The Queen

Helen Mirren has been winning awards right and left this year for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in the film titled The Queen. Every time I encounter that film title, I recall another film with the very same title.

I read the Village Voice in the late 1960s, for its politics, music and film reviews, writers, and its occasional (very occasional) references to something related to crossdressing, transvestism, etc. I was in my late teens and desperate for information about crossdressing and transvestism and the only straight media to ever broach those subjects were the Voice and Rolling Stone.

One day back in 1968, I was reading the Voice and came across a display ad for a new film titled The Queen. Whoa! The ad showed a guy in various stages of applying makeup to become a girl. I had never seen anything like this before! I knew that The Queen would never be shown locally, probably nowhere in the whole state or even in all of New England. If I wanted to see it, I would have to take the train to New York City and see it there.

But what would people think of me entering or exiting the movie theatre where The Queen was playing? Would that news leak back to my hometown and cause me to be ostracized me as a teen queen? So, I decided that it would be safer if I did not go to The City to see The Queen.

Years later, The Queen was released on videotape. I purchased a copy and watched it on my TV. It was not a great film, but I wonder how that film would have affected me if I had seen it back when I was 17?