➤ SCOTTI, from p.30
streaming platforms. It’s an honest,
poignant look at the process
of discovery, transition, and emergence
into a revitalized career.
Like so many people who came
from broken or dysfunctional
homes, Scotti spent a lot of her early
adult years looking for “normal.”
“I wasn’t feeling normal,” Scott
said in an interview with Gay City
News. “I didn’t know the issue was
my gender identity.”
Scotti married several times, she
said. “Having multiple marriages
was not unusual for trans people
of my age because you are looking
for that white picket fence,” Scotti
explained. “You want the feeling
of being like everybody else. And I
wasn’t.”
At fi rst, Scotti thought she was
a gay man, and she recalled the
lack of available information about
transgender individuals. “There
was no Internet,” she said. There
was nothing really.” So she tried
to enter the gay world, only to fi nd
that each encounter ended “disastrously.”
It was after one awful date when
she was complaining to a psychologist
friend about a lack of romance,
that she said, “You’re a woman.”
That came as a shock to Scotti.
“I was, like, ‘I can’t be,’ but the
light went on, and it fi t,” she said.
“It was truly a ‘road to Damascus’
moment.”
That moment began the process
of coming to terms with her gender
identity. It was not easy, she said,
but “the day came when the risk to
remain tight in the bud was more
painful than the risk to blossom,
and I had reached the point where
I couldn’t stay in the bud, and I
suddenly just blossomed.”
Scotti went on to face adversity.
She gave up her career, became
estranged from her children, and
struggled with the process of living
as a woman prior to transitioning
in 2002. Still, she was willing to be
her true self.
All of this is told in the movie
with a level of deeply felt humanity
that Scotti says would not have
been possible without her director
and producer, Susan Sandler. As
Scotti tells her, Sandler came to
Nantucket and was going to help
her refi ne her one-woman show.
As Scotti recalled, “The more
I told her about my life, the more
she said, ‘This is way bigger than
a show. It’s a movie. Have you ever
thought about doing a documentary
on your life?’”
“Who thinks about having a
documentary made about their life
aside from Donald Trump?” Scotti
mused at the time. As the project
developed, however, Scotti and
Sandler thought it might help others
— though Scotti admits that
trust does not come easily. “It’s
the comic’s creed: We don’t trust
anyone.” Yet she did, turning over
archival footage and giving that
trust — another breakthrough for
Scotti. The result is a wonderful,
and often hilarious, story.
When she transitioned, Scotti
had thought that she didn’t have
a place as a comic, but she after
10 years and with some encouragement
from friends and fellow
comics, she started doing comedy
again… and was sucked right back
in. Since then, she was a quarter
fi nalist on “America’s Got Talent”
and has built a thriving career.
Today, Scotti’s comedy has an
incisive honesty and authenticity
that gives it a depth that isn’t
limited to her gender identity; it is
broadly human. Her jokes about
marriage in particular benefi t from
what she calls her “two spirits.” It’s
a concept she says derives from
Native American sensibility that
believes she embodies a balance
of traditionally male and female
energies. The one thing she promised
herself when she returned to
comedy was that no matter what,
she would be “fearless.” That she
is, and the result is a truly original
performer who can make us laugh
at the entire range of human experience.
“Julia Scotti: Funny That Way”
is in its own way a tiny epic. It has
a quest, tests of foundational beliefs,
demons to be fought, transformations,
and a hero to root for.
Like any classic epic, it’s virtually
impossible not to be drawn in,
moved, and come to care deeply
for the hero. And, at times, you’ll
laugh yourself silly.
JULIA SCOTTI: FUNNY THAT
WAY | 73 minutes | Available for
rent or purchase on Prime Video,
Apple TV, and other streaming platforms
| $4.99 and up
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