Penelope Spheeris | I Don't Know / 1970

linda, jimmy, jennifer, and dana

by Douglas Messerli

 

Penelope Spheeris (screenwriter and director) I Don't Know / 1970

 

Lesbian Linda Spheeris, the director’s sister, has fallen in love with Jimmy Michael, who identifies mostly as a male, is attracted to men and has a penis, but also has breasts and suffers from menstrual cramps. Linda, who herself is somewhat sexually confused, as she puts it, feels that if she could have a relationship with Jimmy, a man, permitting them a more traditional relationship. It would solve both their problems, she argues, believing that they would be good for each other.

 

    And, in fact, the couple just walking, talking, bathing together, and hanging out do seem both to be full of life and are quite charismatic, particularly the self-deprecating Jimmy.

     At one point he actually talks about the possibility of going through with a complete sex change, but it’s also apparent that he enjoys sex with other men, describing himself as a screaming queen, implying that he identifies more as a transexual than being transgender. And the confusion causes real problems underlying his on-screen presence. At one point he admits to performing in a porno film as both a man and woman, the shock coming when he shows his “true nature.” But when Penelope asks what that true nature is he says he hasn’t figured that out yet.

     At several points in the past, he has attempted suicide. And the fact that Linda’s brother Andy highly dislikes him, describing him as a “flipped out faggot” doesn’t help the matter, particularly when Andy suggests that if he had Jimmy’s problems he’d surely take his own life.

     This is, after all, 1970, a time in which being transgender or simply somewhere in between was a lonely place in which to be. And it’s clear that for both Linda and Jimmy gender dysphoria is painful and disorienting. Soon, as Andy develops a quite violent hate for Jimmy, things between Linda and Jimmy become even more complicated as threats from both Andy and Jimmy spill over even into their shooting sessions.

     When asked if Jimmy would like to live with Linda like a married couple, he replies “Definitely not. …She just doesn’t have that touch. It’s quite a lot lacking.” Penelope asks him, “You want a man,” he answers, “Of course.” Yet he suggests they could live together if they had separate rooms,she having her girlfriends and he his boyfriends. A moment, when asked who’s his best friend, Jimmy quickly answers “Linda.”

     Linda even attempts to keep him close by creating a motorbike in her own garage, which when she starts up, he jumps on as the rider.

     Eventually, Linda laments that Jimmy has returned to New York to be with his boyfriend who doesn’t treat him very well and sometimes breaks his nose. Love is tough to find for people like her and Jimmy, she observes. But she has new girlfriends and might get a job dancing at a topless bar. “Sometimes I wonder who I am. I’m beginning to realize that I don’t know.”  

    This 20-minute film ends oddly, with a female, Dana Reuben, who we’ve just previously spotted in the mirror into which Linda is staring. Dana, dressed in odd apparel that looks half Arabian, half Romani, has a face that features a large handle-bar moustache. She tells of how she took Jimmy to a friend, an arts patron who became very sad. “She couldn’t understand why Jimmy was the way he was, or is. And I tried to explain to her that well, it’s Jimmy’s choice of life, I mean, he’s a freak, you know? He kind of digs being a freak. And of course he has that choice. He can always be a girl or a boy. But, Jimmy is a freak and he tends to lose his friends. …He doesn’t have any friends. There’s no one. No one at all but me. I’m his friend.” Dana smiles broadly into the camera. And we can only wonder whether Dana might not be a new manifestation, or at least different manifestation of Linda.

 

    In 1972, Dana appeared in a new Spheeris film, Hats off to Hollywood, which explored Jimmy, now known as Jennifer, and Dana as a bickering couple. And we begin to ask how much of this work is actual documentary and how much is fiction.

 

Los Angeles, July 5, 2024 | Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog.