Actors

peter and betsy very much give white lotus season 3

peter and betsy very much give white lotus season 3

Identification (or the Death of FEM(&)BOYS)

There are two things I refused to subscribe to that you must know before I go any further.

FIRST I do not subscribe to the theory of gender performativity (the argument created by Judith Butler that being born male or female does not determinate behaviour but rather they learn to behave in ways to fit into society or in order words gender as an act), while for others it may explain and align with how they perceive themselves and their gender identity, which I have no issues with by the way to each their own, as for me it just never sits right personally. Before I transition I never felt like a man, I felt like a husk of a human being and that’s my lived experience, you can analyse, dissect, pick apart all aspects of me and who I am and my past that could be used to counter how I feel and trust me I spent too many hours picking myself apart and trying to entertain the idea that yeah maybe those feelings I had as a child for femininity was some retroactive hindsight thing or that maybe the fact that I was a husk just means I’m now starting to play a role that felt befitting to me and yeah I can’t forget I’m trans. Everybody whether it’s those on the right or when it’s convenient, on the left, wants me to be reminded that I’m trans.
And well, at the risk of losing some of my audience, ultimately what it comes down to for me is that if I’m not a woman then I don’t know what the hell I am. That’s the perspective I’m viewing this film with in that I don’t feel cursed to be a woman but I do sometimes feel suffocated by how my and many others’ existence is being used politically, culturally and socially just because our bodies do not match what they or we are expecting (or simply that we’re all lumped into “trans”) and this goes for both sides how there’s this constant weight that I cannot just simply live as who I am without it being a big deal. Without it holding some responsibility or danger and you know I do get it, i have privilege in that I pass decently well enough to not constantly be dysphoric and I live in a country that atleast tolerates people like me which I know is far from the story for many other people and when you can it is important to stand up so that the world always know we exist, I believe first and foremost that trans people deserve to live, that’s easy enough said and ultimately I think we all want the same thing. Some peace of mind but then its how we try to make sense of ourselves and others and achieve that sense of reassurance and how we are who we are and contextualise and theorise and categorise what’s right and wrong, nowadays where we’re more and more losing empathy in favour of online instant gratification apathy that makes any nuance discussion especially one that could be as complicated or simple as transness forefront divide and picking sides then actually coming to a understanding or acceptance of how varied and complex we can be as just human beings.
Like as long as we aren’t hurting anybody, just let people fucking be.

Second thing I do not subscribe to is the notion that we are limited in what we can do in art. Everybody should be able to make art about anything. If not for nothing else, thus the art can tell us just as much about the people making them and what they deep down believe with whatever subject they’re handling, case in point with all that out of the way…

ACTORS.
It’s so tempting to (pun intended) label Actors, that it is indeed on stage this transphobic minstrel show of every transphobic and TERF’s self induced nightmares about how trans people are gonna take over the world while back stage this ugly hyper online sibling rivalry while also within the blinding spotlight a blurry mix of clearly real insecurity and jealousy on a creative and personal level but also on a formal level all mixed together into a deeply discomforting piece.
As you can tell, this 80 minute movie is a lot. It tries to do a lot, it succeeds by its own rules that it creates for itself and nobody else’s and so how can you even begin to perceive or process any of this leads back to identification. No other words I feel describes a movie more perfectly than identification because not only is that what the movie’s about (even if Mrs. Brown argues otherwise) but it’s also how one views this or really any other movie.
All films no matter its intentions is open to all interpretations and understanding including wrong or bad faith ones, our understanding of who makes it can shroud and inform our judgement further. The way I approach it for me personally is that arguably it always should inform, to know more is to know better. For example Ingmar Bergman’s Shame may be a effectively sorry excuse to self pity and justify his wrongful nazism, to learn about that could either repulse you away from the idea of Shame or make the film itself even more interesting. To support financially is another matter, but if talking purely on an artistic engagement I always encourage for us to engage with complexity and ambiguity with… well complexity and ambiguity and in the same way films generate empathy for us, we need to return it back to come to a good understanding of what we’re watching and why (and by empathy that doesn’t mean to be all nice and loving and forgiving to everything just because we’re “in their shoes” but to simply understand as humanly as we can why it is the way it is and try coming at it now with our perspective) and that’s what I’m gonna do here.

You can watch Actors first or just read this, it’s hard to recommend because again more than any other movie this really depends on the eyes of the beholder. Like I can totally see two people watching this one thinking it’s anti abortion and another thinking it’s pro abortion and I would have arguments for both cases. It’s a film that teeters between being complex and messy, so you’re either complicated or an asshole if you choose to watch this basically. Don’t know what it makes me but I guess you be the judge of that.

