I'm always delving into the creative world of LGBT artists, writers, actors and musicians. Here are a few things I've come across this month that may be of interest to others.
Books
It took me a while to find but I had been looking for this novel since last summer. L'isola dei femminielli by Aldo Simeone, which I'd translate as Pansy Island, is based on real people and the policies of Mussolini's fascist government in the late 1930s and early 1940s, which was to send politically undesirable and LGBT people into exile in remote villages or islands.
Seen from the point of view of Aldo, a gay man who is convicted to join a colony of such exiles on the windswept, sunblasted Tremiti Islands some 20 km off the coast of South-East Italy where, on a clear day, you can see all the way to Yugoslavia. Being condemned as gay is a bit random; it's often actually a way to remove hoodlums from society when criminal investigations haven't proved fruitful. Implication in a mafia murder that's not yet solved is the reason why several Sicilians are there. And, of course, favouritism is a thing, especially from one of the policeman who's one of their jailers and who is himself gay. Being a lawman means that eyes that see ideals in uniformed state service are eyes that don't see the reality of his life.
The chapter headings are quotes from the rulebook, and each chapter illustrates how each rule is broken. The life is one of boredom, jealousy and fights, and confinement to draughty barracks at night yet with quite a lot of freedom to roam, swim, hold parties and make love by day, and even to work under licence for those locals who aren't prejudiced, or to fight those who are. One character points out that, although notionally unfree, they actually have the freedom to be their true selves here. The police aren't bothered: gays are going to gay, as long as they don't "corrupt" civil society on the mainland and don't riot here. These days, of course, these islands are a holiday destination.
The Tremiti Islands today |
Most of the exiles are indeed gay and have feminine nicknames and pronouns but there are a couple of characters who are almost certainly trans: Peppinella, a tailor and dressmaker who liked to try on her various feminine creations, but made the mistake of having a friend take photographs of her dressed; and Picciridda, who's bought a grey dress that she likes to wear often. Peppinella loves helping Picciridda dye and transform that grey dress into a white wedding gown with ribbons, embroidery and other fripperies for a new year's eve party where there will be plenty of homespun crossdressing. Both characters are generally more feminine in mannerisms, outlook and behaviour than the others and I see them as trans more than gay.
Did I enjoy the book? Would I recommend it?
So far it's available only in Italian. It was interesting to read of the contradictions both of life as an LGBT exile and of the attitude of the authorities who are not so much harsh as indifferent, but the author tied his hands too much by keeping to actual history and the real lives of real people which, when you're put away, is not so exciting. The message that ran through my head, though, was very much that previously beautifully expressed by Colonel Richard Lovelace, imprisoned during the English Civil War in 1642:
Useful to consider the colonel's words when the same phobias and aggressions against the queer community are expressed by contemporary politicians.
Films
1) I still haven't managed to see trans musical comedy Emilia Pérez - my local cinema can't seem to co-ordinate its website, its billboard and its projection schedule so I turn up when advertised only to find it's actually on another day or time. Besides, I have a lousy cold and the weather's bad so I'm staying in at the moment. But clearly the film with its trans protagonist and trans actress, Karla Sofia Gascon - the first to win the Cannes best actress award - is doing well.
2) April and Amanda (previously Enigma), a documentary about April Ashley and Amanda Lear is at this week's Sundance Film Festival.
3) Jimpa, a drama starring Olivia Coleman and John Lithgow, also premieres at the Sundance Film festival. Coleman plays Hannah, mother of non-binary teen Frances, both visiting gay grandpa Jim, know as Jimpa. Given the profile of the leads and the infectious queer pride in interviews at Sundance of non-binary actor Aud Mason-Hyde, this could be very worthwhile. I found this interesting article from 2018 on Aud from Australian Vogue here.
Visual arts
1) New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has an exhibition till February 22nd entitled Vital Signs - Artists and the Body. This, of course, includes works based around "gender expansiveness". MoMA's exhibition page is here.
Interestingly, the Financial Times, not a usual organ for arts news, has a review that is somewhat critical of the concept behind this exhibition here.
2) In complete contrast, Colonel Lovelace's contemporary, Spanish artist Jusepe De Ribera, is the subject of a large exhibition in Paris (Petit Palais, till February 23rd). As much a painter of the poor as of his aristocratic patrons or religious themes, one of Ribera's masterpieces is the Bearded Lady (officially Magdalena Ventura with her Husband and her Son), painted in 1631, which is in the exhibition. In it we see Magdalena Ventura who suffered a significant hormonal imbalance that caused her to develop male pattern hair growth, including an immense beard, yet here she is feeding her baby at her breast. The painting is well known and over the last 400 years has given rise to a wide range of reactions: from incomprehension to fascination, from pity to empathy. What is clear, though, is Ribera's compassion for his subjects, a humble family trying to live normal lives with an unusual condition to deal with in addition to their poverty, yet painted with the same care, realism and striking use of lights and darks as he would equally use for scenes with saints or portraits of nobility.
The painted Latin inscription on the stone blocks reads:
A great miracle of nature.
Magdalena Ventura from the town of Accumoli in Samnite country in Abbruzzo in the Kingdom of Naples, aged 52; what is unusual about her is that when she was 37 years old she began to be covered in hair and to develop a very thick, long beard such as you might see on a bearded man rather than a woman who had previously borne three children to her husband Felice de Amici whom you see standing near her.
Jusepe de Ribera, Spaniard, Knight of the Cross, the new Apelles of his era, commissioned by Frederick II, Third Duke of Alcalà, Viceroy of Naples, painted this unusual subject from life on February 16th in the year 1631.
Not trans and arguably not intersex, Magdalena still falls under our umbrella of persons who have lived with non-standard gendered lives.
This is, in my opinion, fine art at its finest.
Sue x
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