Dina’s Diner 8/26/19

WHO NEEDS ACTING SCHOOL?

Hunter Shafer

I was paging through The New York Times Arts & Leisure section from Sunday, July 7, 2019 and saw a photo of a young actress and accompanying interview. The actress was Hunter Schafer and when I later found out that she is a trans actress playing a trans character on the HBO series Euphoria, I went back and read the whole interview.

Having not heard coincidentally that she was a trans person, I just assumed she was another actress on a show I don’t watch. And it turns out that young Ms. Schafer, 20, is the same trans high school student who sued her North Carolina school district (in partnership with the American Civil Liberties Union) over that state’s notorious “bathroom bill” in 2016. From that brush with fame and notoriety, she became a model in New York and was planning to study fashion design in London “when her agency informed her that she’d been asked to audition for Euphoria. “I gave it a shot just because I had been mildly interested in acting, but it wasn’t something that I thought I would be pursuing seriously in any way, shape or form,” [she told the Times].

Professional acting is a tough nut to crack into and Hunter is not the only fortunate soul to have gotten a huge lucky break into the big time. But I had to wonder how many struggling actors were cursing under their breath when she said she was only “mildly interested in acting” and she gets the HBO gig while they pound the pavement after years of college dramatics and acting classes. I’m not talking about cis-actors playing trans characters or vice versa – just that some actors put a lot of their life into trying to make a living (much less become a star) and here is a 20 year old getting the big break who was indifferent about acting at all.

I suppose I could say the same thing about Nicole Maines (another former transitioning school student) who also parlayed her cultural notoriety into a show biz career. She is now a cast member of the Supergirl series. When I wrote about Nicole and her Supergirl character several months ago, I wondered how her success would feel to other transitioning students who would just like a normal life and career. We only hear about the community members who end up in Hollywood, it sometimes seems.

AN ISLAND WITHIN AN ISLAND

The New York Times had an interesting article about Puerto Rico in the July 8, 2019 edition that was sub-headed “The Island’s LGBTQ Community Seeks to Rebuild Their Havens After a Devastating Hurricane.”

Next month, September, will be two years since Hurricane Maria tore through the island of Puerto Rico. It’s almost impossible to believe that in this day and age, Puerto Rico still doesn’t have full electrical power back yet. Among the many casualties of that hurricane was the island’s small LGBTQ community.

The article mentioned that conservative church forces and an emboldened conservative political apparatus in Puerto Rico had already begun legislating against equal rights under the flag of “religious freedom.” The hurricane ruined three notable gay bars in San Juan and despite a marketing campaign to attract LGBTQ tourism, the political and religious climate is not welcoming.

Roma Rodriguez with friend.

In the wake of the hurricane’s devastation and the glacial progress of rebuilding, some queer Puerto Ricans are trying to get things going again. Roma Rodriguez, a very pretty trans girl who does drag performance, partnered with others to open a small space in her hometown of Caguas, Puerto Rico. Jhoni Jackson (no gender identity given) who formerly operated a popular club call El Escondite (translates as The Hideout) hopes to reopen this month. Small venues in other towns on the island are also beginning to open, like El Hangar and El Local in Santurce.

The clubs are not only a gathering place for LGBTQ members of the community, they are also places of employment for some of those same members. So when the music stopped and the bars closed, so did the paychecks. Jhoni Jackson, mentioned above, hopes to hire only LGBTQ employees when she re-opens El Escondite near the University of Puerto Rico.

In an earlier Diner, I wrote about gay bars closing in many American cities partly because the LGBTQ community needn’t rely as much on their own hideaways in our current cultural environment. In Puerto Rico, where conservative cultural norms still rule, the gay bars provide a needed gathering place for a still marginalized community. “It feels special,” Roma Rodríguez said, “to get to a place where they treat you as the human being that you are.”

THE DOCTOR IS OUT

Back on June 19, 2019, The New York Times had an article about Nang Mwe San, a doctor in Myanmar. Or rather Dr. Mwe San is a former doctor since the medical authorities in that country revoked her license because she was moonlighting as a provocative internet model.

The Times reported, “After several years of treating patients and working for nonprofit medical groups, Dr. Mwe San swapped her scrubs and white coat for bikinis and lingerie. Two years ago, she began shooting commercials and posting racy images of herself on Facebook. For the staid doctors of the Myanmar Medical Council, seeing so much of the human body –specifically, hers — was more than they could handle.” Nang Mwe San also has an Instagram page which provides all the images in easy viewing formats.

Former doctor Nang Mwe San.