What I find to be the most unifying aspect of Actors is how it undeniably deals with gender dynamics, I would argue even if you land largely on this being transphobic, the way the sister and brother is handled here whether through the context of him just being Peter or Petra is what’s most authentic here. I’m constantly reminded of how me and my sisters navigated my initial coming out and transitioning, that back and forth of figuring out how much of who they thought I was (their brother) is actually who I am (their sister). While it is clear throughout that Peter is not actually trans and is a cis straight man masquerading as trans for the sake of his acting career and “art”, he is still going through the process that all trans woman has to go through, the awkward baby trans phases, putting on crude make up, bad wigs, revealing clothes and evensurely hormones which you can look at it three ways especially with the ending, that yeah indeed it’s a ignorant stereotype of what a “fake trans” person is like pushed to the extremes and “invading spaces”, or that it swings towards the idea of gender performativism, that with enough behavioural change one transitions… or atleast for me maybe its really less a statement as it is a question, how much or what makes one a woman?
I’m gonna bring up identification again, because really the person I resonated with the most throughout Actors is Betsy and her attempts to uphold her femininity and fame against her brother by getting pregnant, all for vanity sake. It’s certainly easier for me to do this cause Peter as a character is just unlikable but (and I will be at my most ugly here undoubtedly but it’s how I feel, I value myself on honesty so) I can’t help but also relate in someway to how I perceive my own identity through the film, in that I am a woman but suddenly I’m hit with this other character who is similar to me, who’s a part of me, who’s family and still is in some way but isn’t me entirely but they’re now how some people may perceive me instead of just who I am and there’s been times where in vain I tried desperately to validate myself and my womanhood because I felt so invalidated by everyone around me and this idea hanging over my head, constantly growing larger in the news, on the phone, and it’s like that’s all people can see of me so what can I do to prove once and for all that I’m a woman first more then anything?
But It’s undeniable that for some people this character will also function well as their audience surrogate when it comes to viewing Peter as the representation of why trans woman are bad and taking over female spaces, not helping the case is the film’s ludicrous claim that trans women gets more work acting wise which as a actress myself, nope… like yeah better than when Tootsie did it and I get the point of this being a post MeToo reflection of how white cis straight men afterward the movement is perceived with more scrutiny? definitely a realisation of their oversaturation in art and its economy but as a whole with this movie it does a really good job being provocative but ending up kinda lost by the end, but the thing is it is reflected in the film itself in its hazardous yet straight to the point filmmaking and specifically with the character of Betsy whose femininity I would argue is only threatened because there’s something deeper going on with her beyond her gender identity which is ultimately fame and notoriety and how it’s essentially just another ploy for her and her brother to keep pushing one another creatively and personally, the ideal of femininity also being this challenge in that Betsy ultimately starts to fail as a mother meanwhile Peter is able to get jobs, has a career and over the course of the film look more and more passing but for what? All this for the play? Where is it all going? And I think one thing must be said, Peter is doing all of this precisely because he’s failing to be a man in the same way Betsy fails as a woman, it’s all vain but well what do I know about men let alone being one? It’s just that Peter’s and the film’s way of going about exploring his failure is well… this, which is a choice, more provocative than intuitive but atleast ultimately revealing.

Then there’s the consequences.
Admittedly part of the reason why i’ve soured on my identity as a trans person is due to the attacks I’ve endured online and in real life due to transphobia. And if there’s any part here really that genuinely offends me it is how flippantly the film handles attacks on trans people, not so much the attack itself but how little it realistically should registers for Peter who continues to yield it as a way to keep profiting rather than logically being the point I think he should ask himself why he’s really doing all this and by the end, almost as if it in denial or seeing it as further excuse to keep up his charade so then we have that ending which again, ends on this cynical open endedness that feels especially out of tune with where we’re at today with existing as a trans person and the implications are not pretty but then I’m reminded, I don’t think these characters (and maybe by extension the filmmakers) are living in reality anyways. There’s one part though that do resonate with the ending, the film throwing us a Hail Mary with its only legit trans character in the last second to comment that Peter is still not a trans woman no matter what and well… I still gotta ask, what then makes one a woman?

My mother said this to me the first thing after I told her who I was, that actually sperms and those cells are feminine first until further development in the womb and then finally it becomes male. I always wondered if instead of transitioning or changing I’m actually regressing? Yeah I don’t think I’m gonna figure any of my gender identity problems out here, I used to expect that from writing these reviews but in the same way I’m kinda disillusioned and frustrated by everything especially the label of trans and how that’s been used and politicised when like i’m just a girl, man, Actors being a fascinating micro product of that, I think i’m gonna stand by what ultimately makes me most happy to be myself, not to please others but to just be honest and real.
I won’t lie that throughout the past month I grew a bit of a fascination with the circlejerk cinema of the dirt left or whatever remains of Dimes Square that is, because for me underneath the centralist, edgelord balancing act between provocateur and posturing that bothers between fascism and liberalism at times there’s a kind of bizarre ironic but helplessly self aware and self confessing nature to these films and Actors is easily the most honest as much as it is disingenuous, it is literally about how these movies and the people who make them flippantly uses these sensitive topics and minorities for their own gain because in reality they’re all so hollow and chronically online that they almost wish they were those minorities (just still with the privilege and money of course). Above all else it’s this portrait of the side effect of 21st century internet post covid, you can’t lie, you can misinform, disinform, hide, manipulate, do all sorts but when you do something, the prints and search histories’ are all there evensurely its all coming back by the end so its both easier to resonate then ever with something (maybe why I did get a lot out of Actors despite the inherent flaws with it but hey what is art or human without flaws) but at the same time also not know fully just why until it becomes both obvious and complicated and bloated. Case in point, that’s why arguably, Femboys are no longer a thing.

Identification (or the Death of FEM(&)BOYS)

There are two things I refused to subscribe to that you must know before I go any further.

