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Synopsis: Myron Breckinridge gets a sex change operation. The trauma of the switch from male to female causes Myron--now Myra--to have a psychotic split. Myra continues to have conversations with her discarded male self. Myra has cast herself as a gender outlaw. She hates men and the power they wield in the world and embarks upon a campaign to subvert gender roles in a scheme to bilk her cowboy-actor uncle out of his fortune and take over his acting school. In the process, she rampages through the bizarre land of Hollywood with bisexual abandon...

The Bad and the Beautiful: One of the interesting things about perusing internet message boards is the insight it give into the place of movies in the culture at large. More specifically, it is a demonstration that most internet savvy moviegoers are woefully ignorant of the history of movies and probably haven't seen many movies older than they are. For instance: I saw a thread this morning about the tendency of posters on these boards to refer to movies as "the worst movie ever" out of spite and disappointment. There is a world of difference, the logic of this thread claimed, between Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and Plan 9 From Outer Space. Which is more or less true. However, I would take issue with the notion that Plan 9 is the worst film ever made by virtue of the naïve charm the film surely possesses. It's an easy target, much like Citizen Kane on the other end of the spectrum. Better candidates would include Manos: Hand of Fate, I Spit On Your Grave, and Cannibal Ferrox. Or Myra Breckinridge, for that matter.

Myra Breckinridge is one of those stupefying cinematic experiences that makes one say, "My god, what were they thinking?" over and over like a mantra. Even so, I should probably own up to a certain fondness for REALLY bad movies. Whether this is a particularly refined aesthetic sensibility or merely a streak of profound masochism, I will leave you to decide. I’ve seen Myra Breckinridge before, and yet when I stumbled across it on cable recently, I was compelled to stop and watch it again, even though I KNEW what horrors were in store for me. Myra is based on a novel by Gore Vidal—who really should know better, but didn’t, because he wrote a SEQUEL to the novel, too—and has a star-studded cast of actors who ALSO should have known better (Raquel Welch, John Huston, Andy Devine, Jim Backus, and, god help us all, Mae West), and a couple of up and comers who probably don’t list this film on their resumes (Farrah Fawcett, Tom Selleck). It also has Rex Reed as Myron, who takes a trip to the doctor and comes out as Raquel Welch’s Myra. If I knew that a doctor could turn ME into Raquel Welch, I’d probably consider it, myself, but this transition is singularly jarring—especially since Reed’s Myron continues to hang around the movie even though no one is particularly interested in seeing him. Reed’s role in this film only further cements my opinion that he is one of the dimmer movie critics, since the Cahiers du Cinema crowd had ALREADY demonstrated that critics should become directors, not actors. What follows is a dismal exercise in "weird hippie sh!t"™ that wants to follow the model of Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, only without Meyer’s native talent and insane worldview. Director Michael Sarne has some flair for composing the frame, but none for editing. His favorite transition is the insertion of clips from old movies (which is a BAD idea in this case, since all of the old movies in question are MUCH better than Myra and throw Myra into stark contrast). Were this ALL the film had to offer, it might be easy to flens from the mind over time, like similar "weird hippie shit"™ movies (The Magic Christian for example).

But those movies didn’t have Mae West in them.

Or rather, the voluptuous horror that Mae West had become. Preserved well past her expiration date, West is an unforgettable grotesque in this film. She has the voice and persona of Mae West, but none of the charisma or sexual allure or the flair for burlesque comedy. Watching her parody herself is deeply saddening (almost as sad as those photographs of West by Diane Arbus showing the Norma Desmond-ish squallor in which West lived her last years). Rarely has Hollywood produced so unconscious a portrait of its own decay as Mae West presents in this film. That this particular revenant is sexualized in the film can only send most viewers into paroxysms of loathing.

Gender Outlaw: Myra Breckinridge IS an interesting artifact for another reason, though. There is some debate among queer theorists, particularly transgenderist queer theorists about the rights of people to alter their bodies to suit whatever gender expression they prefer. The medical profession is a gatekeeper in this regard. Because gender reassignment isn't a simple procedure, the medical and psychological professions maintain a tight control over it. The hoops one must jump through to obtain a sex change are daunting, including intensive psychological counselling, examination by an endocrinologist, and a year or more spent in the gender of choice before the procedure is complete. Some transexuals--actually, many transexuals--regard this as both needlessly humiliating and singularly inhumane. In order to obtain any of this, one must concede to a psychologist that one suffers from gender dysphoria, which is categorized as a mental illness. Of course, in the context of Myra Breckinridge, Myron/Myra IS mentally ill, but I don't think gender dysphoria is at the root of his/her problems. Gore Vidal's source novel suggests that Myron/Myra's split is caused by the social constructs of patriarchy and bipolar gender. The movie is not nearly so astute; its Myra is a psychotic feminist avenger. It blames "masculinity." But that's all beside the point I want to make. It all circles back to the presence in this film of the thing that was once Mae West. The Mae West one finds in Myra Breckinridge is as thoroughly constructed by the medical profession as any transexual, and for reasons far more frivolous than the expression of one's gender identity through body modification. More than that, West was not required to jump through the same kinds of hoops to obtain her transformation. Because she was "enhancing" the gender she was born with and attempting to roll back the clock--both approved of by the social norms of Hollywood, California, and America in general, she was free to do this as she saw fit. All of the procedures visible on Mae West's body in Myra Breckinridge are as invasive as gender reassignment, but anyone seeking gender reassignment is NOT free to do as they see fit. The film is an artifact that distills the problem of gender identity into a caustic, wholly indigestible, singular creation.

If Myra Breckinridge is palatable at all, it is because of Raquel Welch, who was at the height of her beauty and sex appeal when this film was made and was kitted out with the most flattering wardrobe she ever wore. That she is a gender outlaw in this film is entertaining to a point, given that Welch is the archetypal male fantasy pin-up, and there IS that kernel of subversive commentary on gender roles in the movie. Certainly, the portrait of gender and sexual identity in disarray that Myra Breckinridge presents WAS ahead of its time, but this is all small comfort given that the idea is trapped in a film that will scar most viewers for life...