Ru Paul: The Reality Show Tiresias

In his latest book Workin’ It, Ru Paul defines his persona as “two parts Diana Ross, a pinch of Bugs Bunny, two heaping spoonfuls of Dolly Parton and a dash of Joseph Campbell.” Not surprisingly, the ingredient in the Ru Paul recipe that intrigues me most is Joseph Campbell, the revered mythologist and comparative religions scholar. By including Campbell in her construction of persona, Ru Paul harkens back to ancient cultures when shamans, witch doctors and drag queens openly reminded folks of the duality of their souls: the male and female in all of us. Which brings me to why this blog is called Cee Tiresias. Invoked by writers, poets and gender theorists alike, Tiresias is the classical figure most representative of bisexuality. Here’s why.

One day in the forest, Tiresias came upon two entwined snakes. Striking them with his staff he separated them only to be transformed into a woman. Seven years later, he came upon a pair of coupling snakes again, separated them as he had before and was transformed back into a man. Then Tiresias receives an invitation to Mt. Olympus where Hera questions him along with Zeus about which gender experiences the most pleasure in love making. Tiresias answers women, explaining we have multiple platforms for ecstasy whereas men just have “scepter and orbs,” so to speak. Hera goes through the roof over his response and blinds Tiresias; for ancient Greeks pleasure and work were antithetical, so to Hera’s mind Tiresias’s answer is a decidedly anti-feminist one. Zeus, feeling really bad about the whole thing, compensates Tiresias for his blindness by bestowing on him the gift of prophecy. And so one of the most important prophets in the classical tradition, a psychological hermaphrodite, was born into vision by darkness.

Now, Ru Paul may not be a prophet, but he certainly is male, female and black. In fact, on his show, Ru Paul’s Drag Race, he plays Tim Gunn from Project Runway beautifully. When consulting with contestants about their progress over the course of a challenge, Ru Paul, outside of drag, is as caring, firm, interested and earnest as he wants to be. However, once Ru Paul is in drag at the end of the show for the judging, Tim Gunn is gone and Tyra Banks from America’s Next Top Model sits in his place as a stilted, robotic glamazon in need of lithium. Because Ru Paul inhabits the two personalities and the two genders so seamlessly, he constitutes for me a more trustworthy sage than either Gunn or Banks. In the world of fashion/performance reality contests, Ru Paul is Tiresias.

We don't have to be drag queens to know the feeling of wearing layers of masks. What this site’s about is taking the masks off. That’s what Oedipus and Odysseus had to do in order to hear Tiresias’s messages for them. I am certainly no soothsayer, and if I find any readers at all I doubt many of you will be epic heroes. Nonetheless, removing a mask can be a powerful if not heroic act. I took off one of my masks, looked in the mirror and saw this blog.

Cee Tiresias Has Her Debut

Yesterday the piece that started me on this journey of being Cee Tiresias was published on Scallywag & Vagabond! I guess someone's finally been outed...

http://scallywagandvagabond.com/2010/03/a-bisexual-comes-out-of-the-closet/

Jesse James: Gone With the Wind

I’ve been wondering two things for a long time. 1) Why did Sean Combs name one of his twin daughters Jesse James? 2) Why did Sandra Bullock marry someone named Jesse James? Though the 19th century bank robber is a celebrated and often assumed to be Robin Hood-like character of the Wild West, in reality he was a confederate gorilla warrior on a rampage of violence fueled by his hatred of black people and his love of slavery. Knowing this, I wasn’t surprised to learn Michelle McGee, the mistress of the husband of Sandra Bullock, posed all sexy-like in Nazi-wear. Whether the “WP” tattooed on her body stands for “White Power” or “Wet Pussy” the fact that’s a question recalls the confusion and cultural amnesia that refurbishes a criminal like the historical Jesse James into a touchstone of American frontier history in the first place. Americans love their villains, so much so a black man “Bad Boy” will name one his daughters after an avowed white supremacist. But it takes one to know one. My favorite movie from the time I was about eight: Gone With the Wind.

For hours as a child I sat riveted to either TBS or TNT watching the restored version of the movie in narrative ecstasy. From the barbecue at Twelve Oaks to the biting of the bitter potato after Tara’s destruction to Scarlet putting her hand in Frank Kennedy’s pocket and grabbing hold of all his money, no story besides Jane Eyre spoke to me in my childhood with more force. That being said, I have always been surprised when white women, usually of middle age and up, say that they wish they had been alive to experience the good old plantation days complete with hoopskirts and Mammy-made lemonade and 16-inch waists. Despite my love of the story (I read the book for the first time sick with pneumonia in 7th grade) as a black girl I never had a doubt that the right and just side had won the war. Gone With the Wind is one the most successful narratives, I venture to say, ever, because it has an utter villain for a protagonist. When white women claim the American 19th century plantation as a desirable locale for their fantasies, they are also revealing they’re desire to be on the wrong side of history.

Can you blame them? It’s hard knowing whether you’re on the right or wrong side of something when you’re blind to its dimensions. But from where I’m sitting it’s about time Jesse James got the villain label. I only hope it sticks.

Tiger Woods, Aesop & The Walnut Tree

Tiger Woods is not a sex addict. He is a control freak who cheated on his wife with multiple women to feel out of control. He spent his childhood in fear of disappointing his demanding parents; now, he feels like he's disappointed the whole world and his family, too. The memo Tiger hasn't received that I'm here to deliver is that he was better off when he was dating the tens of women. At least then he was acting out against his psychosis. All public humiliation has done to this man is bound him up tighter in the iron will of other people's opinions. This man might be a billionaire, but he is a slave.

Aesop, the Ethiopian fabulist who found fame in Greece was also a slave. Aesop's lowliness gave him his insights as well as catapulted him to fame. Now we consider the hard boiled dynamics of human experience he gave the world children's fare.
Even while being powerful, supremely privileged and the very best in the world at something, Tiger is the public's whipping boy.

Aesop's "The Walnut Tree" reads: "A walnut which grew by the roadside bore every year a plentiful crop of nuts. Everyone who passed by pelted its branches with sticks and stones in order to bring down the fruit, and the tree suffered severely. 'It's hard,' it cried, 'that the very persons who enjoy my fruit should thus reward me with insults and blows.'"