FIRST I do not subscribe to the theory of gender performativity (the argument created by Judith Butler that being born male or female does not determinate behaviour but rather they learn to behave in ways to fit into society or in order words gender as an act), while for others it may explain and align with how they perceive themselves and their gender identity, which I have no issues with by the way to each their own, as for me it just never sits right personally. Before I transition I never felt like a man, I felt like a husk of a human being and that’s my lived experience, you can analyse, dissect, pick apart all aspects of me and who I am and my past that could be used to counter how I feel and trust me I spent too many hours picking myself apart and trying to entertain the idea that yeah maybe those feelings I had as a child for femininity was some retroactive hindsight thing or that maybe the fact that I was a husk just means I’m now starting to play a role that felt befitting to me and yeah I can’t forget I’m trans. Everybody whether it’s those on the right or when it’s convenient, on the left, wants me to be reminded that I’m trans.
And well, at the risk of losing some of my audience, ultimately what it comes down to for me is that if I’m not a woman then I don’t know what the hell I am. That’s the perspective I’m viewing this film with in that I don’t feel cursed to be a woman but I do sometimes feel suffocated by how my and many others’ existence is being used politically, culturally and socially just because our bodies do not match what they or we are expecting (or simply that we’re all lumped into “trans”) and this goes for both sides how there’s this constant weight that I cannot just simply live as who I am without it being a big deal. Without it holding some responsibility or danger and you know I do get it, i have privilege in that I pass decently well enough to not constantly be dysphoric and I live in a country that atleast tolerates people like me which I know is far from the story for many other people and when you can it is important to stand up so that the world always know we exist, I believe first and foremost that trans people deserve to live, that’s easy enough said and ultimately I think we all want the same thing. Some peace of mind but then its how we try to make sense of ourselves and others and achieve that sense of reassurance and how we are who we are and contextualise and theorise and categorise what’s right and wrong, nowadays where we’re more and more losing empathy in favour of online instant gratification apathy that makes any nuance discussion especially one that could be as complicated or simple as transness forefront divide and picking sides then actually coming to a understanding or acceptance of how varied and complex we can be as just human beings.
Like as long as we aren’t hurting anybody, just let people fucking be.

Second thing I do not subscribe to is the notion that we are limited in what we can do in art. Everybody should be able to make art about anything. If not for nothing else, thus the art can tell us just as much about the people making them and what they deep down believe with whatever subject they’re handling, case in point with all that out of the way…

ACTORS.
It’s so tempting to (pun intended) label Actors, that it is indeed on stage this transphobic minstrel show of every transphobic and TERF’s self induced nightmares about how trans people are gonna take over the world while back stage this ugly hyper online sibling rivalry while also within the blinding spotlight a blurry mix of clearly real insecurity and jealousy on a creative and personal level but also on a formal level all mixed together into a deeply discomforting piece.
As you can tell, this 80 minute movie is a lot. It tries to do a lot, it succeeds by its own rules that it creates for itself and nobody else’s and so how can you even begin to perceive or process any of this leads back to identification. No other words I feel describes a movie more perfectly than identification because not only is that what the movie’s about (even if Mrs. Brown argues otherwise) but it’s also how one views this or really any other movie.
All films no matter its intentions is open to all interpretations and understanding including wrong or bad faith ones, our understanding of who makes it can shroud and inform our judgement further. The way I approach it for me personally is that arguably it always should inform, to know more is to know better. For example Ingmar Bergman’s Shame may be a effectively sorry excuse to self pity and justify his wrongful nazism, to learn about that could either repulse you away from the idea of Shame or make the film itself even more interesting. To support financially is another matter, but if talking purely on an artistic engagement I always encourage for us to engage with complexity and ambiguity with… well complexity and ambiguity and in the same way films generate empathy for us, we need to return it back to come to a good understanding of what we’re watching and why (and by empathy that doesn’t mean to be all nice and loving and forgiving to everything just because we’re “in their shoes” but to simply understand as humanly as we can why it is the way it is and try coming at it now with our perspective) and that’s what I’m gonna do here.

You can watch Actors first or just read this, it’s hard to recommend because again more than any other movie this really depends on the eyes of the beholder. Like I can totally see two people watching this one thinking it’s anti abortion and another thinking it’s pro abortion and I would have arguments for both cases. It’s a film that teeters between being complex and messy, so you’re either complicated or an asshole if you choose to watch this basically. Don’t know what it makes me but I guess you be the judge of that.

