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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Little Lady Fauntleroy - C4

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15:06 / 28.06.04

I can't be the only one who remembers James Harries that obnoxious brat 'antiques expert' with the blonde afro who looked like a cross between Harpo Marx and Bonnie Langford? He had a sex change and became Lauren a couple of years ago - apparently because someone came up to him in a supermarket and told him it would be a good idea!

Well Keith Allen has done a documentary on him - and his equally bizarre family - on Channel 4 tonight. It seems Harries knew sod all about antiques really and was just groomed by his father. He and his parents have apparently awarded themselves loads of fake degrees which are all over the walls of their Cardiff council house. Lauren now makes a living singing kareokee.

Here's a link to the press release.

I'll lay bets that Lauren decides to have a sex change reversal in the not too distant future.

15:44 / 28.06.04

aw man, this poor kid. remember wogan interviewing him once. why couldn't tel see how much harm would be visited upon this kid the next day and forever thereafter?

so now fucking they let keith allen loose on him and his family? if you're keith allen i guess the easy targets are the only ones you can go for.

17:23 / 28.06.04

Frankly, I think Keith Allen is the least of James' - or Lauren's - problems. Equally, it's her pathologically enmeshed family that created the monster; Wogan merely provided publicity (and, if I remember rightly, freaky little James appeared on other programmes too, suggesting family collusion rather than kidnap by an eeevil meedja Child Catcher).

I'll be watching.

21:45 / 28.06.04

Actually, I'm enjoying Keith Allen a lot in this. He's making the relevant points in an entertaining way - and I suspect the Harries family are lapping it all up nonetheless.

I seem to recall reading some analysis of Lauren's familial situation wherein mention was made of the peculiar lack of boundaries between parents and children, how they viewed themselves as a single entity - and how this was reinforced by society outwith the family considering them weird and repellent.

21:55 / 28.06.04

My immediate reaction to the idea of the whole show was pretty much the same as yours, Gambit, and it certainly started out living down to those expectations.

Thing is, the longer it's gone on, the more horrendous the family have made themselves look, without much help from Allen. Some of the more disturbing stuff being the news that at least two of the children were removed from school (did Lauren ever even go? I'm unsure) when young, because of their parents strange paranoia and belief that they're worth more than other people, and the revelation that Lauren's pre-op counsellor was... her mother.

The mother's coming across as a real monster.

22:02 / 28.06.04

As well as being hideously, ambivalently enmeshed into a single, alienated organism, the family seems to have a collective difficulty distinguishing what's real and what's fantasy - as well as a weird sense of superiority which has clearly pissed off everyone who's come into contact with them.

22:05 / 28.06.04

"That's a load of... cock."

Sometimes, I love Keith Allen.

Goodness Gracious Meme

22:20 / 28.06.04

urgh. compulsive and horrible viewing. Do always find KA irritating, but his anger and total bafflement at inability to break through the fantasy the Harries have built themselves were well worth watching.

The 'drama lesson'. Yeuch.

22:24 / 28.06.04

I guess it was an exaggeration of the collective myths all families spin around themselves. Sadly, it also seemed like a major failure on the part of social services, at least where the homeschooling was concerned. The freakazoid parents managed to ensure that their kids developed no social skills or peer group normalisation whatsoever.

And the ease with which one can set oneself up as a counsellor always annoys me...

Goodness Gracious Meme

22:30 / 28.06.04

Oh god, from the welfare point of view it was all horrifying. Not sure to what extent social services would have been intervene, but there didn't seem to be any sign that they'd been monitored at all.

(mind you, it wasn't a particularly authoritative piece of doc-making, so there may have been some contact with SWs)

And re counselling, it is dreadful, always check for accreditation, kids. The thought of people going in good faith to Mrs Harries is nightmarish.

