GIRLS WILL BE BOYS AND BOYS WILL BE GIRLS

I submitted my proposal for the short story collection.

At school, each student must submit a proposal for their own Independent Professional Project. It’s exciting because each student gets to choose the project they want to do, so there is tons of room for creativity. I see it as an opportunity to create an original work of art, and the instructors in the Creative Communications program encourage students to try something they may never get to do again.

As a follow-up to my last post, yes I saw her. I saw the queen of artful self-expression and it was not everything I hoped for, surprisingly.

She is currently on her MDNA world tour and I found a few things disappointing. Before I talk about those, however, it is important to bear in mind that I discovered Madonna through my mother when I was around the age of eleven, in 2000. I was introduced to her early work from the 80’s and the work that came later in the 90’s.

I was disappointed first and foremost because there was an extremely violent portion of the tour, which involved Madonna shooting a number of different men with a rifle. I was shocked and disheartened because the Madonna I know and love has always used her fame and power to express messages that are often not given enough attention, but that have the ability to provoke positive social change; like when she hung from a cross while singing Live to Tell and brought attention to dire situations in developing nations through thousands of photographs that flashed on the screen behind her during her Confessions tour. It was beautiful and moving and it made a statement that I will remember, unlike this one; which I hope to forget.

I feel as though Madonna has become self-conscious because of her age, too. To me, that is incredibly disappointing because the thing I have always admired most about her, and a theme I am going to explore through many of the stories in Late Bloomers, is that of confidence. I feel as though she is worried about her record sales and public image, so rather than creating trends, Madonna is now following them. 

The experience in Montreal was amazing for so many reasons, however. A theme that defined the trip for me, and that will also govern one of the short stories I am writing for the collection, is gender identity.

There is a club in Montreal’s gay village that I frequent when I go called cabaret Mado. The owner, Mado, is one of the most beautiful beings I have ever seen. I tell her that incessantly and bring her makeup whenever I go to visit (I work as an artist at MAC). She is truly a walking work of art, and it is interesting to hear her speak in French about her own gender identity; she neither considers herself male or female.

The standards are changing in North American society; two distinct genders will slowly not exist as the only options anymore, and for that I am thankful. 

I have never struggled with gender identity personally, but Erik, who I stayed with in Montreal and who took me to see Madonna, has. He was teased growing up because of his feminitity and at night, he is no longer Erik, but Tranna Wintour. 

Mado

Erik and I sat on my bed, also known as his couch, in his cozy Montreal apartment. His walls were plastered in pictures of Madge herself, and of Dalida and of Liza and Cher and Barbra. It was the early hours of the morning and we were laughing, quietly, about how we met at Cabaret Mado only a year earlier.

“I have a question,” I said, eating a piece of peanut butter toast.

“Yes?”

“Do you consider yourself male or female?”

Erik thought about it for a minute.

“Biologically, I am a male. But my soul is female,” he said. “So I guess not one or the other.”

Knowing Erik, and considering Mado my personal heroine in life, are some of the reasons I am happy that the lines between genders are blurring. Niether of them fit perfectly into one gender, and the combination of the two makes Erik Erik, or Tranna, and makes Mado Mado, or the very private man he exists as during the day, and whom I’ve tried to spot around Montreal to appease my sense of curiousity, but have thus far been unsuccessful. I love all of the aspects to those two people I think it is important to carry on the discussion about gender identity and its status in our culture today.

That is my goal, anyway. I will be interviewing Erik in the future as part of this project, and creating a work of fiction based on his experience. 

I feel a little nervous, admittedly, because it will be challenge to try to write something honest from the perspective of a role that I have never assumed in real life, but I will overcome it and try and do it justice because I continue to believe in the importance of being part of redefining what our culture considers to be a young woman.