does a lot of crying -- in a movie called The Damned Don’t Cry (1950) in which she is without a doubt ‘the damned.’ She has the eyebrows and the shoulder pads we associate with the later Crawford films, and in the first scenes she is married to Richard Egan — who is at least 17 years her junior (Crawford successfully managed to hide her birthdate, even postshumously). It’s quite a good film— for a didactic melodrama — though it's a copy of Mildred Pierce. In these ‘women’s films’ it’s all about the motives of the heroine. In Mildred Pierce Crawford is driven to the very unfeminine vices of greed and ambition by her evil daughter. Thus she is a victim, and ultimately feminine, and can be forgiven. Not so the case in The Damned Don’t Cry where she is pure unmitigated evil. Her name is ‘Ethel Whitehead’ — until it gets changed to the more respectable — ‘Lorna Hansen Forbes.' Crawford’s quick changes of character are loads of fun; she starts out a suffering Mildred Pierce (her son dies because she is too poor to buy him a bicycle), and soon after she’s a wisecracking clothes model who shares her favours with repellent businessmen -- smoking, chewing gum and wielding heavy slang all at the same time. Her transformation into a lady would wow 'enry 'iggens, and when she finally hooks up with gangster Steve Cochrane all is right in this topsy-turvey world. (The less said about Cochrane the better, as in his case less is more, for Cochrane was not only breathtakingly handsome and hairy-chested, but in proud possession of one of the biggest ‘members’ in Hollywood. He occasionally served as a houseboy for Mae West. In the TCM summary, Cochrane’s character Nick is referred to as a "member of the underworld’ — a startlingly accurate description.). They don’t make ‘em like this anymore; i.e. they don’t make men who are men and women who are women. And like some sad-old, dyed-blonde, trashy Trump supporter, I am alas, going to pine for that past. Here Crawford is Lady Macbeth; she was obviously born cursing her useless ‘dugs’ and her pesky menstrual flow, eager to dash her soft-haired babies on a rock if it will get her what she wants. The movie is clear in its feminist politics, if nothing else, as Crawford’s anger — as in Shakespeare’s play — has its origins in her womanhood. When she’s climbing her way to the top, a tough talking hooker friend opines, wisely: “What else have we got besides a face and a figure?’ And even at 46 (perhaps older?) with the right lighting -- and a gauzy lens -- yes, Crawford still has that. Soon she’s smiling ruefully with her gigantic mouth and saying lines like 'the world isn’t for nice guys’ to her hapless leading man David Brian, and we understand that Crawford’s anger is deeply steeped in female rage, and that though darkly unkind, and entangled with the 'root of all evil,' it has a 'root' cause. It’s strange that a movie so engulfed in penis envy should have instigated so much envy of Venus. But how many little girls must have watched The Damned Don’t Cry and decided, finally to toss their Playboy Bunny outfit in the garbage and stand up for a woman’s right to chose? There is nothing like Crawford’s bug-eyed rage, her determination is beyond steely, it's a wreck of a train steaming its way to a cataclysmic end. All of this made me think of the ultimate idiocy of trans politics, for buried in the heart of it is an enormous fallacy: the rejection of gender. I speak now, directly to Kate Bornstein. “We shared a few drinks many years ago, I produced your plays (you owe me nothing, it’s not that) and I kind of loved you as much as a gay man can love a person with a vagina. And I admire your beauty and your ideas beyond belief, and I think you are an enormously kind person. But you 'kinda' invented the ‘no gender’ movement; and that’s a big problem. You remind me of Aristotle, Kate. I know that may sound like a compliment, but I never liked Aristotle. (From the very moment that I met him in Ayn Rand’s preachings, I knew there was something awry.) Aristotle rejected the law of non-contradiction, which, in laymen’s terms (i.e. terms which may be understood by those who have the time to get regularly laid) means that Aristotle believed contradictions must not be tolerated, and therefore don’t exist. The problem with heterosexuality is that it is an unresolvable contradiction, that the larger and more powerful body (i.e. male) will inevitably oppress the female. This is a lot more than simply not desirable. But it will never go away: the dialectical tug of war between male and female is eternal, as are the two sexes. The inevitable clash of these forces (it’s called hot heterosexual fornication) is not only eternally appealing but absolutely productive. This does not mean that women must be perpetually oppressed, it just means that they must perennially fight back — as Joan Crawford does. And fighting back works (proof positive: #Metoo). Yes, when they fight back they can and do, win. But the denial of this fundamental antithesis, this vastly sexy opposition between male and female -- well sorry, but it's simply a non-starter. As Foucault reminds us -- it’s always a battle -- and victims and oppressors need each other, not just because it’s sexy, but because the human hunger for power will never go away, and the best we can do is try and win one little battle at a time. I talked to a woman yesterday who is quite excited about eventually (when all this is over, yes, hah!) finding a tiny public space (a room) somewhere and putting on a tiny feminist play in Muskoka. She told me that she knew 10 people who might come, and though she also knows that The Canada Council won’t grant money anymore to anything but ‘digital theatre; (whatever that is), she is going to forge ahead anyway. There is something 'Lady Macbeth-ish' about her quest, which I doubt she would have initiated if she didn’t have a vagina. We need women, and we need men, and the furious battle that rages eternally between them. Be trans please, but don’t imagine you will rid the world of injustice by banning these holy opposites; for out of the fire that emerges from their combustible confrontation a phoenix will always arise — and it is the fierce, righteous, beady-eyed demon that lies behind Joan Crawford’s eyes.
