Someone had to…
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what i’m hearing in the background of this question is “what will the poor, downtrodden, white, cisgender male actor be able to play other than white, cisgender male roles?” as if white male roles didn’t already dominate the top films each year.
have you considered that the reason you keep finding your arguments ignored or getting pushback on your comments and questions is because you seem to be making the argument that those in our society and in our film industry with the most privilege don’t have enough privilege or enough power? additionally, as if that weren’t tone-deaf enough, you seem to be arguing that any efforts to reduce the stranglehold white men have on the film industry is some kind of “reverse discrimination.”
when two-thirds of the top movies each year have no female leading roles, when three-fourths of all speaking roles in the top films each year are played by whites, when a fourth of the top movies have no black actors in speaking parts, and half have no hispanic characters in speaking parts it makes any argument claiming discrimination against white or white male actors seem deeply unserious.
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The studio was looking for a movie star for their big budget movie, and there are no big transgender movie stars. We all wish it was different, but people decide what they want to see, and they vote with their wallets. “Tangerine” was an amazing movie, but at the end of the day, it grossed $702,354.
I think of the powerful quote by the great drummer Levon Helm, made about music, but wonderfully applicable to every commercial artist…
“Music don’t owe anybody a living.”
If people like paying to see your art, great! If they call you a movie star, and give you big movies to star in, awesome! But if they don’t, don’t get mad at them, they don’t owe you anything. Make your art. The market will dictate whether you make money at it or not, and whether you get another, bigger opportunity to make your art on a bigger stage, or not.
Good news is, either way, it doesn’t make your art any better or any worse. It’s just the market.
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And the market dictated that this film wouldn’t be made this way.
Why aren’t you happy with this working in the manner you support?
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I am happy, I think it’s great. They said "Hey, how about a big Hollywood movie about a transgender person starring Scarlett Johannson? And the market said “No, thank you.”
My point is more towards the assertion that they SHOULD have cast a transgender person. They were looking to make a big budget movie, so of course they cast a big movie star. But, as they found out the hard way, maybe there is no big budget movie to be made on this subject. Big movies tend to be middle-of-the-road, escapist fare. Maybe this is, instead, a perfect subject for smaller movies, like Tangerine. Movies that aren’t dependent upon “escapism”, and instead choose the pursuit of something more truthful, more challenging to norms.
The market spoke, this movie is dead and buried.
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I suppose there must be some people who express joy through churlish complaining.
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Unless of course the film industry allows room for trans superstars to develop by playing parts reflecting their identity, as it (slowly and haltingly) has for African-American ones and Asian ones and Latino ones and gay and lesbian ones over the past few decades when the indie movement allowed for more diversity in general than was present in mainstream films before the 1990s. Actors need to be given the same chances that unknown white actors get for progress to be made.
The time is more ripe than ever because the content distribution/production companies (e.g. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, HBO, etc. etc.) and specialty channels are ravenously hungry for prestige content to attract viewers and build buzz. They’re so hungry that a low-budget piece of sexist garbage like “The Kissing Booth” with unknown stars (the awesome Molly Ringwald excluded) is one of this summer’s blockbusters and is priming the principal actors (all white and hetero) for stardom.
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Yes. It wasn’t too long ago that people were complaining when it was suggested that Scarlett be given a solo superhero movie.
Really just a year - with fanboys right here.
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To clarify, I am happy that the market said “Nope”, and they killed the movie.
I’m not happy that people complain that they “should” be given the opportunity to be a big movie star. No one is “owed” being a big movie star.
Huh? I thought the noper was ScarJo.
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No one here made any such statement, nor even implied it.
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Well - nertz to whoever here said they deserved to be a movie star. Can you point that person out?
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That was quite a leap from ‘“it would be good if trans characters were played by actual trans people”’ to that particular ‘precipice of bad faith…’
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Even though I am ready for my closeup, Mr DeMille.
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Hey, even though nobody’s “owed” it, they say everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame…
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From the tweet that (arguably) started the whole backlash…
"Trace Lysette, a transgender woman best known for her role in Amazon’s Transparent, took to Twitter to air out her frustrations over Johansson’s casting.
“Oh word?? So you can continue to play us but we can’t play y’all?,” Lysette wrote. “Hollywood is so f****d… I wouldn’t be as upset if I was getting in the same rooms as Jennifer Lawrence and Scarlett for cis roles, but we know that’s not the case. A mess.”
Well - you got me there. She said she deserved to be a movie star.
Where was that again? And did she say it here?
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Trans folks who will hopefully go on to BE big budget stars, as the old ways of thinking continue to die out, slowly but surely:
It’s so weird you and I both pointed out that no one discussing this topic here on this forum said anything even remotely like the fallacious claim that was asserted… and then anecdotal “evidence” was provided from a completely different site.
It’s almost like there’s a lack of good faith, on one end of the conversation…
*Edited due to malfunctioning gifs
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It’s probably the most cited Tweet that spearheaded the backlash. It’s the one leading off this Deadline article that everyone linked to.
And again, to be clear, I’m glad this movie got killed. I don’t need to see a cheesy Hollywood treatment of this subject matter.
