In the year 2004 I was in Ethiopia for three months. During that time, one Sunday when I had nothing to do, I was browsing the TV and came across an English movie: 'Normal' (2003).
'Normal', a family drama made for television, written and directed by actress and filmmaker Jane Anderson, starring Jessica Lange and Tom Wilkinson, is one that had some haunting scenes and dialogues.
Since some of its dialogues always remained in my mind, I recently watched it again on YouTube. I don't say that it is all that extraordinary. But as many of the movies created by women filmmakers, it is intense, with much emotional content and characters that are very memorable.
The plot is very simple. Roy and Irma are like a model couple. They have been married for 25 years, with two children: Wayne, who is in college, and Patty, who is in the middle school. One day Roy tells Irma that although he is physically a man, he is a woman inside, and that he is in terrible tension inside, and therefore he wants to transition into a woman. Irma cannot accept it at all. They physically separate. But on an occasion when Irma realizes that he might take his life, she decides to live with her/him again.
As Roy slowly begins to become a woman, s/he experiences opposition, rejection, ridicule, isolation, and ostracism from the factory where s/he works, the church choir where s/he sings, the church s/he attends, and his family. Patty, who was born a female but hates living as a female is able to understand her father. However, Wayne, who cannot accept this, mocks and even physically fights his father.
This film takes us to many not so usual areas such as gender identity, sexual otherness, transgendering, sexual realignment, and pan-genderness of love.
In addition to all this, this film also makes a significant cut to family, marriage, and real love.
One of the most candid conversations between Irma and Roy will touch us a lot:
"Roy, I've given you my youth; I've given you your children; I've given you my full and undivided attention for 25 years. And now I'm giving up everything that I believed in, so you can feel complete. So tell me, what more could you possibly want from me?"
"Is that how it feels?"
"Yes"
"Oh am I awful?"
"No it's not awful Roy. It's what it is. And if I look at it hard enough, you've done the same for me."
Roy's father is very old, but still he is an authoritarian. Although he can't get up from his chair, he makes all the decisions. He has not at all budging to anyone, especially his wife. Roy, who is now a transwoman- Ruth, visits her parents. Now she dares to advise and even correct her father.
"Who are you?"
"Ruth, your daughter"
"I thought I had a son. Ask that woman back there if I have a son."
"No, you don't "
Even in his old age, he still refers to his wife as "that woman".
The conversation Ruth has with her father is remarkable.
"That woman over there is your wife. She's been married to you for fifty years"
"Well I don't care. You tell her I'm not going to eat anymore lima beans."
"Her name is Em. She's born your children and cooked your food and stood behind you in everything you did -no matter how misguided or stupid or cruel. She's old and she's tired. And she still bathes you and feeds you and changes your soiled pants. The least you can do is, call her by her name."
"I don't want her. I want my mama."
...
"I wet my pants. I want my mama "
(cries like a baby)
The riddles of life!
