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Myra Breckinridge (1968) is a satirical novel by Gore Vidal written in the form of a diary. It was made into a movie in 1970. Described by the critic Dennis Altman as "part of a major cultural assault on the assumed norms of gender and sexuality which swept the western world in the late 1960s and early 1970s," the book's major themes are feminism, transsexuality, American expressions of machismo and patriarchy, and so-called deviant sexual practices, as filtered through an aggressively camp sensibility. Set in Hollywood in the 1960s, the novel also contains candid and irreverent glimpses into the machinations within the film industry. Dismissed by some of the era's more conservative critics as pornographic at the time of its first publication, the book immediately became a worldwide bestseller and has since come to be recognized as a classic. "It is tempting to argue that Vidal said more to subvert the dominant rules of sex and gender in Myra than is contained in a shelf of queer theory treatises," wrote Dennis Altman. In 1974 Vidal published a sequel, Myron, in which the story of Myra Breckinridge is continued.
The novel
Myra Breckinridge is an attractive young woman with a mission. A film buff with a special interest in the Golden Age of Hollywood, in particular the 1940s, she comes to her uncle Buck Loner's academy for aspiring young actors and actresses in order to teach -- not just her regular classes (Posture and Empathy), but also, as part of the hidden curriculum, femdom ("I'm Myra Breckinridge whom no man will ever possess"). She selects as her first victim one of the "studs" at the Academy, a straight young man called Rusty Godowski, whose beautiful girlfriend Mary-Ann Pringle (Farrah Fawcett in the movie version) she at the same time sets out to alienate from him.
In the climactic scene of the novel (Ch.28), Myra has had Rusty come to the infirmary ("a small antiseptic white room with glass cabinets containing all sorts of drugs and wicked-looking instruments") at 10 p.m. under the pretext of having to conduct a medical examination. After tying Rusty face down to the examination table, she at first humiliates him verbally by asking him very personal questions about his sex life and commenting, in rather drastic tones, on the allegedly moderate size of his penis ("I'm afraid, Rusty, that you've been somewhat oversold on the campus. Poor Mary-Ann. That's a boy's equipment."). Finally, she rapes the unsuspecting student anally with a strap-on dildo ("Now remember the secret is to relax entirely. Otherwise you could be seriously hurt."). Afterwards ("There was blood at the end."), she even makes him thank her for the trouble she has taken.
Only towards the end of the novel does the reader learn about Myra's secret: Pretending that she is Myron Breckinridge's widow, she demands from her uncle, who owns the Academy, half of what he has built up, while in fact she was Myron, has had sexual reassignment surgery (she is particularly proud of her silicone breasts) and only poses as his widow. However, when she has a car accident and is hospitalized, Myra Breckinridge appears to be all just a dream. At the beginning of Myron, he lives together with Mary-Ann, whom he tried to seduce already as a woman.
The subplot of Myra Breckinridge revolves around the character of Letitia Van Allen (Mae West in the movie), an ageing but always horny talent scout whose office boasts a four-poster bed and whose kinky sexual practices ("Those small attentions a girl like me cherishes … a lighted cigarette stubbed out on my derriere, a complete beating with his great thick heavy leather belt, *") have landed her in hospital, half paralysed ("Total perfection!"), at the same time as Myra.
The spirit of the times is also well reflected in another, earlier chapter (Ch.14) of Myra Breckinridge where Myra attends an orgy arranged by one of the students. She goes there, intending to be an observer only but, after "mixing gin and marijuana", she eventually gets "stoned out of her head" and passes out in the bathroom.
The film
Myra Breckinridge was filmed in 1970 by Michael Sarne, with Raquel Welch in the title role. The movie also starred John Huston as Buck Loner, Mae West as Letitia Van Allen (spelled Leticia in the film), Farrah Fawcett, Roger Herren, and Roger C. Carmel. In 1993, looking back upon his career, Vidal wrote that although he had "never seen it, I do know that despite the iconic presences of Raquel Welch and Mae West, the film was so bad that the book stopped selling for a decade." The movie was the big screen debut of Tom Selleck, who has a small part as one of Letitia's "studs". Theadora Van Runkle was costume designer for the film, but Edith Head designed Mae West's costumes.
The film takes liberties with the original text by revealing the plot twist about Myra being a man who had a sex change operation in the opening moments of the film, via a framing sequence at the start of the film where Myron is having his sex change operation and a sequence at the end of the film where Myron wakes up only to find out that he hasn't had the surgery yet.
Further changes include the decision to have Myra be somewhat schizophrenic in terms of imagining her former male self existing beside her and having several conversations with people while in the persona of her male self. The film also breaks the fourth wall in terms of having "Myra" being inspired by Raquel Welch herself.
Ironically though the novel's climatic rape scene was left intact, though the writers film the scene in a manner that avoids showing the strap-on penis Myra uses to rape her student with.
Filming of the movie was also filled with controversy, due to Michael Sarne being granted complete control over the project. Sarne quickly went overbudget and methodically drive everyone crazy with reshoots of trivia scenes.
There were also reports of conflicts between Raquel Welch and Mae West, who came out of retirement to play the Leticia character. Furthermore, some actors from 1940s and 1950s films that were used as stock footage were upset that footage from their old films were inserted to the movie to punctuate some of the jokes as well as in the film's climatic rape sequence. Some stars, including Loretta Young, successfully sued to have footage of them removed from the film.
The film, while not a box office hit, briefly revived interest in Mae West's career and has become a cult classic. However, because of its adult themes, has rarely been shown on television (though in recent years, the film has aired in regular rotation on The Fox Movie Channel). It was recently released on DVD with minor changes; to make the film's ending (that Myron never had his sex change) clearer, the ending sequence was changed to black and white format.
External links
1968 novels | Novels by Gore Vidal | 1970 films | Transgender in film | LGBT literature
"Myra Breckinridge"