![]() Furthermore, she much prefers Connie’s company to the company of self-proclaimed “men in skirts.” Identifying as a man in women’s clothing is a lie for Maura. She would never tell Josh to “man up,” nor would she ostracize anyone who brought hormones to camp. ![]() For much of her life, Maura had no way of talking about or understanding the desire she felt, so she assumed it must have been the same as the desire that others were feeling.īut now, she sees that this isn’t true. She may have very well felt a connection with the drag performers depicted in The Queen, a film released when she was younger. She felt a kinship with Marcy based on the magazines they read and the outfits they wore in private. These incidents – and Maura’s responses to them – make it clear that, prior to attending Camp Camellia, Maura really did not know the difference between her identity and Marcy’s. When the subject of Ramona comes up again later, Maura has to bite her tongue when Marcy explains what Camp Camellia is “for”: “This is a place for expressing your femininity. Marcy, Jackie, and the others toast to being “men in skirts” while Maura glances away uncomfortably. “We are cross-dressers, but we’re still men,” Jackie continues. “She had the nerve to bring hormones to cross-dressing camp!” Connie exclaims. Her posture becomes more masculine and comfortable, she makes crude remarks, and she tells her son to “man up.” Later, at lunch, Jackie tells Maura and Marcy about Ramona, a former camper who was banned from Camellia for bringing estrogen. Marcy calls first, and when her voice reverts back to Mark’s, everything about her changes. Tensions mount the following day, when Maura and Marcy ride their bikes to a pay phone in order to call home. Given how excellent the portrayal of trans identity has been on Transparent, the opening credits have been one aspect of the show that perplexed me. ![]() While transgender women, cross-dressers, and drag performers may share some similar attributes and experiences, to conflate those identities is to miss how distinct they truly are, which serves no one. ![]() I must admit that, when I started watching Transparent, I was unnerved by the inclusion of The Queen, particularly as a way of setting the tone for the show, because Maura is decidedly not a drag queen. Long before Jenny Livingston’s Paris is Burning, The Queen depicted the realities of drag ball culture, taking a snapshot of a queer subculture and bringing it to the mainstream. The Transparent opening credits feature a montage of home video footage from the early 1990s, shot at what appears to be Bar Mitzvahs and other family events, intercut with clips from the 1968 documentary The Queen. I have been waiting for the right moment to write about Transparent’s opening credits, and mentioning them by way of introducing “Best New Girl” feels fitting Not because the credits of “Best New Girl” are slightly altered – rather than the piano score that plays at the start of other episodes, Bob Dylan’s “Oh, Sister” welcomes the viewer this time – but because the archival footage has added poignancy in the context of this particular episodes. ![]() Maura and Marcy’s first night at Camp Camellia. ![]()
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