“Objects have more than one meaning at the same
time depending on the point of view and the context”
Kate
Bornstein is utterly postmodern. She is a proud embodiment of
a hypnotic yet distasteful theory that attempts to explain the dissolution
between opinions on high art and popular culture, and the subsequent
redefinition of what it is to have intrinsic ‘meaning’.
Kate has spent the last few years touring
the USA trying to recruit people to the idea that they should live their lives
in whatever way that they want, whether illegal, immoral or sadomasochistic, as
long as they “don’t be mean” to anyone.
And she makes an incredibly convincing case.
She began her life as Albert, a
middle-class conservative Jew from New Jersey, who quickly got drawn to the
‘church’ of Scientology and began to climb the ranks of the Sea Org (Google it,
I dare you). She eventually had gender
reassignment surgery in 1986 and wrote a number of books denouncing gender
binaries – most famously, Gender Outlaw,
which she proudly announces was banned by Pope Benedict. Since then she has given lectures and book
readings around the country on a mission to subvert conventional wisdom (i.e.
boring) about gender roles using her own story as a focal point (She has the
words ‘public property’ tattooed on her arm).
Sam
Feder’s documentary
allows her to explain her theories, both explicitly in interviews and
implicitly through natural footage of her life, and espouse her optimist
outlook on life and individuality. She
is funny, fierce and iconoclastic – at one point in reference to her daughter
Jessica’s children, her friend states: “you’re a grandmother”, to which she
replies “I’m a grandsomething!” This
playful attitude towards gender is present throughout the film.
And if her ideas around gender weren’t
interesting enough (they are), then she is also a recovering Scientologist – a
phenomenon of which I have been drawn to myself in as a subject for university
essays. Kate explains that the element
that first interested her in L. Ron Hubbard’s writing is his idea of ‘Emotional
Tone Scales’ – an idea that proposes that it is possible to predict the ‘rise
and fall of emotions’. Yet as is ever
the case with Scientologists, her rebellion has led her to become considered a
Suppressive Person – someone that should be alienated and targeted as a
threat. This has obviously caused her an
enormous amount of emotional heartache, but she isn’t as bitter as I would be
and ultimately relishes the fact that she has more twitter followers than the
church. Kate 1 – Hubbard 0.
The film is a joy to watch due to its
colourful misé-en-scene and upbeat optimism, and has such a delightful array of
characters that the running time utterly flew past. I hope that the film can introduce a whole
new legion of questioning young adults to the wonderland-rabbit-hole of postmodernism
and queer cultural studies, because if everyone had the same positive and
comfortable attitude towards their own bodies that Kate has then the world
would definitely be a clear and pleasant place.
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