Class and Gender Intersect, or Happy Birthday Karl Marx
Thursday, May 8th, 2008[1] Scott Turner Schofield on Coming Out as Middle Class [2] (This is shameless promotion for Scott and his book, published by Homofactus Press, which I co-own ;-)) In an original and hilarious rendering of his life, the first openly transgender performer to be commissioned by the National Performance Network, Scott Turner Schofield comes out as "middle class" in his award-winning performance piece, "Debutante Balls." Is it possible that being middle class is just like being transgender (minus all the pronoun confusion and Gay-Panic fear)? Stay with me here: When you can't tell a person's class status, just like when you can't tell their gender identity, it is never polite to ask; and gender identity, like class status, is something that we discern by what we display, or don't. I mean, we all know rich kids who go thrift-store shopping, right? Well, that one got a HUGE laugh at Vassar.... This section of his brilliant performance should be required discussion in queer and gender theories classes, as Schofield does a fine job complicating discussions of privacy, class, gender status, masculinity and transition. Rarely has the otherwise silent underpinnings of middle-class life been render with such clarity or hilarity. "Debutante Balls" is collected in Scott Turner Schofield's first book, Two Truths and a Lie [3], published by Homofactus Press. "Scott does a damn fine job breaking down the inner working of middle-class life in a rather large Southern city as well as how class functions through silence. Scott's work is so memorable because he tells stories from his own life, stories that are filled with irony and self-deprecating humor," says Jay Sennett, publisher at Homofactus Press [4]. Two Truths and a Lie [5] is is a memoir in the form of three solo plays written and performed by Scott Turner Schofield. From inside the often hilarious-but all too real-moments of his young life on the Homecoming Court and Debutante Ball circuit (in a dress), armed with only a decoder ring and a gifted tongue, Schofield comes out with truly unbelievable stories of a body in search of an identity. By turns slapstick and slap-to-the-face, this drama invites audiences and readers to explore gender, sex, sexuality, and self in their own first person. We doubt Karl himself could have imagined the intersectionality of it all. [1] http://jaysennett.com/wp-content/uploads/sts-small.jpg [2] http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=21869701 [3] http://undergroundtransit.com/merch.html [4] http://www.homofactuspress.com [5] http://www.homofactuspress.com/our-books/two-truths-and-a-lie/
