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A review by jdscott50
Pageboy by Elliot Page
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
5.0
Academy award-nominated actor Elliot Page has a new memoir dealing with his life. An actor making his way in the film industry, he would make breakthroughs and rack up awards. Just as he was coming to terms with his identity as a boy, his success would force him to hide. He would spend years playing a part beyond acting in a film. Elliot decided to transition during the Covid-19 pandemic and was the first trans man to be featured on the cover of Time Magazine in 2021. Already starring in the Umbrella Academy, his character would also transition.
Told in short snippets, it is part Trans memoir, gay memoir, and celebrity memoir. He talks about growing up in Halifax with divorced parents. Splitting his time, he would feel isolated from both parents. More so from his father and stepmother. He also struggled with his identity early on. When he was 10, he had to stop playing coed soccer and had to go on the girl's team. When he has a breakout role in Show Pit Pony, it will lead to stardom but also further his internal crisis. Hollywood is also very homophobic, as we see him being forced to hide his love and wear very feminine clothing. He faces hate from friends, family, the industry, and even random people on the street. His decision to transition is life-saving. It is wonderful to read someone move toward their happiness. Despite the struggle, the ending chapters are magnificent, and we can see his joy in finally stopping playing a role and being himself.
Favorite passages:
“I think I may be bisexual." I said this seemingly out of nowhere, having never conveyed anything like this to anyone. "No you are not," she responded immediately, a sharp reflex, giggling after she said it. This time, the sound of her laughter was harsh and cutting. Still, I wanted to laugh with her, I mean being queer is funny and bad right? The word "homosexuality" simply uttered in health class would give way to a cacophony of snickering. All the sitcoms I watched when I went home from school reinforced this. Whenever a joke was made, or I made one, it stuck; shit in the treads of my shoes. A spotlight moving stage right to stage left. I would tap-dance around it. Like a wet dog, I'd scramble to shake it off, to shake it out.
My inability to vomit until then always felt poignant. Eleven was the age I sensed a shift from boy to girl without my consent. As an adult, I would say, "I just want to be a ten-year-old boy," whenever dysphoria belted out its annoying song, a pop hit that you know the words to and don't know why. It's hard to explain gender dysphoria to people who don't experience it. It's an awful voice in the back of your head, you assume everyone else hears it, but they don't.
I will receive enormous waves of hate, not because I made harmful jokes, but because I am trans. It often seems like more people step forward to defend being unkind than they do to support trans people as we deal with an onslaught of cruelty and violence.
Told in short snippets, it is part Trans memoir, gay memoir, and celebrity memoir. He talks about growing up in Halifax with divorced parents. Splitting his time, he would feel isolated from both parents. More so from his father and stepmother. He also struggled with his identity early on. When he was 10, he had to stop playing coed soccer and had to go on the girl's team. When he has a breakout role in Show Pit Pony, it will lead to stardom but also further his internal crisis. Hollywood is also very homophobic, as we see him being forced to hide his love and wear very feminine clothing. He faces hate from friends, family, the industry, and even random people on the street. His decision to transition is life-saving. It is wonderful to read someone move toward their happiness. Despite the struggle, the ending chapters are magnificent, and we can see his joy in finally stopping playing a role and being himself.
Favorite passages:
“I think I may be bisexual." I said this seemingly out of nowhere, having never conveyed anything like this to anyone. "No you are not," she responded immediately, a sharp reflex, giggling after she said it. This time, the sound of her laughter was harsh and cutting. Still, I wanted to laugh with her, I mean being queer is funny and bad right? The word "homosexuality" simply uttered in health class would give way to a cacophony of snickering. All the sitcoms I watched when I went home from school reinforced this. Whenever a joke was made, or I made one, it stuck; shit in the treads of my shoes. A spotlight moving stage right to stage left. I would tap-dance around it. Like a wet dog, I'd scramble to shake it off, to shake it out.
My inability to vomit until then always felt poignant. Eleven was the age I sensed a shift from boy to girl without my consent. As an adult, I would say, "I just want to be a ten-year-old boy," whenever dysphoria belted out its annoying song, a pop hit that you know the words to and don't know why. It's hard to explain gender dysphoria to people who don't experience it. It's an awful voice in the back of your head, you assume everyone else hears it, but they don't.
I will receive enormous waves of hate, not because I made harmful jokes, but because I am trans. It often seems like more people step forward to defend being unkind than they do to support trans people as we deal with an onslaught of cruelty and violence.