Part 2: THE BIZARRE SYMBOLISM AND MYTHOLOGY OF THE EARLY FILMS OF THE ACTOR FORMERLY KNOWN AS “ELLEN PAGE”
From Prostitute to Transgender Poster Child
Part 1 - Recommended, if you have not yet read it.
Peacock
The symbolism and mythology associated with the early films of the actor formerly known as ‘Ellen Page’ reach a critical point in the film Peacock (2010). The central themes of transgenderism and child sexual abuse that connect the mythology from film to film are both firmly established here once again.
My thesis has been to present the films of “Ellen Page” as a roadmap that have led the actor and viewer directly to transgenderism. It’s in Peacock where that theory is most openly revealed and where the viewer is finally allowed to see the trans-thread that further unites these films and links them all to child abuse.
In the previously discussed films, Page led us on an odyssey that revealed the disturbing personality disorders and distinct alter personalities that are characteristic of all the roles she has assumed. In Peacock she plays a child-like prostitute, truly bizarre casting that boggles the mind unless you apply the Juno Mythology and are accustomed to seeing the actor in roles that define contradiction.
Juno’s Baby is Born
The 2-3 year gap between Juno and Peacock has allowed the Juno baby to morph into the 2-year old toddler of Page’s new persona, Maggie. It should be understood that although the goddess Juno was a maternal figure she was also extremely cunning, deceitful and violent toward other women and children and these traits should be taken into consideration when deconstructing the meaning of these films and in particular the character of Maggie.
Presented as possibly the most sympathetic prostitute on record, Maggie may be a hard working single mom, but she still turns tricks in the tiny abode she occupies with her small child. This doesn’t exactly make her mother of the year and if we look at the myth of Juno, we know that it is well within the realm of Maggie or any Page character to rid herself of her own child, as goddess Juno did with Vulcan; and her attempt to kill a child, as she did with Achilles.
The transgender narrative is revealed to us in the characters portrayed by Cillian Murphy, John/Emma. John being the male figure and Emma, the transgender persona he has kept hidden away until now. Could the transgender name and persona of Emma be a clue to the transformation of Ellen? Possibly, the name is similar enough, but the utility of Page is to bring us to the issue of transgenderism which is imparted to us by Cillian Murphy’s characters.
We learn that John has suffered greatly under the strict watchfulness of his now deceased mother whose death brought about the outward emergence of Emma. He recalls having his head submerged in water, a manner of ritual abuse that is well known to produce alter personalities that emerge as part of built-in coping mechanisms within small children. Water symbolism is prevalent in Peacock. We see John repeatedly drawn to a lake where he throws rocks into the water, symbolic of his resistance to being dominated as well as acknowledging the cause of his personality split. John knows that it’s water that brought about his more dominant alter Emma, the female persona who makes him breakfast every morning and prepares a dinner for him to heat up when he gets home from work, always with a loving note from him/herself. It’s Emma who learns to drive while John putters about on a bicycle, it’s Emma who learns to smile in public and engage others while John awkwardly avoids interaction and painfully stutters responses. Theirs becomes a battle over who will rule, who will be present for others and whose voice will prevail.
Emma is also aware of the traumatic symbolism of water and just as with John, their existential purpose is to keep their heads above it and avoid a crisis that would complicate their lives further. Emma expresses the importance of water by often wearing a blue dress that turns white at the top part of her chest, which visually and symbolically keeps her head above and out of the blue water. We see the same shade of blue in a sweater she wears and in an outfit worn by Maggie’s 2-year old child who is meant to remind us of abuse cycles and John’s personality fragmentation which likely occurred around that age. One can only assume that a prostitute’s child would experience trauma, and perhaps John himself was the offspring of a prostitute mother since we never hear about his father. Maggie’s child then, is the reflection of John before traumatization.
Juno’s Peacock
What is at issue here is not just revelations of transgenderism, but perceptions of transgenderism and the overarching purpose of obscuring truth and further confusing the gender identities we think we know within ourselves and others. This dark ambiguity is at the heart of Peacock which is not just the name of the film, but the name of the town where the story takes place.
The peacock was the sacred bird of the goddess Juno, whose tail feathers were adorned with the 100s of all-seeing, never-closing eyes of Argus, thus the town of Peacock has become a proxy for the peacock of Juno and its citizens, the eyes that see all.
We know from the opening scenes that avoiding the prying eyes of neighbors and passersby is of utmost importance to John/Emma. Deception and secrecy prevail as shades are perpetually drawn, the front door is opened very hesitantly and the interior of the home is nearly devoid of light. John/Emma’s privacy concerns are confirmed when an eager crowd shows up and surrounds Emma the instant after a disturbance in her backyard. And though the townspeople poke and prod and surround her, they are still blind to the fact that she and John are the same person.
The unseeing eyes that surround John/Emma illustrate the failed perceptions of even those who have known John his whole life and even recently ‘met’ Emma. Once Emma begins expressing her dominance over John, she starts to get out more and is told by the town sheriff that in their town of 700 people, she is the hardest to find, even though they all see her every day as John.
The Message
Most sacred to the goddess Juno is her attendant, Iris. The iris is the round membrane that regulates the amount of light that enters the eye, not unlike John and Emma who constantly tug at the blinds to keep out the light, regulating the darkness of their home. In these terms Iris could be the goddess of perception, but what she is most noted for is being Juno’s messenger and the goddess of the rainbow. So as our cinematic Juno is intimately connected to ancient mythology, Iris becomes the rainbow messenger of “Ellen Page”—the new face of the LGBTQ+ rainbow and poster child for transgenderism.
We are not necessarily meant to know this, yet it is presented here to discover. If we adhere to the Juno Mythology in Peacock and the other early films of “Ellen Page”, secrecy and confusion seem to be the intent of transgenderism and its associated ideologies. I believe the early films of “Ellen Page” are steeped in the occult, that is, secrets and intention not outwardly expressed for a general audience to grasp. For esoteric reasons, truth must be hidden in plain sight in order for occult intentions to manifest in our reality. And if we are to look at the manifestations of confusion, pain, suicides and the horrifying division that gender ideology has created in our time, then Peacock along with the other films discussed, have succeeded in tainting our collective consciousness with dark ideas we can do without.
This desolation theory is backed up in the final shot of Peacock. In a fascinating hijacking of personas where both John and Emma masquerade as each other in efforts to gain total dominance over the other, it is John who wins out, but who must remain in the persona of Emma—forever trapped in the body of someone he regrets ever empowering. Again, shutting the blinds and hiding in the darkness. Alone.
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I really enjoy your writing, please keep them coming!
This was my first read, I will definitely have to read it a couple of more times to understand.
Very well written and captivating essay. Lots of imagery about the movie in my head as I was reading.