Jenner docuseries calculated, but substantial
I Am Cait Sunday, E!
NEW YORK — It’s the next step in the biggest celebrity story of the year.
It’s the long-awaited debut of Caitlyn Jenner’s docuseries charting her new life as a transgender woman.
Fittingly, I Am Cait opens with the former Bruce Jenner, her ample tresses in huge rollers, at home getting hair-and-makeup treatment as she beholds a giant blow-up of her bombshell Vanity Fair cover that followed her April interview with Diane Sawyer.
Yes, Jenner’s transition from Bruce to Caitlyn has been a highly orchestrated spectacle, with I Am Cait the latest phase of the campaign. And, typical of celeb-reality shows, there isn’t a scene in this first of eight episodes that doesn’t seem stagemanaged to push the starry uber-narrative along.
Even so, there is something more substantial going on here. A gratifying measure of authenticity manages to bypass the celebrity trappings.
Jenner’s mother and two sisters help. Delivered to Jenner’s seaside California compound for their first encounter with her as a woman, they seem refreshingly like regular folks who are genuinely focused on a family member they love and support, never mind all the lights and cameras.
At the other end of the authenticity scale are stepdaughter Kim Kardashian and her husband, Kanye West. They are seen in a cameo appearance that plays as unintended comic relief. Such interludes undercut the dignity of Jenner’s challenges, and make what she is going through arguably less relatable to an audience that needs to relate.
On the other hand, fame claims attention, and the celebrity machine for Caitlyn Jenner, including I Am Cait, has been impossible to miss.
With Cait, she will have a weekly pulpit and a guaranteed flock to whom she knows how to deliver her message loud and clear.
“The tremendous amount of support that I’ve got has been overwhelming, but you also have to realize that it’s not this way for everybody,” she takes pains to point out.
More than once, she cites the lack of support from family, friends and outsiders experienced by far too many in the trans community, as well as the high murder rate and many suicides.
Despite disruptions by a Kardashian brand of faux glitterati, I Am Cait, at least in its first week, stays true to Jenner’s stated higher purpose.