The world’s newest megastar has arrived. When Caitlyn Jenner – formerly Bruce Jenner, Olympic athlete and reality TV star – came out as a trans woman on the cover of Vanity Fair with a playfully glamorous Old Hollywood image, the response was electric and overwhelmingly positive. She dealt a blow against bigotry.
But the assumption that Jenner is an absolute pioneer puzzles me a bit. It sent me back to the 1974 literary classic Conundrum, by the historian and travel writer Jan Morris – her superb account of transitioning from male to female in the 1960s, when it was even more difficult than it is now. “I was three or perhaps four years old when I realised I had been born into the wrong body, and I should really be a girl,” she begins.
The realisation occurred as the infant Morris was sitting under the piano on which her mother was playing Sibelius at top volume. With enormous charm and style, Morris reflects on gender differences, wittily juxtaposing these with her competing family influences of England and Wales. “To me gender is not physical at all, but altogether insubstantial. It is soul, perhaps, it is talent, it is taste, it is environment, it is how one feels … ”
When I saw Jenner’s Marilyn-style movie goddess swimsuit, I thought of Morris as a child at the Christ Church choir school in Oxford, dreaming of being reborn as “Sonja Henie or Deanna Durbin”. If you enjoyed the Jenner issue of Vanity Fair, then go out and read Morris’s Conundrum.
The end of my hangover
Three-time Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper is currently tearing it up on the London stage, with standing ovations and wild cheering every night for his lead role in The Elephant Man. My colleague Michael Billington has praised Cooper and I loved his hugely intelligent and seductive performance. But now I have a confession.
My own attitude to Cooper is affected by the first film I really clocked him in: The Hangover – a broad comedy about a wild bachelor party in Las Vegas. Ever since then, I have found myself patronisingly assuming that he is just a pretty-boy movie star from whom nothing substantial should be expected. So even when Cooper does really well in a demanding stage role, or notches up three Academy award nominations, I keep thinking these are exceptions to the rule.
There are YouTube clips showing that Cooper is fluent in French: that’s a skill which in a novelist or politician or classical musician would be raised incessantly in profiles and interviews. But no one mentions it about Cooper. I hope he gets awards for his Elephant Man role – just to dispel, finally, my condescending prejudice about him.
A toilet made of canvas?
This weekend, for the first time in my life, I am going camping. When people like me announce they are trying camping, everyone assumes it’s for some menopausal trip to a music festival. But oh no. I am seeing no bands. I am just going to a chilly and possibly rainy campsite in the Chilterns with people who are used to camping and really good at it.
My mind still can’t quite absorb this. Living in a place made of canvas? How can you have a flushing toilet made of canvas? This is patently absurd. Last weekend I was taken to a camping shop where an eager assistant demonstrated all the fascinating items like Primus stoves and head-torches I would be using, while I suppressed a growing panic. It felt like a nightmare in which I was in a medical accessories shop, being shown the scalpels I had to buy for my first brain surgery. People also keep cheerfully telling me about the weather forecast, which is like telling a soldier ahead of D-day landings that it’s going to be quite sunny. Anyway: wish me luck.
