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Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

used to be my favourite movie
I mean it still is in so many ways
but looking back with my ‘now-eyes’
the bright glare is transphobic
and I’ve stopped squinting
eyes wide open I’m open! I’m open!
every scene with Finkle/Einhorn 
the reveal of Mr Knish
physical comedy timing gold but it
bums me out, man. 
The '90s were a great time, man
sometimes transformative, man
also sometimes extremely unkind– 
we reminisce imperfectly.
Decidedly unheroic as he saves,
there is our hero, Ace,
subtly stating trans = other = fear = shame 

Ace, so kind to animals 
a vegetarian emancipator prince 
but he still had a cry and a vomit
after realising what had really been 
jamming into his hip
Einhorn’s torrential off-camera pee-break 
her apparent no-wipe no-pantyhose-pull-up
eyes wide open
it's too easy to find an ‘other’ 
Forget the crotch of it all
recall the crux of it all
Finkle/Einhorn wasn't trans
underneath 
Finkle was a criminal 
stole an identity to neatly vanish
inside a revenge fantasy
- not a true-self arrival.


I used to gather torn-out teen-magazine posters 
dozens taped across my walls to hide inside
Jim, right up there with Leo 
we fit like a glove 
I said "no, spank you" so often 
I said it'd be my first tattoo 
on my idiot 6th form bum.
So, would you like a cookie, son?
Laces out! Untied
perceptions need navigating; can’t we be altruistic? 
I wonder how Jim feels about it now
eyes wide open
We’re open!
Here’s hopin’!
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