What I find to be the most unifying aspect of Actors is how it undeniably deals with gender dynamics, I would argue even if you land largely on this being transphobic, the way the sister and brother is handled here whether through the context of him just being Peter or Petra is what’s most authentic here. I’m constantly reminded of how me and my sisters navigated my initial coming out and transitioning, that back and forth of figuring out how much of who they thought I was (their brother) is actually who I am (their sister). While it is clear throughout that Peter is not actually trans and is a cis straight man masquerading as trans for the sake of his acting career and “art”, he is still going through the process that all trans woman has to go through, the awkward baby trans phases, putting on crude make up, bad wigs, revealing clothes and evensurely hormones which you can look at it three ways especially with the ending, that yeah indeed it’s a ignorant stereotype of what a “fake trans” person is like pushed to the extremes and “invading spaces”, or that it swings towards the idea of gender performativism, that with enough behavioural change one transitions… or atleast for me maybe its really less a statement as it is a question, how much or what makes one a woman?
I’m gonna bring up identification again, because really the person I resonated with the most throughout Actors is Betsy and her attempts to uphold her femininity and fame against her brother by getting pregnant, all for vanity sake. It’s certainly easier for me to do this cause Peter as a character is just unlikable but (and I will be at my most ugly here undoubtedly but it’s how I feel, I value myself on honesty so) I can’t help but also relate in someway to how I perceive my own identity through the film, in that I am a woman but suddenly I’m hit with this other character who is similar to me, who’s a part of me, who’s family and still is in some way but isn’t me entirely but they’re now how some people may perceive me instead of just who I am and there’s been times where in vain I tried desperately to validate myself and my womanhood because I felt so invalidated by everyone around me and this idea hanging over my head, constantly growing larger in the news, on the phone, and it’s like that’s all people can see of me so what can I do to prove once and for all that I’m a woman first more then anything?
But It’s undeniable that for some people this character will also function well as their audience surrogate when it comes to viewing Peter as the representation of why trans woman are bad and taking over female spaces, not helping the case is the film’s ludicrous claim that trans women gets more work acting wise which as a actress myself, nope… like yeah better than when Tootsie did it and I get the point of this being a post MeToo reflection of how white cis straight men afterward the movement is perceived with more scrutiny? definitely a realisation of their oversaturation in art and its economy but as a whole with this movie it does a really good job being provocative but ending up kinda lost by the end, but the thing is it is reflected in the film itself in its hazardous yet straight to the point filmmaking and specifically with the character of Betsy whose femininity I would argue is only threatened because there’s something deeper going on with her beyond her gender identity which is ultimately fame and notoriety and how it’s essentially just another ploy for her and her brother to keep pushing one another creatively and personally, the ideal of femininity also being this challenge in that Betsy ultimately starts to fail as a mother meanwhile Peter is able to get jobs, has a career and over the course of the film look more and more passing but for what? All this for the play? Where is it all going? And I think one thing must be said, Peter is doing all of this precisely because he’s failing to be a man in the same way Betsy fails as a woman, it’s all vain but well what do I know about men let alone being one? It’s just that Peter’s and the film’s way of going about exploring his failure is well… this, which is a choice, more provocative than intuitive but atleast ultimately revealing.

Then there’s the consequences.
Admittedly part of the reason why i’ve soured on my identity as a trans person is due to the attacks I’ve endured online and in real life due to transphobia. And if there’s any part here really that genuinely offends me it is how flippantly the film handles attacks on trans people, not so much the attack itself but how little it realistically should registers for Peter who continues to yield it as a way to keep profiting rather than logically being the point I think he should ask himself why he’s really doing all this and by the end, almost as if it in denial or seeing it as further excuse to keep up his charade so then we have that ending which again, ends on this cynical open endedness that feels especially out of tune with where we’re at today with existing as a trans person and the implications are not pretty but then I’m reminded, I don’t think these characters (and maybe by extension the filmmakers) are living in reality anyways. There’s one part though that do resonate with the ending, the film throwing us a Hail Mary with its only legit trans character in the last second to comment that Peter is still not a trans woman no matter what and well… I still gotta ask, what then makes one a woman?

My mother said this to me the first thing after I told her who I was, that actually sperms and those cells are feminine first until further development in the womb and then finally it becomes male. I always wondered if instead of transitioning or changing I’m actually regressing? Yeah I don’t think I’m gonna figure any of my gender identity problems out here, I used to expect that from writing these reviews but in the same way I’m kinda disillusioned and frustrated by everything especially the label of trans and how that’s been used and politicised when like i’m just a girl, man, Actors being a fascinating micro product of that, I think i’m gonna stand by what ultimately makes me most happy to be myself, not to please others but to just be honest and real.
I won’t lie that throughout the past month I grew a bit of a fascination with the circlejerk cinema of the dirt left or whatever remains of Dimes Square that is, because for me underneath the centralist, edgelord balancing act between provocateur and posturing that bothers between fascism and liberalism at times there’s a kind of bizarre ironic but helplessly self aware and self confessing nature to these films and Actors is easily the most honest as much as it is disingenuous, it is literally about how these movies and the people who make them flippantly uses these sensitive topics and minorities for their own gain because in reality they’re all so hollow and chronically online that they almost wish they were those minorities (just still with the privilege and money of course). Above all else it’s this portrait of the side effect of 21st century internet post covid, you can’t lie, you can misinform, disinform, hide, manipulate, do all sorts but when you do something, the prints and search histories’ are all there evensurely its all coming back by the end so its both easier to resonate then ever with something (maybe why I did get a lot out of Actors despite the inherent flaws with it but hey what is art or human without flaws) but at the same time also not know fully just why until it becomes both obvious and complicated and bloated. Case in point, that’s why arguably, Femboys are no longer a thing.

Identification (or the Death of FEM(&)BOYS)

There are two things I refused to subscribe to that you must know before I go any further.

