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PATRICIA
ARQUETTE, the star of Medium (seen on local cable
TV—Ed.), said she was going through heaping stacks of
papers. She has four siblings, all performers. A
documentary about her sibling Alexis’s gender
transition, Alexis Arquette: She’s My Brother,
was released last year. Her daughter Harlow, with her
husband, actor Thomas Jane, is 5.
What
have you been up to? Is that too vague?
I’ve
been really busy since the strike. I’m working on this
12-year-long project with Richard Linklater. We shoot a
week a year. I had actually been planning for a year to
go to a very dear friend’s wedding in India, so I went
for an extra week to Egypt. It’s always been a big dream
of mine....
It was
really incredible. Even overrun with tourists and the
craziness. I found myself weeping in front of the
Sphinx.
How
hippie-dippy are you in real life?
You
mean, like, spiritual? I think I probably more tend to
be hippie-dippier than most people, because I grew up in
a hippie commune for two years. So I have a different
perception—the place I grew up in wasn’t free drugs,
free sex—it was married people with families.
[Interrupting herself] What the hell is going on here?
Part of my wall is peeling off!
My
parents were creatures of the ’40s and they were
supposed to be married in their same religion, and my
mom was supposed to go to school to find someone to
marry. But they were interested in the way other people
thought, and in other cultures....So I think I’m a
little more open-minded than the average person.
And yet
the fears that people had for our generation, who grew
up in this fashion, didn’t come to pass. Our lives
aren’t insane and reckless.
No, not
in general. Unless you get strung out on drugs or
something. But there’s still people waging that same
battle. What if gay people get married? Oh, it’s going
to destroy the world! Somehow that’s terrifying to them.
When I was born, in ’68, it was during the civil-rights
movement. It wasn’t, you know, a standard way we live
today.
I think
we’ll look back on the way that homosexuals are dealt
with in our culture today, that it was almost barbaric
and bizarre that we were so backward-thinking. If that
makes me hippie-dippy, then sign me up!
So! You
came into a new sister!
Oh,
Alexis, yeah! Alexis is amazing. It’s been amazing
growing up with Alexis. It hasn’t been all easy. It’s
been quite a soul-searching journey for everybody....I
remember Alexis growing up, and we’d be in school in
kindergarten, and they’d say, “Get in line, boys here,
girls here.” Alexis would always get in the girls’ line.
And I remember Alexis getting dressed in drag at four.
And he was so effeminate, they all started calling
Alexis “fag” and “queer” and so on. And, of course, I
started fighting people.
Alexis
thought: “That must be what it is...” only to come and
realize later, “That’s not what’s different about me,
it’s not that I’m a gay man. It’s that I’m in the wrong
body: I am a woman.”
I had
all the questions at first: Do you love yourself? Is it
something that you want to change about the way you
look? I get concerned when anybody I love wants to do
any change to the way they look—where’s this coming from
and why?
She was
like, “What difference does it make what container we’re
in? Am I who I am because I’m a woman? Or does it
matter? Am I who I am regardless of whether I’m a woman
or a man? My package was born with blue eyes—my package
has a penis, or a vagina. Is that what it’s about?”
Wow.
You have
to imagine you’re wearing a costume, or some kind of
outfit that indicates who you are all the time. And
everyone responds to that and you can never take that
costume off....Accepting as I am, I didn’t really
understand and I can’t say I really do understand it.
But I did feel a sadness. Like, there’s a loss. Am I
going to lose my brother? I have memories of growing up:
little faces we made, getting dressed up for Halloween.
Were
there ways in which this called things into question
about your identity?
Yes, I
always imagined myself to be a very open-minded person.
So when I was feeling a level of judgment...I really had
to think about myself. I think it’s an important
question to ask in a society that is so much about the
way you look. People take such extreme measures about
the way you look.
And for
the five-year-olds in the family, it’s probably not a
big deal at all.
They
love Alexis because they know who Alexis is. They don’t
like people because of the way they look—they like
people because of who they are. My daughter is very into
princesses and she’s very ultra-femme. I was not like
that! So she just adores Alexis....And Alexis came over
once with not as much makeup on. And Harlow said, “I
don’t want that, I want you to have more makeup on! Next
time have more.”
She is
girly!
People
are like, “Oh it’s so weird.” And people say, like, “God
what do you guys do for holidays, it must be so weird!”
My reaction inside is: It must be so weird for you! That
you grew up in a family that wouldn’t be loving and
accepting. That’s the sad thing. So don’t worry about
how weird things are for us, because I’m worried about
how weird things are for you. You know what I’m saying?
Because that sounds like a nightmare. |
