Book Review: Straight James / Gay James

By, Kian Kiasaleh |  Arts & Entertainment Editor

March 10th, 2016

Best known for breaking hearts on Freaks and Geeks and breaking news with The Interview, James Franco has since been working away at various projects. Deemed a modern-day Renaissance man, Franco transcends his role as an actor as he writes literature, directs independent films, teaches film courses, and receives degrees from the Ivies.

A true enigma, Franco leaves his audience bewildered and awaiting his next move. His poetry, in particular, is attracting polarizing reviews in recent years. While some critics dismiss Franco’s work as pretentious ramblings, others applaud his openness and humorous insight similar to that of Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye.Franco recently “came out” with a chapbook of his recent poems entitled Straight James / Gay James. Beyond addressing the question of his sexuality, Franco explores the idea of personas – how others view us versus how we view ourselves – in regards to his own life. He approaches this personal and heavy topic with comical honesty.

The first poem, “Dumbo,” takes the reader to Franco’s lonely childhood. Franco compares himself to the elephant taunted for his large ears to express his feelings of alienation. Unlike the cartoon, however, Franco never flew. He hints at the theme of false perceptions when describing the clown make-up he wore to make himself appear cheerful. In “Mask,” Franco addresses his Hollywood persona: “white, young, lusty, symmetrical, dark-browned.” With this mask comes money and fame, but Franco hints at a secret evil concealed from the public under his mask.  “I identify with poems like Mask because I also feel like my most people don’t truly understand who I am,” revealed senior Kailash Kumar.

Franco also provides the reader a glimpse into the dynamics within his family. In “Brother One” Franco expresses the distance felt between him and his younger brother, Tom, due to their different lifestyles. “Brother Two” unearths some tension between James and Dave as Dave worked to get out of his older brother’s shadow as Franco writes, “It must be hard to have a brother who was in Freaks and Geeks while you were still in realhigh school.” Franco brings the entire family together in “Three Brothers” as he cherishes the close-knit relationship he has with his brothers and mother.

One other relationship Franco writes of is his friendship and admiration of Lana Del Ray. Along with dedicating the book to her music, Franco included a “Lana Poem Essay” in which he praises her “haunting voice” as “the central axle around which the spokes of everything else extend.” Senior Chelsea Chip Valles noted, “I live for James and Lana’s friendship. I could really tell how much she inspired him throughout some of the poems.”

The highlight of the collection of poetry is the interview Straight James conducts on James Franco, asking “Let’s get substantial: are you gay or what?” Franco teases the bombardment of questions regarding his sexuality that arose from his frequent roles of gay and sexually open characters. In Franco’s interview of Franco, Franco reveals that he is “gay only in [his] art.”

Franco’s poetry offers an ideal balance of zany humor and complexity in his commentary on gender roles in society. Read Franco’s poetry to escape into his whirlwind world of rendezvous with Lana Del Ray and “stay-cations” to Venice.