FIRST I do not subscribe to the theory of gender performativity (the argument created by Judith Butler that being born male or female does not determinate behaviour but rather they learn to behave in ways to fit into society or in order words gender as an act), while for others it may explain and align with how they perceive themselves and their gender identity, which I have no issues with by the way to each their own, as for me it just never sits right personally. Before I transition I never felt like a man, I felt like a husk of a human being and that’s my lived experience, you can analyse, dissect, pick apart all aspects of me and who I am and my past that could be used to counter how I feel and trust me I spent too many hours picking myself apart and trying to entertain the idea that yeah maybe those feelings I had as a child for femininity was some retroactive hindsight thing or that maybe the fact that I was a husk just means I’m now starting to play a role that felt befitting to me and yeah I can’t forget I’m trans. Everybody whether it’s those on the right or when it’s convenient, on the left, wants me to be reminded that I’m trans.
And well, at the risk of losing some of my audience, ultimately what it comes down to for me is that if I’m not a woman then I don’t know what the hell I am. That’s the perspective I’m viewing this film with in that I don’t feel cursed to be a woman but I do sometimes feel suffocated by how my and many others’ existence is being used politically, culturally and socially just because our bodies do not match what they or we are expecting (or simply that we’re all lumped into “trans”) and this goes for both sides how there’s this constant weight that I cannot just simply live as who I am without it being a big deal. Without it holding some responsibility or danger and you know I do get it, i have privilege in that I pass decently well enough to not constantly be dysphoric and I live in a country that atleast tolerates people like me which I know is far from the story for many other people and when you can it is important to stand up so that the world always know we exist, I believe first and foremost that trans people deserve to live, that’s easy enough said and ultimately I think we all want the same thing. Some peace of mind but then its how we try to make sense of ourselves and others and achieve that sense of reassurance and how we are who we are and contextualise and theorise and categorise what’s right and wrong, nowadays where we’re more and more losing empathy in favour of online instant gratification apathy that makes any nuance discussion especially one that could be as complicated or simple as transness forefront divide and picking sides then actually coming to a understanding or acceptance of how varied and complex we can be as just human beings.
Like as long as we aren’t hurting anybody, just let people fucking be.

Second thing I do not subscribe to is the notion that we are limited in what we can do in art. Everybody should be able to make art about anything. If not for nothing else, thus the art can tell us just as much about the people making them and what they deep down believe with whatever subject they’re handling, case in point with all that out of the way…

ACTORS.
It’s so tempting to (pun intended) label Actors, that it is indeed on stage this transphobic minstrel show of every transphobic and TERF’s self induced nightmares about how trans people are gonna take over the world while back stage this ugly hyper online sibling rivalry while also within the blinding spotlight a blurry mix of clearly real insecurity and jealousy on a creative and personal level but also on a formal level all mixed together into a deeply discomforting piece.
As you can tell, this 80 minute movie is a lot. It tries to do a lot, it succeeds by its own rules that it creates for itself and nobody else’s and so how can you even begin to perceive or process any of this leads back to identification. No other words I feel describes a movie more perfectly than identification because not only is that what the movie’s about (even if Mrs. Brown argues otherwise) but it’s also how one views this or really any other movie.
All films no matter its intentions is open to all interpretations and understanding including wrong or bad faith ones, our understanding of who makes it can shroud and inform our judgement further. The way I approach it for me personally is that arguably it always should inform, to know more is to know better. For example Ingmar Bergman’s Shame may be a effectively sorry excuse to self pity and justify his wrongful nazism, to learn about that could either repulse you away from the idea of Shame or make the film itself even more interesting. To support financially is another matter, but if talking purely on an artistic engagement I always encourage for us to engage with complexity and ambiguity with… well complexity and ambiguity and in the same way films generate empathy for us, we need to return it back to come to a good understanding of what we’re watching and why (and by empathy that doesn’t mean to be all nice and loving and forgiving to everything just because we’re “in their shoes” but to simply understand as humanly as we can why it is the way it is and try coming at it now with our perspective) and that’s what I’m gonna do here.

You can watch Actors first or just read this, it’s hard to recommend because again more than any other movie this really depends on the eyes of the beholder. Like I can totally see two people watching this one thinking it’s anti abortion and another thinking it’s pro abortion and I would have arguments for both cases. It’s a film that teeters between being complex and messy, so you’re either complicated or an asshole if you choose to watch this basically. Don’t know what it makes me but I guess you be the judge of that.

What I find to be the most unifying aspect of Actors is how it undeniably deals with gender dynamics, I would argue even if you land largely on this being transphobic, the way the sister and brother is handled here whether through the context of him just being Peter or Petra is what’s most authentic here. I’m constantly reminded of how me and my sisters navigated my initial coming out and transitioning, that back and forth of figuring out how much of who they thought I was (their brother) is actually who I am (their sister). While it is clear throughout that Peter is not actually trans and is a cis straight man masquerading as trans for the sake of his acting career and “art”, he is still going through the process that all trans woman has to go through, the awkward baby trans phases, putting on crude make up, bad wigs, revealing clothes and evensurely hormones which you can look at it three ways especially with the ending, that yeah indeed it’s a ignorant stereotype of what a “fake trans” person is like pushed to the extremes and “invading spaces”, or that it swings towards the idea of gender performativism, that with enough behavioural change one transitions… or atleast for me maybe its really less a statement as it is a question, how much or what makes one a woman?
I’m gonna bring up identification again, because really the person I resonated with the most throughout Actors is Betsy and her attempts to uphold her femininity and fame against her brother by getting pregnant, all for vanity sake. It’s certainly easier for me to do this cause Peter as a character is just unlikable but (and I will be at my most ugly here undoubtedly but it’s how I feel, I value myself on honesty so) I can’t help but also relate in someway to how I perceive my own identity through the film, in that I am a woman but suddenly I’m hit with this other character who is similar to me, who’s a part of me, who’s family and still is in some way but isn’t me entirely but they’re now how some people may perceive me instead of just who I am and there’s been times where in vain I tried desperately to validate myself and my womanhood because I felt so invalidated by everyone around me and this idea hanging over my head, constantly growing larger in the news, on the phone, and it’s like that’s all people can see of me so what can I do to prove once and for all that I’m a woman first more then anything?
But It’s undeniable that for some people this character will also function well as their audience surrogate when it comes to viewing Peter as the representation of why trans woman are bad and taking over female spaces, not helping the case is the film’s ludicrous claim that trans women gets more work acting wise which as a actress myself, nope… like yeah better than when Tootsie did it and I get the point of this being a post MeToo reflection of how white cis straight men afterward the movement is perceived with more scrutiny? definitely a realisation of their oversaturation in art and its economy but as a whole with this movie it does a really good job being provocative but ending up kinda lost by the end, but the thing is it is reflected in the film itself in its hazardous yet straight to the point filmmaking and specifically with the character of Betsy whose femininity I would argue is only threatened because there’s something deeper going on with her beyond her gender identity which is ultimately fame and notoriety and how it’s essentially just another ploy for her and her brother to keep pushing one another creatively and personally, the ideal of femininity also being this challenge in that Betsy ultimately starts to fail as a mother meanwhile Peter is able to get jobs, has a career and over the course of the film look more and more passing but for what? All this for the play? Where is it all going? And I think one thing must be said, Peter is doing all of this precisely because he’s failing to be a man in the same way Betsy fails as a woman, it’s all vain but well what do I know about men let alone being one? It’s just that Peter’s and the film’s way of going about exploring his failure is well… this, which is a choice, more provocative than intuitive but atleast ultimately revealing.

