oz: an excerpt (2)

[egypturnash]

[...] And now the incantation seemed complete, for the Witch stood upright and cried the one word "Yeowa!" in a loud voice.

[...]

At this exquisite vision Tip's old comrades stared in wonder for the space of a full minute, and then every head bent low in honest admiration of the lovely Princess Ozma. The girl herself cast one look into Glinda's bright face, which glowed with pleasure and satisfaction, and then turned upon the others. Speaking the words with sweet diffidence, she said:

"I hope none of you will care less for me than you did before. I'm just the same Tip, you know; only— only—"

"Only you're different!" said the Pumpkinhead; and everyone thought it was the wisest speech he had ever made.

—L. Frank Baum, The Land of Oz

I tend to say that I didn't see myself as female when I was a kid. But... stuff like this resonated, somewhere. I had a random assortment of the Oz books when I was young, which happened to include this one. I would not be surprised if it's the one with the most wear and tear. (The copy at hand is not that one; it's from the late seventies/early Eighties Del Rey reprint series, which let me finally read all of Baum's original fourteen books, in all their weird, awkward glory.)

I was digging through my boxes of books, in search of something to read on the plane tomorrow. There was a post-it note sticking from this one, and I knew exactly why. This passage. It's one that I was considering using as an epigraph for The Drowning City if I ever get off my ass and start drawing that.

Of course, Ozma turned out to be very different from scrappy, smart Tip. She got buried in the frills and passive prettiness of being a Fairy Princess in the early 1900s. Maybe, like so many MtF transsexuals, she just wanted to forget that she was ever a boy. She mostly just became a deus ex machina, a source of powerful fairy magic to wrap up a plot, or something to be kidnapped now and then. Not someone who could go out on an adventure and get in trouble. Or someone who could grow up, because nobody ever got any older in Oz.

Mombi's magic smoke is only the beginning of the change.

Comments

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

I remember at sometime in my earlier childhood some channel was running a series of cartoons based on the Oz books and I watched one or two of them. It always stuck in my brain how odd it was that I was watching a Wizard of OZ cartoon that seemed nothing like the movie. I didn't know then that there had been a pile of Oz books, I was just a dumb kid. I liked the cartoons, but I remember one episode in particular where one character is changed from a boy into a princess. For some reason I knew that there was absolutely no way I could ever tell my parents what I had been watching in the living room. This was one of the odd things that I knew if they knew I had seen, I somehow felt as if I would have been found out, or if they had a negative reaction to it that reaction would be centered on me. I just sort of felt like seeing something like that was very special and had to stay very secret.
Not that I’m transsexual, I have had described as my poor body image has more to do with other more regular feelings of worthlessness, but from the perspective of a bisexual male there is still something special about seeing someone change genders. I remember thinking hard about it, what if it happened to me, would I like boys instead of girls, or still girls?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I decided I really liked the Oz books at about that point.

[waterotter.livejournal.com]

I've been rereading Oz lately, too. That plus your recentish Alice artwork has put me in a very odd state of mind. I think I'm getting things out of these stories that Baum never meant to put in.

[bluerain.livejournal.com]

You know...

As a kid I identified so, so much with that.

[eselgeist.livejournal.com]

alls i know are movies and knock-offs and Wicked, which i adore.

[orb2069.livejournal.com]

IIRC, Gutenberg's finished transcribing all the Baum books - Here's a link (http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/b#a42) - Dunno about how you feel about eText, but I'm probably going to Pluck the mess of them and see if I can catch up. :)

[jackfurlong.livejournal.com]

I spose I'm a little lazy; I picked up most of Eric Shandower's graphic novels (http://www.ericshanower.com/es/credits.shtml#graphics) and read those. The art's really good, btw.

[oceanstater.livejournal.com]

Maybe, like so many MtF transsexuals, she just wanted to forget that she was ever a boy

I once read something to the effect that transsexuals don't identify with their chosen gender so much as they reject their birth gender.

Does this seem familiar to you? I call myself "ungendered" and claim that I will not surgically or hormonally alter my body (which seems less and less carved-in-stone as the years go by), and I feel that way. As a child, I had a fantasy male alter ego, chose male roles in games, and violently rejected all "girly" things. To this day, I am pleased to receive mail for "Mr. Williams," and I'm almost put out when mass-marketers discover my correct biological sex and include the Ms. title.

I often muse that, even with bottomless financial resources, a supportive family, and vastly improved surgical techniques, I wouldn't want to become a man because I'd be just as horribly out-of-place as a man as I am as a woman. :) Like the old blues song, I'm a mannish woman or a woman-actin' man.