50 pages • 1 hour read
Elliot PagePageboy: A Memoir
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Author’s Note-Chapter 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Author’s Note Summary
Content Warning: This book and guide contain detailed descriptions of self-harm, disordered eating, stalking, physical and sexual assault, emotional abuse, suicidal ideation, and anti-LGBTQ bias. The source text uses anti-LGBTQ slurs, sometimes as an act of reclamation and sometimes in descriptions of anti-LGBTQ bias and violence that Elliot Page experienced.
Elliot Page introduces his memoir. He emphasizes that his story is one of an “infinite number of ways to be queer and trans” (8) and urges readers to seek out other queer and trans stories. Page explains how his gender and sexuality are different and how “coming out as queer was a wholly different experience from coming out as trans” (9). Because his journeys to both realizations were nonlinear, his memoir is also presented in a nonlinear fashion.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Paula”
Elliot Page begins his memoir with his memory of meeting a woman named Paula at the age of 20. He, Paula, and some mutual friends went to a gay bar called Reflections, where he and Paula kissed. It was the first time Page had been to a queer bar and his first time kissing a woman in public. In this chapter, Page reflected that it was a moment when he was “on the precipice. Getting closer to [his] desires, [his] dreams […] without the unbearable weight of the self-disgust [he had] carried for so long” (13).
Page also reflects on some other moments from that summer: going backpacking in Eastern Europe with his friend Mark, camping, and doing magic mushrooms with Paula and some other friends.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Sexuality Sweepstakes”
This chapter begins in the aftermath of the premiere of Juno in 2007, in which Page played the lead role. The success of the film launched Elliot Page’s career but also prompted public media speculation about his sexuality. Growing up in Halifax, Canada, Page experienced homophobic bullying. He remembers girls at his school and on his soccer team calling him slurs and forcing him into the boys’ locker room.
He recalls being 16 and overhearing his grandmother asking his father, “What are you gonna do if [Elliot is] a dyke?” (17). This was one of the last times he saw his grandmother before her death, and he wonders what she would think of him now.
With the success of Juno, Page’s agents began telling him that “no one could know [he] was queer” (18). He recalls struggling with Hollywood’s expectations: that he would be feminine, wear dresses and heels to premieres, and have long hair. During the press season for Juno, a journalist published an article about him, speculating about whether or not he was a lesbian. The media speculating about his sexuality affected his relationship with Paula, who was also not out to her family.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Boy”
Page describes his first date as an out trans man. His date asked him when he first knew that he was trans. He reflects on the weight of such a question and how it carries connotations of disbelief. He goes on to describe the first time he knew he was not a girl, at the age of 4. He recalls times throughout his early childhood when he was uncomfortable being thought of as a girl and the disconnect he felt from the girls around him. He was much more comfortable being thought of as a boy, and after cutting his hair short at the age of 10, he often passed as a boy.
Throughout Page’s childhood, he enjoyed playing by himself, as this time alone allowed him to explore his imagination. His imagination is “a lifeline […] where [he feels] the most unrestrained, unselfconscious, real” (24). Later, as a teenager, his first relationship with a boy named Justin made him the target of homophobic bullying, as people often thought Page was a boy and read their relationship as gay. A group of teenagers chased him and Justin, throwing bottles and yelling slurs at them. Page thinks about the 1917 Mont-Blanc Explosion that happened in Halifax, a tragedy that killed over 1,700 people and injured over 9,000, and the “closeted grief” of the “queer people […] who lost secret lovers” (29).
Chapter 4 Summary: “Action Figures”
Page describes the Hydrostone neighborhood in Halifax, where he grew up with his mother. Hydrostone was developed in the area that was flattened by the Mont-Blanc Explosion; it is “a neighborhood shaped by devastation” (30).