22:40 / 28.06.04

I think Allen nailed it when he pointed out (twice, I think) that the persecution predated Lauren's gender transition, and was the result of a wider family pathology (folie en famille?) That being said, the logistics of the gender transition did appall me somewhat: there seemed to be little sense of an early transsexual drive, a cross-dressing habit or a strong identification with being female. James' decision to become Lauren appeared, on the face of it, to have sprung from nowhere, and been cultivated by her hyper-insular family. She alluded to the two-year Real Life Test which, I'm aware, includes one year of full-time occupation (whether study, paid employment or voluntary work); I can't help wondering whether Lauren actually went through with this part, or if her collusive family succeeded in helping her fake it.

Goodness Gracious Meme

22:51 / 28.06.04

That's what I presumed. The 'unit' is sooooo strongly-defended and cut off. I would imagine that falsifying the evidence for the test wouldn't have been too difficult for them eg as with the counselling requirement/'business name'.

22:59 / 28.06.04

No. The bizarre 'dramaturgy' scene, though, where Lauren appeared to act out an angry, overbearing mother-figure hectoring the other party to "get a boyfriend" was creepily nasty. Or nastily creepy.

And being 'counselled' by one's own parent has echoes of Sigmund and Anna.

One would assume there was a load of conflict within the family, whether actively or passively expressed - simply because the 'children' were all effectively trapped there. The sense of a family mythology strong enough to smother any other, more objective reality struck me as similar to that I've read about in analyses of Fred and Rose West's set-up: where physical, sexual, emotional abuse were run-of-the-mill, everyday, and state-run 'normalisation' via school, employment, social services just didn't come close.

Depressing.

Goodness Gracious Meme

23:00 / 28.06.04

the persecution predated Lauren's gender transition, and was the result of a wider family pathology

The clip from the Wogan interview, confirmed this.

James' decision to become Lauren appeared, on the face of it, to have sprung from nowhere, and been cultivated by her hyper-insular family

I wondered if it might be have been to do with escaping from her life as James.... Is there much of a precedence for people using/desiring gender reassignment in this way, to disassociate from a previous 'life'?

I was a bit worried by the extract of the interview with Lauren's father, in which he talked about James thinking he might have been gay, and their 'supporting' this process by 'going to those places'.

That to me, indicated huge discomfort with homosexuality. I wondered if perhaps, in their micro-society, it was more accetable that James became Lauren, than became James, a gay man.

?

23:07 / 28.06.04

I wondered if it might be have been to do with escaping from her life as James.... Is there much of a precedence for people using/desiring gender reassignment in this way, to disassociate from a previous 'life'?

Not in a general sense, other than in extreeemely pathological circumstances (and I'd count these as extremely pathological circumstances). In the more specific sense of individuals being unhappy with gay orientation and wishing to change their physical sex to suit, that's a little more common. Usually in religious settings, but in this case, the family mythos was akin to religion...

I found it difficult to believe that Lauren had ever had a sexuality. Same with her psychologically-stunted brothers. The family had wilfully isolated itself to the extent that they didn't even have nodding acquaintances, and every relationship seemed to be a familial (or pseudo-professional) one. Certainly, her ideas about relationships (both parties should be having sex all the time, not "just" once or twice a week) seemed idealistic to the point of being quaint.

23:10 / 28.06.04

I'll lay bets that Lauren decides to have a sex change reversal in the not too distant future.

Either that or decides to become a nun or a lap-dancer, or be surgically altered to resemble a (real live) tiger, or summat. It'll be governed more by potential media interest than anything else.

Goodness Gracious Meme

23:14 / 28.06.04

I didn't have any particular sense of sexuality. It did occur to me that it could perhaps be an *extreme* response to an unbearable situation/need to escape? The need to become someone else? The transformative aspect felt much more important than the gender change.

The brothers seemed similarly stunted, which is not hugely surprising if, as one said, the pattern was of 'leaving school at 11', presumably to spend all their time in the definitely cultish environment of their family.

The 'session' Keith had with Mrs.H was appalling. That isn't counselling, in any way shape or form.

I find it hard to believe that she experiences human relationships in any meaningful way.

23:15 / 28.06.04

You come away from it with the impression that the choice James made wasn't actually his choice at all, but that of his parents. Just the whole thing about him flirting with the idea of homosexuality, but apparently only ever doing so in the company of his father and simply by going to a gay club on a couple occassions, would certainly make it seem that his eventual transformation into Lauren was more of a group decision than anything else. From the documentary, at least.

