If that's what they put in the first half hour of the show, what on earth are they dumping in the later segments?
One thing that has always made me a pariah among the more politically active gay community was my notion that there was no significant reason for gay individuals to identify with transgendered people. Gender identity and sexual orientation have some obvious overlaps, but I am not really sure why they should be allied. I think people obviously suffer from some form of gender identity disorder, but I think the jury is still out on whether or not surgical augmentation of one's body is an effective therapeutic for such a condition. Even this mild expression of agnosticism on the topic has garnered reactions of rage-filled denouncement. Part and parcel of all identity politics, I suppose. It has always been my position that respectful tolerance and peaceful co-exisitence should be our goal. Demanding that one not only be tolerated but accepted and even celebrated is creepy and authoritarian and probably a sign of some deep insecurity.
"it's got to be about something other than self-beautification"
Only if the woman is beautiful, which Jenner is not. I could watch Catherine Deneuve put on make up or clothes or take them off.
Farmer, you explained a lot to me by telling us you are gay. I mean that in a kindly way.
"my position that respectful tolerance and peaceful co-exisitence should be our goal."
This is well said and I promise to be more tolerant. Well, try to be more tolerant.
I don't think a man dressing up as a woman has to be boring if the person doing it has any talent for entertaining an audience. The contestants on Ru Paul's drag race make for fun watching doing just that. They entertain, as part of the competition, sometimes through the dressing up part, but also through acting, singing, whatever the show dreams up to have them do. Kait is just a slightly creepy senior citizen whose journey of self-discovery isn't really all that interesting because she's not the first guy to put on a dress, and who lacks the talent to come up with some new twist to make it interesting, especially when you can flip over to Logo and watch Ru Paul and her "girls" do their thing.
@Michael K:
"Farmer, you explained a lot to me by telling us you are gay."
I have mentioned it before on this blog on occasion when discussing the same-sex marriage issue. Otherwise, it's something I find comes up very infrequently in my life. And on the issues I like to talk about, it's really totally irrelevant. My arguments either make sense or they don't, and my facts are either right or wrong regardless of what happens to occur in my bedroom. The degree to which many gay people make their sexual orientation the defining nature of their identity has always been something I've found quite baffling.
Boring isn't Fabulous.
Jenner sounds "aggressively normal."
It's OK if he fails as an entertainment personality. People should not prop him up just because he's transgendered. That's disingenuous.
Hold on a dang second here. Is Cait the Plan 9 of TV reality shows?
I mean, it's like that woman who pretends to be black. There is no reason to attack her nor to adulate her.
@chickelit:
"There is no reason to attack her nor to adulate her."
Agree COMPLETELY.
Look at me - I'm on tv!
Prediction - the show will be cancelled and Caitlyn returns to Bruce within 2 years. Book it.
Selective exclusion is not selling. Either normalize all dysfunctional orientations and behaviors equally or promote tolerance of those that do not need to be rejected (e.g. selective-child, pedophilia). Class diversity is regressive. Superior classes is discriminatory. Establishment of a pro-choice cult is illegal. After Planned Parenthood and the lackluster rainbow flag, what will the "secular" cult offer next? The moral hazards are mounting.
A part of me still can't let go of the belief that this is all some massive publicity stunt by a family of pathological attentions seekers (to use the more polite term).
@Christopher:
"A part of me still can't let go of the belief that this is all some massive publicity stunt by a family of pathological attentions seekers (to use the more polite term)."
I have to admit that did briefly but legitimately cross my mind at one point. Then I stopped to think about what kind of personality would be drawn to that family system, it all made a little more sense. I have caught Kardashian content on TV on two occasions. One was in my home out of sheer morbid curiosity, and the second was being played during a marathon on the only English-language channel the TV got in a crappy hotel room in a small town about 2 hours north of Bangkok, Thailand.
I heard that there's a show proposal on the Sci Fy chanel to follow garage mahal as he "transitions" into a tolerable, socially competent human being.
"Gooble Gobble One of Us We Accept Her"
I mean, it's like that woman who pretends to be black. There is no reason to attack her nor to adulate her.
The two situations are not analogous.
Rachel Dolezal is perpetrating a fraud for personal gain. She is passing herself off as someone she isn't, lying about her race and background, in order to achieve her career goals as a black woman in the black community. Also, and not incidentally, she is a plagiarist as an artist.
Ironically, her actions are destroying the rationale for affirmative action and other raced based selection systems. If anyone can identify with the race and/or ethnicity on their choosing, and compel other to legally recongize and accept their choice, then the whole rotten edifice of race/ethnic-based preferences, set-asides, and etc. must per force collapse.
So, maybe we should thank her for what she's done. But that doesn't change the fact that she's living a lie.
I don't know any transgendered people. In the movies, they're either somewhat ridiculous or somewhat decadent. Hollywood needs a new stereotype. Everyone has a right to work out their own destiny their own way. Someday I hope to meet a transgendered person so I can treat them with dignity and respect......In my neighborhood, there's a little person. She looks like she might be a butch lesbian. I always treat her with dignity and respect. So that's proof positive that I'm a tolerant person and don't need to watch the Kardashian show to become a better human being.
" But basically, if you want to be an INTERESTING woman, it's got to be about something other than self-beautification. Get your stuff on and then do or say something."
Killing someone in a car crash is probably not a good career move to make oneself more interesting, unless one is already interesting.
I just pray boring white guy-ness is valid.
Hey remember that woman then-Bruce Jenner killed due to his distracted driving? Me neither.
Hey remember that woman then-Bruce Jenner killed due to his distracted driving? Me neither.
At the time of the alleged crime, she was a man who rear-ended a woman; now she's a woman who backed out of that role; she must be judged as if she has suffered.
If I were a California juror (and I have been one), I would recall California's "Yo-fault" from behind law and policy.
Bruce as a woman is a very vain woman. We've all known or dated divas who spent all their time looking at themselves in the mirror. They were narcissists with nothing behind them. Not smart, and even their looks were painted on.
Bruce is that woman. Who wants to watch a series about her?
Bruce as a man was an Olympiad who dominated over other athletes. I'd rather hear about that guy than the dainty flower with the manly voice who's sole reason for fame is that she got plastic surgery.
I transitioned with SRS in 1983 and happy to be "boring." I can live my life without undue attention because I don't show up on anyone's radar. This is a feature not a bug.
Ann said, "Women are quite often boring."
Amen. I am grateful for women who staked out the landscape I inhabit, where makeup, hair, clothing, purses are optional; an adolescent boy look, or androgynous.
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2015/08/why-i-am-cait-is-unwatchable-mess.html?showComment=1438995023554#c3940804370597852909
Autogynephilia does not exist, it is the preposterous fantasy of trans-eliminationist feminists.
I wonder if Caitlyn (Bruce) now golfs using the women's tees?
But basically, if you want to be an INTERESTING woman, it's got to be about something other than self-beautification. Get your stuff on and then do or say something.
Not necessarily. Since I'm anonymous here, I'll admit that I'd watch Kim K. take her clothes off. I'd turn the sound off, but I'd watch. Bruce, no. There are three genders: male, female, and ick.
Much more interesting and fun Drag Queens in "To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar" and "The Bird Cage". Bruce is just a drag queen with no talent. I feel badly for him.
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