Page was relatively happy living with his mother as a child; when they were together, she was happy to let him “exist” however he felt comfortable. However, as Page grew up, his mother began to be unhappy that he did not grow out of his tomboy phase. This strained their relationship, especially as she worried that he would be sinning if he were gay.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Roughhousing”
In addition to living with his mom, Page also lived with his dad, Dennis, and stepfamily when he was growing up. His father married a woman named Linda, who had two children from a previous marriage, Scott and Ashley. At first, Elliot liked the time he spent with his dad and stepfamily. He enjoyed having an older brother to play with, even though their roughhousing often got out of hand, and he liked his room at his dad’s house. However, his relationship with Linda was strained: He often could not eat the food she cooked, and she was very cruel to him. She often called Page a brat and encouraged Scott to tease him.
Dennis tried to assure Page that he still loved him, telling him that, “If Linda and you were drowning, I would save you” (44). As time went on, evidence of this love disappeared, and Dennis did little to protect Page from Linda’s cruelty.
Author’s Note-Chapter 5 Analysis
Page does not shy away from descriptions of some of the most challenging parts of his life, evoking pathos and creating a connection with the reader through his honesty. His exploration of the bullying and biases that he experienced growing up sheds light on how powerful the forces of anti-LGBTQ bias can be, especially in the lives of gender non-conforming young people. Although Page is careful to say that his experiences are not universal and that each person’s story is unique, he also recognizes the common threads that link his life to the lives of other LGBTQ people throughout history. This connection is especially notable when he thinks about the Halifax explosion and considers the hidden impact it must have had on people whose lives were similar to his own. This allusion to history is an implicit counterargument against mainstream anti-LGBTQ narratives that claim queer identities are new; by referencing a 1917 event, Page asserts that LGBTQ people have always existed.
Page’s journey toward Self-Discovery and Self-Acceptance begins when he is very young and is not completed until after he is 30. In these early chapters, particularly in his descriptions of his childhood, Page acknowledges how much he did not yet understand about himself while also noting his feelings that something about him was different. Because of the nonlinear nature of the narrative, each moment and memory sees Page at a different place in his journey. He switches seamlessly between his childhood confusion, his elation at kissing Paula, and his continued exploration of gender and sexuality. For Page, all of those moments continue to exist even when they are long past: They all make up important parts of his life, and all of them keep being significant, even years later when he understands himself better.
These chapters note some of the major turning points in Page’s life. His relationship with Paula is his first positive romantic relationship with a woman, helping him see the potential for a happy future. The fact that both he and Paula remain closeted means that their relationship still carries tension. This also situates Page’s narrative in its cultural context; anti-LGBTQ bias was common in the 1990s and 2000s, both legally and culturally, and many found it too risky to come out. A big part of Pageboy is about pushing past boundaries of shame that limit Page’s relationships and his self-understanding. Dating Paula is a step in the right direction, but the relationship is not the answer to all of Page’s questions about himself and his future.
Page’s Complex Interpersonal Relationships include his connection to Paula and his familial relationships. Page describes the people in his life with nuance, accepting that a positive relationship can have challenges and a negative relationship can have bright spots. He is especially nuanced when discussing his relationship with his mother. He has many happy memories of Martha, and his time with her provides him with much more love, care, and protection than he receives at his father’s house. He also acknowledges the challenges his mother has dealt with in her own life, giving her the benefit of the doubt. Nonetheless, her insistence that he should behave more like a girl is a source of pain and tension that Page does not shy away from in his descriptions of his childhood and adolescence.
The release of Juno is another major turning point in Page’s life, as the film launched him into fame. It is the book’s first foray into Anti-LGBTQ Sentiments in Hollywood, but not its last. Page explains how hurtful it was to be the subject of public scrutiny as a young actor. Because he was not given the space to explore his sexuality and come to his own conclusions, his journey was compounded by more shame and a greater desire to hide. Page explains how despite a veneer of progressive politics, Hollywood still maintains the same anti-gay and anti-trans attitudes that it has maintained for decades, sometimes causing great harm to the young people who make a living there. Despite the comparatively privileged lives that some actors live, many of them pay for that privilege with a lack of privacy and self-determination.