You may well be on the money, Plums - I can see both parents finding the idea that there had been some kind of celestial 'mistake' in matching bodies with personalities preferable to that of one of their children being gay. If you're determined to see both of those realities as a problem, you can turn to science to provide you with what you'll probably consider a relatively neat solution to the first.

23:18 / 28.06.04

Slow off the mark tonight - that in reference to the possibility that it was more accetable that James became Lauren, than became James, a gay man.

23:20 / 28.06.04

I didn't have any particular sense of sexuality. It did occur to me that it could perhaps be an *extreme* response to an unbearable situation/need to escape?

Perhaps. I think it's more likely to have arisen as a result of being rather open to parental suggestion...

Goodness Gracious Meme

23:20 / 28.06.04

Certainly, her ideas about relationships (both parties should be having sex all the time, not "just" once or twice a week) seemed idealistic to the point of being quaint

Also, she didn't seem to envisage the relationship in terms aside from sex/seek any context, in her 'role' as 'counsellor'. (I can't imagine scare quotes big enough for that word, btw.)

Goodness Gracious Meme

23:22 / 28.06.04

being rather open to parental suggestion.

any thoughts on why James changing sex would be the parental(maternal?) pet project?

Goodness Gracious Meme

23:26 / 28.06.04

The comparison with this: where physical, sexual, emotional abuse were run-of-the-mill, everyday, and state-run 'normalisation' via school, employment, social services just didn't come close

is on the money, IMO. Wondered if the change into Lauren could be an escape from an abusive past, nothing to do with hir own sexuality...

23:30 / 28.06.04

It's theorised that parents (usually mothers) who intentionally harm their children then bring them to the attention of doctors often have a poor sense of a) themselves as people, and b) the boundary between themselves and the child. They see the child as an extention of themselves, so harming the child is, in terms of motivation and perceived gain, functionally close to self-harming.

I got the same feeling off the family in this programme. Boundaries between individuals seemed slight and blurred, with everyone sharing physical, emotional, occupational space with everyone else. Everyone was a fucking Doctor of Metaphysics. They had no significant influences outwith the family; it's as if the outside world didn't exist, or existed only as a nebulous cloud of jealous thicko threat. One assumes the father, at least, had some contact with others (albeit in the only slightly less artificial reality of prison); the children, however, were tragically warped.

Reminded me of that Ray Bradbury story ('Jack in the Box'?) where a kid's royally fucked up by being taught to regard the outside world as the Land of the Dead...

23:36 / 28.06.04

any thoughts on why James changing sex would be the parental(maternal?) pet project?

Other than 'to get on the telly', I can't really think of a specific motive. I suspect it's more that the family was aggressively defended against all people and knowledge that didn't come through the parents (and Mother seemed most totemic here); my guess is that they saw a trans documentary, the idea germinated, and the family (having 'tested' the gay/trans thing in their own dysfunctional way ie. by going to "those places") got behind it. I'd be surprised if Lauren, having presumably had little or no outside influence upon her life since the age of 11, were capable of a non-collective idea...

23:39 / 28.06.04

Up until the very end, I thought that the one son (the one with brown hair who mentioned being taken out of school at eleven) came out of it quite well. There seemed to be some resentment hidden just out of view in his comments about not being able to make friends until he was in his early twenties(?) and his immediate reaction Allen's revelations in the pub backed this up a little - I got the feeling that, unlike his parents, he knew that their entire life was one big con.

Goodness Gracious Meme

23:43 / 28.06.04

Everyone was a fucking Doctor of Metaphysics

It got incredibly confusing at the point where Allen described what the various members of the family did Matching
'qualifications', 'jobs'...

Also, the way the parents had 'given' Lauren her MA, in Dramaturgy (for god's sake, why not in Drama?) was rather as if they were giving her a toy to play with...

23:45 / 28.06.04

I imagine all of the children harbour enormous resentment at having been trapped into such awful, stunted dependency - whether they consciously acknowledge it or not.

