Review: Elliot Page's book Pageboy has everything you want out of a celebrity memoir

10:11Book review: Elliot Page's new memoir Pageboy

Elliot Page's memoir, Pageboy, is an intimate look at his journey coming out first as queer and later as trans. The book was released earlier this month and in it, the Canadian actor recounts the challenges he faced growing up in Nova Scotia, and then in Hollywood where he was pressured into hiding his identity.

Culture writer and editor Mel Woods joined host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to talk about highlights from the book, and how it balances a heavy conversation around gender with lighter behind-the-scenes anecdotes from Page's career.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: First of all, this book is not ghostwritten. It's also not the normal kind of straightforward celebrity memoir. Could you please just describe the experience of reading Elliot Page's Pageboy?

Mel: I think a more boring version of this book would start with his childhood in Nova Scotia, and then go to Juno and then kind of navigate his career throughout the industry. But I think in writing this, he takes a lot more of an almost stream-of-consciousness approach.… It's these scenes and these anecdotes and these vignettes — that are sometimes thematically tied together, sometimes not — kind of weaving this story of not just the experience that he went through in his journey to come out as trans in such a public way, but also the abuse that he's dealt with in the industry personally, some juicy celebrity gossip and anecdotes; there's a lot packed into the tight 288 pages here. But it's woven together in a really interesting way.

Elamin: When you say "stream of consciousness," is there a narrative arc still to the book, or not so much?

Mel: The narrative arc is definitely him coming to a point of peace, I think. Especially by the time you reach the end of the book, it feels like he had to do this. I know that's really cliché to be like, "I had to get it out." But it feels like working through this and processing this was a part of his journey that kind of led towards that coming out post. That's kind of the moment where, in terms of time, there are some scenes that take place after that, but him coming to terms with that and the momentous sense of that — the journey to get there is kind of the arc of the book. And that takes place over time, in different places. But I think it's coming to peace, and coming to this almost cathartic release of just being present in the moment and with himself and with the way the world is seeing him, and all of that. I found it really powerful.

Elamin: I want to come back to that in just a moment, but first I have to say: for the people who are not millennials, you have to understand how big of a deal Juno was. When that movie landed, this was just a massive film. It was Elliot's breakthrough role. It was a comedy. He played a teenager who gets pregnant, and got an Oscar nomination for it. I can't even tell you how many times I've seen Juno…. Elliot wrote in the memoir that filming that movie reinvigorated, inspired and strengthened him. Mel, what stories does Elliot share from the set of Juno? What made it such a positive experience and environment for him?

Mel: He talks a lot about it being this kind of close-knit indie film family. And, you know, a family is a cliché term for these sorts of things, but it feels like that — and because he was so young at the time; it was his breakthrough role. He did other things beforehand, but this was The One.

WATCH | Official trailer for Juno (2007):

One of my favorite scenes in the book is, he's on a plane going to, I think, the final screen test with his mom and Michael Cera and his mom. And they're just, like, teens on a plane, going to a place, doing a thing. And he talks about — this one's been picked up by the celebrity gossip mags — about having a really close, romantic relationship with Olivia Thirlby on set. And I think that it feels like a calm before the storm, you know? Before the rest of his life kind of exploded and blew up.

Elamin: It is hard to overstate how much Elliot Page and Michael Cera became the faces of a generation after Juno came out. Yet you're right to say that Juno is this indie film and it blew up in this way that no one expected…. But becoming this overnight celebrity takes a toll on a person. What does Elliot say about the aftermath of Juno?

Mel: Juno, you know, led to a lot of speculation in the press about him being gay. It led to a lot of perception and kind of this forced — you know, in a way, the film didn't really force this traditional model of femininity onto him; the press, the marketing, the doing of it all does. He writes about going to the premiere in Toronto and planning to wear slacks and a Western shirt that he thought would be fun, and as soon as the publicist got wind of that, whisked them off to the department store to get a dress and heels, much at his own opposition. And so I think that was his first taste of seeing how hard visible queerness, visible gender nonconformity is in the industry, and how much it is going to be kind of pushed down upon him throughout his career.

Elamin: Now, one of the things that Elliot writes in this book that you pulled out in your review, the quote is: "Hollywood is built on leveraging queerness. Tucking it away when needed, pulling it out when beneficial, while patting themselves on the back. Hollywood doesn't lead the way, it responds, it follows, slowly and far behind." What do you make of that?

Mel: Yeah, that quote comes from a section where it's a little bit before his coming out as gay in the mid-2010s and about how he's privately queer and living a very queer life, and then having to watch straight actors win awards for playing queer roles, and seeing how this industry has continued to repress his queerness, his gender, his expression, and the kind of double-sidedness of that and the hypocrisy of that. I think it's a really good way of summing up something that we talk a lot about — about queer and trans folks in entertainment, and how you watch people win an Oscar for playing gay while you yourself have to stay closeted. That's a really hard experience to go through.

Elamin: Now, in your review, you got a little bit into how this book is really personal for you. What does Elliot's journey and the visibility of it mean to you?

Mel: Yeah, you know, I think in queer and trans communities we talk a lot about possibility models, and I think the visibility that Elliot Page has brought for trans people and trans masc people has been really personally impactful. I'll never forget the day that he came out because it was about six months before I came out, and I think that seeing somebody embrace that lived and honest truth, and speak about the joy that expressing that has brought to them was really, really deeply impactful for me. I mean, it's no coincidence that however many years before, I came out as gay not long after Elliot Page came out as gay. He feels like this queer Canadian who's just like a few years ahead of me in my life. 

Elamin: There's some parallels there.

Mel: Exactly, and it's not just me. That's the case for thousands of people. Elliot writes in the book about one of his queer possibility models, a family friend named Julia Sanderson, and the fact that I think he as a public figure and this book will serve as that for queer and trans kids and show them yeah, the book is heavy — it's got a lot of abuse and hardness in it — but it also has so much joy and so much trans possibility in it. And I think that that is just so exciting for people to be able to see, to read and to be able to connect with.

Elamin: Any scenes from Pageboy that resonated with you, that you just really enjoyed reading?

Mel: I'm biased toward the queer and trans content in it, but I think towards the end he goes out to a cabin in Nova Scotia and is really kind of grappling with the momentousness of coming out as trans and what it's going to mean for him and his life, and how he does just have to do it. He talks about writing this book and writing sections of this book sitting in his favorite chair at the cabin in Nova Scotia. I like to see a little bit inside the process of the book. I think that's very fun.

In a lighter way, I also love all the celebrity stuff. I love hearing about the cast of Whip It and going to parties at Drew Barrymore's house, and having Alia Shawkat trying to set him up with somebody, and all that sort of stuff is really fun to get a little peek inside of. You get that out of a celebrity memoir every time, and it's nice that we get both that and the heavy, big-capital-G gender stuff in this one.

Elamin: Mel, I appreciate you reading the book. I appreciate you connecting with it, but also being here to share the ways that you connected with it. Thank you so much for your time.

Mel: Oh, thank you so much for having me. It was a treat as always.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Mel Woods produced by Jane van Koeverden.