Pass/No Pass
I failed another gender test the other day. I attended a day-time function because the topic of discussion interested me. I lowered the average age of the women there by quite a bit and there were maybe 3-4 men in attendance, keeping a low and sheepish profile. Neither the topic nor the organization matter to this note. What does matter is what happened at the end, after a nice light lunch. A local middle school chorus serenaded us, and led us in a sing-along afterwards. The singing wasn’t good. A bunch of children trying not to sing louder than their neighbor so they couldn’t be identified, mumbling and all singing in unison. The songs for the sing-along were grammar school standards. I found experience a grim forshadowing of what life in a nursing home might be like. I sardonically remarked to the woman next to me that I thought this sort of thing was outlawed by the Geneva Conventions and I got a blank look. I think I was in a distinct minority on this one…hence I failed another gender test.

Ciné Kinky
“Kinky Boots” is another British class/social drama in the venerable tradition of “Brassed-Off”, “Billy Elliot” and “The Full Monty”. The gimmick this time is the attempted rescue of a shoe factory from the onslaught of cheap foreign imports by the initially unenthusiastic fourth generation son of the founding family. Loosely (very loosely) based on a true story, the chance encounter with a flamboyant if troubled drag queen generates the idea of making boots for the “tranny” and fetish market in England. All in all it’s a predictable, enjoyable film. But I’d like to focus on one particular bit which may be a bit enlightening and this focuses on some red shoes and some red boots.

I’ve remarked in my review of Transamerica how on occasion the screenplay puts in some scenes or lines here and there that tell us how we’re supposed to think. “Kinky Boots” is much more subtle. There is a sub-plot involving the conflict between the heir to the shoe factory and his fiancé, Melanie. She’s a bright, energetic woman with very strong material and life-style desires. Initially, Charlie Price (that’s his name) is much of the same mind, strongly wanting to get away from the shoe factory. But when he inherits it, he develops a commitment to the workers. Melanie has been admiring a pair of red, Jimmy Cho shoes in a shop window, the purchase of which is very much contingent on their personal finances. Lola, the drag queen has been designing boots that people will buy, red boots, “two and a half feet of red, tubular sex”.

Melanie, being a modern woman, stops waiting for distracted Charlie to buy her the shoes that symbolize everything she wants in life and gets them herself. She also starts secretly dating the developer who wants to turn the shoe factory into stylish condominiums. She’s caught out at this by Charlie and he finds her Red shoe left behind, like a Cinderella’s glass slipper. When she retrieves the red shoe, she tells Charlie, “I can’t change what I want,” as a last note to their now ended relationship.

I wonder how many people heard this the way I did. I bit of dialogue that Lola, the drag queen could have said, or I could have said, or you could have. But instead it’s put in the mouth of the most ordinary, straight character in the whole movie. I rather like that. It’s much more subtle than the direct preaching in Transamerica. And maybe it’s more effective that way.