Then there’s the consequences.
Admittedly part of the reason why i’ve soured on my identity as a trans person is due to the attacks I’ve endured online and in real life due to transphobia. And if there’s any part here really that genuinely offends me it is how flippantly the film handles attacks on trans people, not so much the attack itself but how little it realistically should registers for Peter who continues to yield it as a way to keep profiting rather than logically being the point I think he should ask himself why he’s really doing all this and by the end, almost as if it in denial or seeing it as further excuse to keep up his charade so then we have that ending which again, ends on this cynical open endedness that feels especially out of tune with where we’re at today with existing as a trans person and the implications are not pretty but then I’m reminded, I don’t think these characters (and maybe by extension the filmmakers) are living in reality anyways. There’s one part though that do resonate with the ending, the film throwing us a Hail Mary with its only legit trans character in the last second to comment that Peter is still not a trans woman no matter what and well… I still gotta ask, what then makes one a woman?

My mother said this to me the first thing after I told her who I was, that actually sperms and those cells are feminine first until further development in the womb and then finally it becomes male. I always wondered if instead of transitioning or changing I’m actually regressing? Yeah I don’t think I’m gonna figure any of my gender identity problems out here, I used to expect that from writing these reviews but in the same way I’m kinda disillusioned and frustrated by everything especially the label of trans and how that’s been used and politicised when like i’m just a girl, man, Actors being a fascinating micro product of that, I think i’m gonna stand by what ultimately makes me most happy to be myself, not to please others but to just be honest and real.
I won’t lie that throughout the past month I grew a bit of a fascination with the circlejerk cinema of the dirt left or whatever remains of Dimes Square that is, because for me underneath the centralist, edgelord balancing act between provocateur and posturing that bothers between fascism and liberalism at times there’s a kind of bizarre ironic but helplessly self aware and self confessing nature to these films and Actors is easily the most honest as much as it is disingenuous, it is literally about how these movies and the people who make them flippantly uses these sensitive topics and minorities for their own gain because in reality they’re all so hollow and chronically online that they almost wish they were those minorities (just still with the privilege and money of course). Above all else it’s this portrait of the side effect of 21st century internet post covid, you can’t lie, you can misinform, disinform, hide, manipulate, do all sorts but when you do something, the prints and search histories’ are all there evensurely its all coming back by the end so its both easier to resonate then ever with something (maybe why I did get a lot out of Actors despite the inherent flaws with it but hey what is art or human without flaws) but at the same time also not know fully just why until it becomes both obvious and complicated and bloated. Case in point, that’s why arguably, Femboys are no longer a thing.

Identification (or the Death of FEM(&)BOYS)

There are two things I refused to subscribe to that you must know before I go any further.

FIRST I do not subscribe to the theory of gender performativity (the argument created by Judith Butler that being born male or female does not determinate behaviour but rather they learn to behave in ways to fit into society or in order words gender as an act), while for others it may explain and align with how they perceive themselves and their gender identity, which I have no issues with by the way to each their own, as for me it just never sits right personally. Before I transition I never felt like a man, I felt like a husk of a human being and that’s my lived experience, you can analyse, dissect, pick apart all aspects of me and who I am and my past that could be used to counter how I feel and trust me I spent too many hours picking myself apart and trying to entertain the idea that yeah maybe those feelings I had as a child for femininity was some retroactive hindsight thing or that maybe the fact that I was a husk just means I’m now starting to play a role that felt befitting to me and yeah I can’t forget I’m trans. Everybody whether it’s those on the right or when it’s convenient, on the left, wants me to be reminded that I’m trans.
And well, at the risk of losing some of my audience, ultimately what it comes down to for me is that if I’m not a woman then I don’t know what the hell I am. That’s the perspective I’m viewing this film with in that I don’t feel cursed to be a woman but I do sometimes feel suffocated by how my and many others’ existence is being used politically, culturally and socially just because our bodies do not match what they or we are expecting (or simply that we’re all lumped into “trans”) and this goes for both sides how there’s this constant weight that I cannot just simply live as who I am without it being a big deal. Without it holding some responsibility or danger and you know I do get it, i have privilege in that I pass decently well enough to not constantly be dysphoric and I live in a country that atleast tolerates people like me which I know is far from the story for many other people and when you can it is important to stand up so that the world always know we exist, I believe first and foremost that trans people deserve to live, that’s easy enough said and ultimately I think we all want the same thing. Some peace of mind but then its how we try to make sense of ourselves and others and achieve that sense of reassurance and how we are who we are and contextualise and theorise and categorise what’s right and wrong, nowadays where we’re more and more losing empathy in favour of online instant gratification apathy that makes any nuance discussion especially one that could be as complicated or simple as transness forefront divide and picking sides then actually coming to a understanding or acceptance of how varied and complex we can be as just human beings.
Like as long as we aren’t hurting anybody, just let people fucking be.