It’s hard becoming a doctor and Nang easily qualified. “A top student at a Myanmar high school, Nang Mwe San fulfilled her parents’ wish and enrolled in medical school. By 22, she was a doctor. But being a physician was never her dream. What she really wanted to be was a ‘sexy model,’” the Times reported. Unfortunately, Myanmar is embroiled in internal political intrigue and overlaid with a male dominated and culturally conservative hierarchy. So even though the country admits that it is in dire need of medical doctors the board decided to revoke her license for her off-hours sideline. Dr. Mwe San also said that her internet postings earn her more money than she made as a doctor — which isn’t a lot in the Myanmar medical system.

As a pure crossdresser’s fantasy, the idea of chucking a regular career in favor of posting photographs of oneself in swimsuits and lingerie seems like a dream come true. And there are some crossdressers who post so many photos online it seems like they are trying to give the pros a run for their money. I suspect there is no or very little money for crossdressers in the YouTube/Instagram “influencing” game. I wonder if kids these days think to themselves that they’d like to grow up to be an “influencer” rather than, say, a fireman or president. Come to think of it, swimsuits and lingerie sounds much better.

TWO LATE LADIES

Isabel Sarli, 1969.

One of the most interesting features in The New York Times (for me, anyway) is the obituary section. I saw a pair of obits in the July 1 and July 4, 2019 editions that caught my attention. The first was a long obituary for former actress and Playboy centerfold Susan Bernard who passed at age 71. The second was another full obit for Argentine actress Isabel Sarli at age 89.

Chances are that you never heard of either of these ladies. For die-hard fans of Playboy magazine (which is aging us, you know, if you admit it), Susan Bernard’s name may be remembered as the centerfold for December 1966. That was before my time but I later got to know all the centerfolds and remembered most of their names even from the era when I was just in grade school or even before. Susan was also an actress and, a year before her centerfold, she appeared as a naïve teen in Russ Meyer’s “bad girls” classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! She also appeared in a few mainstream films and television shows later on.

The reason she got such a large Times obit was that she was the daughter of Bruno Bernard, a photographer who had lensed Marilyn Monroe numerous times in her early career. The classic photo of her on the subway grate was a still shot by Mr. Bernard. Susan became the curator of his Marilyn collection and exhibited it and protected it after his death. Susan was discovered as a potential centerfold when she visited the Playboy offices with her father to transact some photography business.

Susan Bernard in 1966.

Several years ago I wrote about Isabel Sarli after coming across her photograph somewhere. This is what the Times wrote about her initial success: “Ms. Sarli became an instant sex symbol in her first feature film, Thunder Among the Leaves, in 1958, when she became the first woman to appear fully nude in a mainstream Argentine movie. She did so in a scene in which she frolicked in a swimming hole, and it became the talk of Argentina. People lined up at theaters to see the film.”

The photo here is a still from a 1969 production titled Fuego (Fire). That is the kind of classic pose that still lights my crossdressing fire. That hairdo, her smoky look, that dress, the martini glass – it all screams femininity of a certain style from that era. In the short YouTube clip, there is a lot of footage of Senora Sarli in that fabulous gown with mucho cleavage and spangly drop earrings and a brief scene of implied lesbian attraction. I tell ya, boys, this dame’s got it all!

And loving dames who have it all and used it to the max is worth celebrating even long after their salad days. So thank you, Susan and Isabel. May you live forever in our memories.

BRAZILIAN BREAKOUT BUSTED

In early August 2019 many news outlets ran stories about a daring prison escape attempt from a lockup in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I saw the article in The New York Times on August 4.

de Silva

According to reports, “a Brazilian gang leader tried to escape from prison by impersonating his teenage daughter, complete with a lifelike silicone mask and wig, before attempting to walk out the front door in her place after she visited him.” The convict, Clauvino da Silva was serving a 73 year term for drug crimes.

The Times further reported, “Footage released by Rio de Janeiro’s Penitentiary Administration Secretariat shows Mr. da Silva after being discovered by the guards. In it, he wears the mask, glasses, long black wig, jeans and a pink T-shirt. The attempt by the prisoner to pass as the young woman was thwarted by guards at the Bangu prison complex in Rio de Janeiro, who noticed his nervousness on Saturday as he tried to leave.”

Suspicious?

Prison officials suspect that other family members smuggled in the latex mask — a pretty unusual item in any setting much less a prison. They weren’t sure at the time of the arrest whether his daughter was aware of or involved in the escape attempt. Two days later, news reports said Mr. da Silva, 42, committed suicide in his cell after being foiled in the daring caper.

Meanwhile, prison authorities are training the guards to be on the lookout for any suspicious females looking to exit the visitors’ area — particularly during Carnival week.

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Tags: crossdressing, featured, Hunter Shafer, news, Nicole Maines, opinion, Transgender

Category: Transgender Community News, Transgender Opinion