JT Leroy

[rm]

I find the continuing saga of Who is JT Leroy really sad and confusing. Eventually, it's something I hope I can find a way to write eloquently about. As someone with a creative interest in matters of commerce, there is a great deal to be said about two women working together to create a literary and physical fictional identity, masquerading as true, in the form of a young, male prostitute. Fantasy or fame grab? Part of the art or outside of it?

The DVD edition I have of My Own Private Idaho contains an interview conducted by JT Leroy, whoever and however that may be. And it makes me sad while also being a strange and suitable footnote to that movie both in its content and surrounding mythology -- dead movie stars and people who never existed. Someone is supposed to argue about whether there is much difference there.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/09/books/09book.html

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[rm.livejournal.com]

JT Leroy was ostensibly a male, who might have been in the process of transitioning to a female, who was a celebrated fiction writer, largely for drawing on his supposed experiences as the son of a truck stop hooker and child prositute.

Turns out, JT Leroy is the nom-de-plume of a middle-aged woman, and is played in physical world by her step-daughter (I think? I keep getting confused).

Anyway, the whole thing has been among other things, a big con, and effectively illuminates some very fucked up things about women, fame and victim-culture, both seperately and in a nice big blender of woe.