Second thing I do not subscribe to is the notion that we are limited in what we can do in art. Everybody should be able to make art about anything. If not for nothing else, thus the art can tell us just as much about the people making them and what they deep down believe with whatever subject they’re handling, case in point with all that out of the way…

ACTORS.
It’s so tempting to (pun intended) label Actors, that it is indeed on stage this transphobic minstrel show of every transphobic and TERF’s self induced nightmares about how trans people are gonna take over the world while back stage this ugly hyper online sibling rivalry while also within the blinding spotlight a blurry mix of clearly real insecurity and jealousy on a creative and personal level but also on a formal level all mixed together into a deeply discomforting piece.
As you can tell, this 80 minute movie is a lot. It tries to do a lot, it succeeds by its own rules that it creates for itself and nobody else’s and so how can you even begin to perceive or process any of this leads back to identification. No other words I feel describes a movie more perfectly than identification because not only is that what the movie’s about (even if Mrs. Brown argues otherwise) but it’s also how one views this or really any other movie.
All films no matter its intentions is open to all interpretations and understanding including wrong or bad faith ones, our understanding of who makes it can shroud and inform our judgement further. The way I approach it for me personally is that arguably it always should inform, to know more is to know better. For example Ingmar Bergman’s Shame may be a effectively sorry excuse to self pity and justify his wrongful nazism, to learn about that could either repulse you away from the idea of Shame or make the film itself even more interesting. To support financially is another matter, but if talking purely on an artistic engagement I always encourage for us to engage with complexity and ambiguity with… well complexity and ambiguity and in the same way films generate empathy for us, we need to return it back to come to a good understanding of what we’re watching and why (and by empathy that doesn’t mean to be all nice and loving and forgiving to everything just because we’re “in their shoes” but to simply understand as humanly as we can why it is the way it is and try coming at it now with our perspective) and that’s what I’m gonna do here.

You can watch Actors first or just read this, it’s hard to recommend because again more than any other movie this really depends on the eyes of the beholder. Like I can totally see two people watching this one thinking it’s anti abortion and another thinking it’s pro abortion and I would have arguments for both cases. It’s a film that teeters between being complex and messy, so you’re either complicated or an asshole if you choose to watch this basically. Don’t know what it makes me but I guess you be the judge of that.

What I find to be the most unifying aspect of Actors is how it undeniably deals with gender dynamics, I would argue even if you land largely on this being transphobic, the way the sister and brother is handled here whether through the context of him just being Peter or Petra is what’s most authentic here. I’m constantly reminded of how me and my sisters navigated my initial coming out and transitioning, that back and forth of figuring out how much of who they thought I was (their brother) is actually who I am (their sister). While it is clear throughout that Peter is not actually trans and is a cis straight man masquerading as trans for the sake of his acting career and “art”, he is still going through the process that all trans woman has to go through, the awkward baby trans phases, putting on crude make up, bad wigs, revealing clothes and evensurely hormones which you can look at it three ways especially with the ending, that yeah indeed it’s a ignorant stereotype of what a “fake trans” person is like pushed to the extremes and “invading spaces”, or that it swings towards the idea of gender performativism, that with enough behavioural change one transitions… or atleast for me maybe its really less a statement as it is a question, how much or what makes one a woman?
I’m gonna bring up identification again, because really the person I resonated with the most throughout Actors is Betsy and her attempts to uphold her femininity and fame against her brother by getting pregnant, all for vanity sake. It’s certainly easier for me to do this cause Peter as a character is just unlikable but (and I will be at my most ugly here undoubtedly but it’s how I feel, I value myself on honesty so) I can’t help but also relate in someway to how I perceive my own identity through the film, in that I am a woman but suddenly I’m hit with this other character who is similar to me, who’s a part of me, who’s family and still is in some way but isn’t me entirely but they’re now how some people may perceive me instead of just who I am and there’s been times where in vain I tried desperately to validate myself and my womanhood because I felt so invalidated by everyone around me and this idea hanging over my head, constantly growing larger in the news, on the phone, and it’s like that’s all people can see of me so what can I do to prove once and for all that I’m a woman first more then anything?
But It’s undeniable that for some people this character will also function well as their audience surrogate when it comes to viewing Peter as the representation of why trans woman are bad and taking over female spaces, not helping the case is the film’s ludicrous claim that trans women gets more work acting wise which as a actress myself, nope… like yeah better than when Tootsie did it and I get the point of this being a post MeToo reflection of how white cis straight men afterward the movement is perceived with more scrutiny? definitely a realisation of their oversaturation in art and its economy but as a whole with this movie it does a really good job being provocative but ending up kinda lost by the end, but the thing is it is reflected in the film itself in its hazardous yet straight to the point filmmaking and specifically with the character of Betsy whose femininity I would argue is only threatened because there’s something deeper going on with her beyond her gender identity which is ultimately fame and notoriety and how it’s essentially just another ploy for her and her brother to keep pushing one another creatively and personally, the ideal of femininity also being this challenge in that Betsy ultimately starts to fail as a mother meanwhile Peter is able to get jobs, has a career and over the course of the film look more and more passing but for what? All this for the play? Where is it all going? And I think one thing must be said, Peter is doing all of this precisely because he’s failing to be a man in the same way Betsy fails as a woman, it’s all vain but well what do I know about men let alone being one? It’s just that Peter’s and the film’s way of going about exploring his failure is well… this, which is a choice, more provocative than intuitive but atleast ultimately revealing.

