I don’t think she is, though. Those films are all in the past. What she’s being held to is just the standards of today. From what I gather from this, if any of them tried to do this today, they’d likely be treated the same way.
This largely seems to be an issue an issue of trans people standing up and saying they won’t take this anymore. They’re tired of Hollywood making money off of their stories without even involving them. They’re tired of talented trans actors being ignored even in the very roles they are perfect for.
This isn’t unheard of. Simply including a black character in Gone With the Wind was seen as progressive for the time, but now the stereotypical portrayal really bothers people. The main difference is the pace: we moved faster on the gay and trans things than we did on the race and gender stuff.
It very much seems to me that the standards of today is that you hire a minority to play the minority subject of any biographical film. That, while those other films are accepted for their time, they’re now considered relics of the past.
No one person does, sure. But trans people do have a right to demand that they play themselves. They have a right to say that their stories belong to them. They have made this known, and they won–at least, for this battle.
One of the more frustrating things I find about social justice debates these days is how often an argument that has not been raised is brought up and debunked. No one said that any trans person had the right to be a movie star. What they do have the right to do is say that they do not want cisgender people exploiting a trans person and their story for the sake of making a movie without involving them.
No, that doesn’t mean they have a right to control what they do. That’s why I specifically brought up what they say. Their job is to convince people with their speech. And they seem to have convinced the right people. They convinced Johansson that accepting this role would do more harm than good. Or possibly backers said that they wouldn’t fund the movie with her in it due to the backlash, and this is a graceful way to handle that. Or maybe the director had cold feet after the backlash.
The point is, they spoke, people heard them, and chose to do what they wanted. I cannot see how that’s unfair.
I’m all for inclusiveness and would love more trans actors to be able to get more roles, but your logic utterly baffles me. If people “shouldn’t play things they’re not” then trans actors should only get to play trans roles. Which of course is not what they want.
I do agree with zombywoof and Chronos that, apart from casting an actual FtM actor, it probably would’ve made a lot more sense to cast a cis male instead of the very feminine Johansson. Especially after seeing that pic of the real-life Gill.
Maybe not quite that quick, but yeah, I foresee “development hell” followed by never being made.
One is not a film at all, but a television show that Tambor was fired from 5 months ago. If Johanssen is not being specifically targeted, her timing is epically unlucky. Again, like for Ghost In The Shell, if I were advising on strategy, I’d call the battle ill-chosen.
I have read opinions from trans people that (if forced to choose between only the two most common categories) it would be better for such a character to be played by a man than by a woman.
I think unfortunately that would serve to obscure the story, not tell it; I think it’s important to admit that, in the short to medium term, stories with main characters who are trans are going to be stories primarily about being trans, and where the rest of the plot is in the background to some extent.
Novelty may sound like a flippant word, but I’m not using it that way: The novelty of noticeably-trans characters in movies will certainly take time to wear off. Any novelty does the same thing - if I made a great and respectful and riveting film about Muhammad Ali, and in my film Ali was brilliantly and convincingly played by Keira Knightley, … well, you know that the talk the next morning would NOT be mostly about the new details of Ali’s life that I had been able to discover.
I’m sure that she thinks the current climate makes such a part not worth her while.
i think the backlash is stupid and unproductive in the long run. The logic of this position is that there are a certain set of traits, outside of which a person cannot step. A set of roles which must be taken by a certain type of person. Presumably this must extend to all areas of art and music (I have a depressing feeling that it probably already has) and that is idiotic.
It would be wrong to say that a transgender person cannot take a certain role, it is just as wrong to say that a transgender person must take a certain role. Those that argue for the latter think they are being progressive and inclusive and yet to me is feels like just as discriminatory as the former.
She is an actor for christ’s sake. The whole point is that she pretends to be the person and brings her own artistic interpretation to it and her biological make-up is pretty much irrelevant. It is demeaning to all actors to suggest that they cannot step outside of their skin to play an “other” type.
Yep, and sometimes a cigar isn’t a dildo. Plus actors and actresses are actually, you know, FREE to choose the roles they play (or back out of). Who gives a shit?
It’s strange that both lead actors in the recent gay romance Call Me by Your Name are straight, yet nobody is making a fuss that gay actors should have been used. On the contrary, the film won a number of awards.
Gay versus straight is a different issue, because people don’t look gay or straight. A gay person can play a straight person, or vice-versa, and pull it off just fine. Similarly, it doesn’t matter that Ian McKellan isn’t a wizard, because he looks like a wizard (especially with the right costuming, makeup, and props, but even at the base, he’s still got the right look). But a transgendered actor can either take steps to look like their gender identity, which usually isn’t completely successful (i.e., they look transgendered), or they can maintain the appearance of their physical sex and play people of that sex, which is probably very difficult in their personal life.
Probably as time goes on, we’ll get better at altering peoples’ sexual appearance. This would be a boon for transgendered people who want to fit in more fully in their gender identity, and also a boon for transgendered actors to play roles of their gender identity. Eventually, an actor’s birth sex might be just as irrelevant to what roles they can play as sexual orientation is now. But we’re not there yet.
If trans people want to be seen and treated as the sex of their self-identity, then saying that a non-trans person can’t play a trans person sets them apart from their fellow men or women, as the case may be. But I think Chronos nailed it in his first post. Sometimes you needs an actor of a certain type and sometimes not. It all depends.
I’m a cisgender woman so I can’t speak for trans people, but I would imagine that if in the future trans actors are able to get roles that aren’t specifically for trans people, and there are trans people playing the action hero, or romantic interest, or funny neighbor, or any number or other roles not specifically for trans people, then I would guess many trans people would be okay with cisgender people playing trans roles. If there was a movie being made with a trans actor playing JFK or some other cisgender male role, it might be more palatable for Johansson to play Gill. But we are not yet at that point.
Also, think about how annoying it is to be misrepresented in film. There are many threads here about movies things they get wrong about certain jobs or subcultures. What people see in movies does affect how they think about things in real life. If movies misrepresent what it’s like to be a lawyer or anime fan or any number of other things it can be really annoying I’m sure, but the stakes for trans people is higher, because trans people are discriminated against and killed at a higher rate than other people.
I’m not saying that Rub and Tug would have gotten things wrong or been offensive or anything but I can definitely understand the concerns of trans people. When there was the initial uproar, Johansson could have said something about working with trans writers and consultants and people who knew Gill to get the story right and wanting to bring the story to life in the right way, but instead her statement was about previous actors who got awards, making it clear that her main concern was getting an Oscar. That certainly didn’t help things.
It doesn’t matter how great an actor he is you wouldn’t cast Morgan Freeman to play Justin Bieber, it would be fucking ridiculous to even consider it. That is the equivalent of casting Scarlet Johansson to play Dante Tex Gill.
Film is a visual medium, I think the likeness to a person only needs to be approximated in order for the images not to jar (unless the jarring nature of the casting was the point in the first place) and so I can’t see a reason for mandating a transgender character must be played by a transgender actor.
Away from the visual, if there was a radio play in which Winston Churchill was voiced by Idris Elba I couldn’t care less, nor if Mandela was done by a white actor.
Wow. I had no idea that was controversial. They must not have watch the actual show. The whole point of the character’s background is how ridiculous her views on her native background are. And I love the actors who play her parents.
“We came all this way in the great iron sky eagle.
I’m kidding. I know what planes are; I was in the Air Force.