THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY BLOG OF YOUR DREAMS

"See Venice and die," is what they say? Or is it Rome?"

In a traditional closet narrative, desire is truth, one's desires are punished for being what they are, and to suppress this desire is to harm one's self by lying–a narrative that usually ends with leaving the rejecting host body, not trying to burrow yourself deeper into it. Indeed, in most coming-out narratives, to remain behind in disguise is considered losing the game of life. But for Tom–and, I'd argue, legions of dykes who see their gender identity as in flux–disguise is the lifestyle. What Tom's character experiences is much more like the desire to pass than it is the desire to live openly. But it's not passing the way trans people hope to pass: as themselves, out in the public world. It's a much more greedy, sometimes ugly desire, a desire to have more than you're entitled to, to not be accepted as you actually are or want to be but to be more than that. It’s a desire to beat an entire gender category at its own game.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, July 23, 1967 - February 2, 2014.