Then there’s the consequences.
Admittedly part of the reason why i’ve soured on my identity as a trans person is due to the attacks I’ve endured online and in real life due to transphobia. And if there’s any part here really that genuinely offends me it is how flippantly the film handles attacks on trans people, not so much the attack itself but how little it realistically should registers for Peter who continues to yield it as a way to keep profiting rather than logically being the point I think he should ask himself why he’s really doing all this and by the end, almost as if it in denial or seeing it as further excuse to keep up his charade so then we have that ending which again, ends on this cynical open endedness that feels especially out of tune with where we’re at today with existing as a trans person and the implications are not pretty but then I’m reminded, I don’t think these characters (and maybe by extension the filmmakers) are living in reality anyways. There’s one part though that do resonate with the ending, the film throwing us a Hail Mary with its only legit trans character in the last second to comment that Peter is still not a trans woman no matter what and well… I still gotta ask, what then makes one a woman?

My mother said this to me the first thing after I told her who I was, that actually sperms and those cells are feminine first until further development in the womb and then finally it becomes male. I always wondered if instead of transitioning or changing I’m actually regressing? Yeah I don’t think I’m gonna figure any of my gender identity problems out here, I used to expect that from writing these reviews but in the same way I’m kinda disillusioned and frustrated by everything especially the label of trans and how that’s been used and politicised when like i’m just a girl, man, Actors being a fascinating micro product of that, I think i’m gonna stand by what ultimately makes me most happy to be myself, not to please others but to just be honest and real.
I won’t lie that throughout the past month I grew a bit of a fascination with the circlejerk cinema of the dirt left or whatever remains of Dimes Square that is, because for me underneath the centralist, edgelord balancing act between provocateur and posturing that bothers between fascism and liberalism at times there’s a kind of bizarre ironic but helplessly self aware and self confessing nature to these films and Actors is easily the most honest as much as it is disingenuous, it is literally about how these movies and the people who make them flippantly uses these sensitive topics and minorities for their own gain because in reality they’re all so hollow and chronically online that they almost wish they were those minorities (just still with the privilege and money of course). Above all else it’s this portrait of the side effect of 21st century internet post covid, you can’t lie, you can misinform, disinform, hide, manipulate, do all sorts but when you do something, the prints and search histories’ are all there evensurely its all coming back by the end so its both easier to resonate then ever with something (maybe why I did get a lot out of Actors despite the inherent flaws with it but hey what is art or human without flaws) but at the same time also not know fully just why until it becomes both obvious and complicated and bloated. Case in point, that’s why arguably, Femboys are no longer a thing.

hello dad i’m…an ACTRESS!! 

fucking hysterical!!!! peter vack and betsey brown are a phenomenal duo, especially director, writer, AND editor betsey!! i couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. it’s just so unhinged and committed…

also peter is so hot just wanted to add that 😘

hello dad i’m…an ACTRESS!! 

fucking hysterical!!!! peter vack and betsey brown are a phenomenal duo, especially director, writer, AND editor betsey!! i couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. it’s just so unhinged and committed…

also peter is so hot just wanted to add that 😘

My last review of this film still applies but 

after a second watch, I could not get enough. Peter and Betsey are a wacky, sick, and crazy sibling duo. Actors is more than a film about a cis man transitioning for clout. Actors is a film about the comedy and tragedy of how far sibling rivalry will go (even if it is absolutely ridiculous).I love how ridiculously campy and former theatre kid this film is. The use of social media in this film portrays how our screens affect our minds and irl relationships (a la Wobble Palace). The discussions and reviews of this film just play into the movie even more. It might be seen as “lowbrow provocation” but that is literally the beauty of this film. Can’t wait for RachelOrmont.

My last review of this film still applies but 

after a second watch, I could not get enough. Peter and Betsey are a wacky, sick, and crazy sibling duo. Actors is more than a film about a cis man transitioning for clout. Actors is a film about the comedy and tragedy of how far sibling rivalry will go (even if it is absolutely ridiculous).I love how ridiculously campy and former theatre kid this film is. The use of social media in this film portrays how our screens affect our minds and irl relationships (a la Wobble Palace). The discussions and reviews of this film just play into the movie even more. It might be seen as “lowbrow provocation” but that is literally the beauty of this film. Can’t wait for RachelOrmont.