07:28 / 29.06.04

last year, maybe this year c4 showed a few dogme documentaries where the docu format is caefully controlled to come as close to an impartial view of a subject as possible. this show was like the exact reverse of that, an example of the docu filmmaker using all the powers of the medium to pursue a didactic point. very interesting from a 'TV hardcore' point of view, and they had the perfect subject, a mockmock tudor family unit. found the wizard of oz bit towards the end a bit forced, and it felt like keef bottled it to a degree - the row at the end was largely satisfying, but Lauren seemed to have escaped from having or receiving any final words, which given that she was the reason we were all here seemed a bit of a cop-out. several classic moments: the stuttering when anyone was quizzed about their qualifications or career/ the rendition of midnight 'i'll just sing it spontaneously...shall i?'/ the acting class, i hope that lady was reimbursed or paid for by allen and lewis smith/ the antiques fair/

08:12 / 29.06.04

Now you can recreate her stunning transformation.

08:42 / 29.06.04

Aw jeez that shit's just mean. she probably likes it though innit? spends all day on that page i shouldn't wonder

09:02 / 29.06.04

I completely agree it appeared that James changed sex because he and his family were more comfortable with him being a woman than being gay. I do know that 7-8 years ago James was attending an LGB group at Cardiff University - he'd dyed his hair black at the time. The father's comment about James not being comfortable going in "those places" was very revealing. It's bizarre that James and his family were more comfortable with the idea of him changing sex than being a gay man, but it's not as rare as a reaction as you'd think. (Especially if the family is religious.)

The idea that his mother 'prepared' him for gender reassignment is deeply disturbing. Mrs Harries is clearly incapable of providing an objective or intelligent examination of his reasons for changing sex. (Did she really change sex because someone in Kwik Save thought it was a good idea? Were they on special offer when you bought two boxes of Daz automatic?) Lauren has previously told the media she started cross-dressing at 19 - which is very late compared with most transsexuals.

It would be helpful to know whether James got a second opinion before having the op. If so was it from a qualified gender pychiatrist/psychologist - or another of his nutty family. Did the surgeon query who had assessed him? I suspect this story could well prove another nail in the coffin of gender reassignment in the UK.

Allen made a very good point when he said that Lauren seemed no happier than James. Too many people seem to feel that genital surgery will solve all their problems.

Goodness Gracious Meme

09:34 / 29.06.04

p'raps. But I wouldn't draw any conclusions about gender reassignment, mental health, or anything else general from the Harries family, who are, as 'nesh has said above, so far off the scale as to be inventing their own.

an example of the docu filmmaker using all the powers of the medium

Oh god yes, the style was OTT, but I rather lost sight of it, as the family themselves were far weirder than any clanging gothic piano music or sarcastic/angry commentary could make them.

10:23 / 29.06.04

One of the main points of transgender psychiatry is to make sure that the people who undergo sex changes are genuine transsexuals and not mentally disturbed/emotionally dysfunctional. If there was no second opinion from a psychiatrist, the surgeon should have queried this - whether that's standard procedure or not.

But, as I said, it's hard to draw a conclusion when we only have a partial picture of Lauren's diagnosis and treatment. However, there's no reliable scientific basis for gender reassigment. Even the Royal College of Psychiatrist's accepts that.

10:58 / 29.06.04

Does make you wonder how she inveigled a surgeon into doing the work, Quireboy. Presumably not NHS, given the apparent failure to satisfy any of the basic requirements, so might have been costly. Lauren did say something at some point about "going abroad" and made some remark about the men there finding her sexy, I think, but I can't pin it down precisely in my memory.

They seemed to be finding funds from somewhere to keep their Addams Family show on the road. Perhaps Cardiff is awash with fully paid up Doctors of Metaphysics with Dramaturgical Life Experience qualifications. Maybe Mama still keeps up her old trade of Africa days and does Spearmint Rhino stuff in the back shed while the kids croon karaoke and Dad takes the money, sour faced and heavy browed.

You just wanted to scream at the son who was bleating about having no friends etc "Get Out of There! You have legs and a tongue that works."

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