This isn’t hard.
There are plenty roles available for cis white folks. If you give one of those roles to someone who isn’t any of those, there will still be plenty.
There’s not many roles for trans folks. If you give one of the few roles that are out there to someone who isn’t, what fucking odds DO trans people have?
Why are you assuming that a trans person is not equally able to take those roles?
Your reading comprehension is very poor.
Yeah, it really makes me sympathetic to counterarguments when my national icon is compared to a fictional comedy character. :rolleyes:
Hey, if I can deal with Charlton Heston playing Moses, you can deal with Freeman playing Mandela.
Switching from one fictional character to another doesn’t really help…
You said “national icon”, not “historical figure”.
The fact that I contrasted it with “fictional comedy character” should have made that part obvious.
So those roles are open for trans people too?
In your mind, which (if any) of these serious and well-respected actors were bad choices to play Mandela and why?
Of course, the question isn’t just how many cisgender roles there are. The question is how many are there, relative to their proportion of the population, because there are a lot more cisgender people (audience members, actors) than there are transgender people.
Of course, I suspect that even by this standard, transgender roles are still underrepresented, given that I know at least two transgender people personally, but I’m hard-pressed to think of any respectful depictions of transgendered characters in film.
Eh, Golda Meir was portrayed by Judy Davis, Ingrid Bergman and Colleen Dewhurst among others.
I get your point, but I’m not sure I agree. Generally speaking I’d rather have a tremendous actor who doesn’t quite look the part than an average or mediocre actor who does. Best of both worlds would be nice and preferable, but within limits and under most circumstances I’d slot nationality/appearance a step below ability.
ETA: And of course ultimately the real determinant is usually not talent OR appearance/background, but rather availability and for big productions, financial draw. Unfortunately economics matter.
A while back an actor said a lot of people did not want to play a gay role because people were afraid that people assume they were gay in real life. But he said if you play a murderer do people think you are an actual murderer?
In this case no way should she be getting all the bashing over the role.
Let’s say there’s 100 roles for cis people. 1 role for trans people.
Will cis people have significantly more trouble finding a role if one trans person plays a cis role? No.
Will trans people have significantly more trouble is a cis person plays a trans role?
YES.
So personally, I can’t be bothered if a trans person takes up a cis role. Or if a black person gets a role written for a white person. Somehow, I think white cis male actors will still get plenty of roles somehow.
That’s because it’s called acting.
Alan Rickman, an English actor, played Grigori Rasputin, a Russian Orthodox monk. Or what about Liam Neeson? Irish-Catholic, but he was cast as German business man Oskar Schindler. (AND won an Academy Award for it, I might add)
(But hey, all white people look alike. Slavic, British, what’s the difference?)
All that only makes sense if you buy into the idea that there is such a thing as a “trans role”. I don’t. Trans people are not, and should not be restricted to what you would define as a “trans role”. Those 100 roles should be open to trans people as well.
Totally agree. Never said otherwise. Congratulations on refuting a point I didn’t even make.
In point of fact, he lost to Tom Hanks — for, uh, Philadelphia, as it happens.
And those complaints were valid. They actually had to darken Zoe’s complexion and put on a nose prosthetic so she could be halfway believable. That would have been acceptable sixty years ago. But today? That’s insane.
They should be, but due to bias against trans people they almost always are NOT open to trans actors.