IIf you are going to be a criminal, it is advisable to keep a low profile. Unfortunately, playing it safe is not in the DNA of most offenders, and that was certainly the case with Geraldine Elizabeth “Liz” Carmichael, who in 1974 conquered the world by taking on the “Big Three” automakers in Detroit with the 20th century Motor Car Corporation and its flagship product: the Dale, a three-wheeled car that promised to deliver 70 miles per gallon, thus making it the ideal vehicle for an America devastated by the oil crisis. By the time Liz launched this dubious creation, she had already begun the transition to a woman, which added even more fuel to the frantic media fire that would soon engulf her.
Directed by Nick Cammilleri and Zackary Drucker and executive produced by Jay and Mark Duplass (Wild Wild Country), Documentaries in four parts of HBO The lady and the valley (debuting on January 31) begins with the fun first years of Liz’s life, when before the transition she married and abandoned two wives – and the several children he had with them – before moving in with his third wife Vivian. They had five children together and, as Vivian’s brother Charles remembers, Liz (then known as Jerry) has always been something of a gregarious swindler, adept at creating fake identities and cheaters (especially companies) with her hard-earned money. Given Liz’s predilection for swindler schemes, it didn’t take long for the Michael clan to flee from federal agents thanks to an elaborate counterfeiting ploy. Current memories of daughter Candi paint a picture of an itinerant life on the run, so that she and the brothers’ birth certificates bear false names – a situation that still gives them a headache.
The lady and the valley it spends almost all of its first installment in Liz’s wild story, which is animated by animated reenactment sequences in the style of a pop-up book created with old photos of the players in question. It is a new stylistic turnaround that further conveys the madness of the early years of the Michaels, in which family gatherings were organized through coded newspaper messages, and everyone had to be ready, at any time, to take flight in the middle of the night to a new city and home. In short, Liz was an inveterate charlatan. She was also a trans woman and, fleeing from the authorities, the transition process began slowly – a development that was readily accepted by her children and, after some initial hesitation, by her wife Vivian.
After a surgical procedure in Tijuana, Liz began to live publicly as a woman and, in 1973, while working at a marketing company, she discovered an invention that was as bold and unconventional as she was: the Dale, a three-wheeled car (created by Dale Clifft) that she immediately decided would be her revolutionary ticket to world domination. After reviewing Clifft’s original designs to make the Dale more attractive (full of canary yellow paint), Liz placed a prototype at the Los Angeles Auto Show. Then she started a press campaign to announce her intentions to take on America’s big cars – including Dale’s The price is right. In a short time, Liz was a sensation on the front page, with the exclusivity of her product corresponding only to the boldness of her statements.
Considering Liz’s criminal past – and her continuing status as a federal fugitive – it will come as no surprise to learn that she soon began recruiting help from mafia figures to the Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation, whose name came from Atlas shrugged, written by libertarian Liz’s favorite author, Ayn Rand. She also started taking customer deposits for the car in production, which she was supposed to keep in a warranty account, but which she used to finance her start-up venture. This was a clear case of fraud, especially since the makeshift valley – being built by some random engineers with borrowed parts – was doomed to failure. A series of investigative stories by KABC reporter Dick Carlson soon exposed the scam, leading to criminal prosecution and, after Liz was convicted, yet another escape from justice and its dubious and almost illegal business operation.
The lady and the valley it thrives when it remains focused on Liz’s audacious coup, supported by first-hand reports from relatives and colleagues who describe her as an astute swindler and loving wife and mother. In most of the first three episodes, it is a playful and hilarious portrait of rebellious self-definition, while Liz struggles to violate legal and social norms to do something about herself. Unfortunately, however, by the time their last chapter arrives, the Cammilleri and Drucker series falls in love with attracting sympathy for their theme as a victim of intolerant anti-trans discrimination, largely due to the media’s attitude towards Liz – led by Carlson, whose son Tucker continues his horrible legacy on Fox News – was to ridicule and demean her as a man posing as a woman in order to escape law enforcement. (Dick Carlson ended up winning a Peabody for his transphobic coverage of Carmichael and would later make headlines for introducing transgender tennis player Renee Richards.)
“… The media’s attitude towards Liz – led by Carlson, whose son Tucker continues his horrific legacy on Fox News – was to ridicule and demean her as a man posing as a woman to escape law enforcement.“
That Liz was treated unfairly (and sometimes horribly) by journalists is undeniable by the archival footage on display. However, through speaking comments and a score that makes his attitude of celebration clear, The lady and the valley tries to portray Liz as an unfairly persecuted trans heroine, which just doesn’t fit with her considerable criminal record. To do this, it minimizes and / or rationalizes its criminality, which only bogs it down further in a confused and dubious logic. Most confusing of all, the series argues that Liz’s trans identity was not a mistake and therefore was not related to her criminality (which makes sense), only to then turn around and argue that if she had grown up in a different and more tolerant era, she may have led a very different and law-abiding life – a contradictory posture that ends up suggesting that there is a connection between her transness and chronic quackery.
Consequently, The lady and the valley she eventually loses the thread, culminating in a history lesson about trans men and women who, by her own inclusion, puts Liz as an oppressed pioneer of similar thinking, rather than the tattered tattered one she went to the day of death. Ultimately, he is so consumed in imbuing his material with hagiographic importance – in making the Liz saga significant– who forgets what made him attractive in the first place.