I don’t really know how I deserve that comparison.
No one is telling you not to like rock music. There is nothing wrong with rock music, but the mythology behind rock music elides the history. And not all rock stars ignored racism in America. The reason why the Beatles got in such hot water when they played the south, had little to do with Lennon stating that they were bigger than Jesus, it’s because they spoke out against segregation.
Enjoy all the rock you want, just don’t be blind to the history of racism in the music industries.
BTW, unlike the roman empire, THIS IS FUCKING LIVED MEMORY. People are still alive that were part of the system of racism within the industry. LIVED MEMORY.
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Maybe be clearer. You seem to think that cisgendered actors playing all the trans roles is peachy keen. I very much disagree.
Scar Jo isn’t a trans person. That’s enough.
TRANS ACTORS ARE BEING DISCRIMINATED AGAINST IN THE FILM INDUSTRY. Should we ignore that?
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And trans actors are BEING IGNORED in this case. How is that different?
I never said otherwise. But performing a role and GETTING a role are different things. There are tons of gate keepers to get those bigger roles, and if you don’t know the right people, there is no way to really even get in the room. The job isn’t just the acting, it’s a ton of stuff around that.
There are also some incredibly lucky and well connected people at the time. There are so many great, talented actors, who either don’t care about doing big budget films or are not considered “attractive” enough for leading roles.
I don’t think they cast him because he’s gay, because gay doesn’t have physical characteristics that you can visibly see. I think they cast him because he was able to get a reading and did an awesome job reading for the part. It’s the “getting in the room” part that’s the problem here. It also helped that with the right hair cut, he sort of looks like a young Leonard Nimoy.
Sometimes they do and it pays off. Look at Lord of the Rings. That would not have been made if the producers hadn’t of taken the chance. Far too often, hollywood likes to play it safe, but often taking chances pays off. But again, many people can’t get into the room in the first place.
I guess tell that to the people watching shows with transactors (Orange is the New Black, Transparent, Sense8). And if they won’t watch trans actors, why would they watch trans stories at all! If they’re going to feel weird about seeing a trans actor, they’re not going to see that movie anyway.
He has very little range.
Still the same character, though.
Which I think it more important here - he’s a bankable star that has a great deal of control over his career.
I think that’s down to personal taste. I’m not a big fan and don’t generally enjoy his work. I don’t hate him, I just don’t go out of my way.
More trans folks need access to casting opportunities. The more the idea is reinforced that only straight cisgendered actors should get roles playing trans people, the more that’s going to be the case.
And a lot of that is literally who you know. That’s part of the problem, it’s a pretty insular industry up at the top.
Why do trans actors need roles “designed” for them? What is different about them that they need roles that are shaped to them, rather than doing what other actors do, which is perform in the role they are given (shaping it to themselves as they go). Again, get talented trans actors opportunities to read for bigger parts, and many of them are going to rise to the occasion. It’s an access problem, pretty much all the way down.
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Look, I’m sorry that people and things you enjoy and were a part of your youth happen to have been appropriated from other cultures.
Instead of accepting that fact and going about your day, you’ve decided - repeatedly - to engage in brinksmanship and whataboutism instead. That’s not moving the discussion forward.
Take some time before you return to decide if you can contribute meaningfully to conversation here, or if instead, you’d rather rage against reality some more.
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Good band name?
It’s certainly fitting for this day and age…
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Actual actors (who happen to be trans) talking about cisgendered people playing trans roles and the problem with it and what they’d like to do in their careers (unsurprisingly, they’d like to tell good stories that deal with the human condition in all its many aspects):
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Slightly off-topic, I have the biggest girl crush on Indya Moore; she’s utterly gorgeous, and her style is everything…
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I have yet to see this show, though it sounds amazing. She does look pretty stylish, too.
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It’s really good, IMO; only one more episode to go.
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Sigh. It’s as basic as this…
Despite “tradition” (which is simply a word signifying resistance to change), trans actors should be allowed to play trans characters. There is no better or apt alternative. Full stop.
Can we please just get back to arguing over something like bicycles vs. cars?
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Yep. It ain’t rocket surgery!
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- Well at least in this case we don’t know if there was going to be a caricature.
- I know you disagree, but I don’t think there’s a big pool of trans actors qualified for that role.
I don’t disagree with that. But the existence of unjust gatekeepers doesn’t preclude the existence of real talent.
I suspect most of the great, talented actors who don’t care about doing big budget films are either rich from doing previous big budget films, or haven’t been offered one. The one actor I heard of who turned down a big picture role I later found out made her decision after meeting Harvey Weinstein…
As for the attractiveness, that is a legitimate quality one needs for a lot of leading roles.
Well as someone else pointed out he wasn’t gay at the time. But I think it helped that his public (nor previous screen) persona wasn’t that of a heterosexual playboy. He also had a breakout role on a high profile series that demonstrated that he had screen charisma.
A show only needs a small dedicated audience, you can succeed with niche. A Hollywood film needs to appeal to massive demographics. That’s part of the reason why LOTR was a gamble. Everyone knew Fantasy could succeed on TV (Xena, Hercules), but drawing in the massive crowds needed for a feature film was a gamble.
I agree with that, the question I’m asking is about a feature film role at this point. I can’t even recall a trans actor in a significant supporting role.
One of my claims is that “perform in the role they are given (shaping it to themselves as they go)” is one of those skills that sets elite actors apart. The director can’t micro-manage everything, every scene the actors need to make choices on how they’re going to play it and especially in a film they need to make every scene work.
Like I said the first order estimate is ~200 trans actors in the US. And that includes people working the local theatre. Just learning how to work on a set and block for a camera is something that takes time to learn. You’ve mentioned 3 TV series with trans actors, how many trans actors out there actually have experience acting for a camera? It’s not the same as acting for stage.
The way to work with that is write the role for the actor, figure out what they’re awesome at playing and write that role. But I don’t think you can count on writing an arbitrary story about a trangender person and finding a trans actor to really nail the role.
Better yet,
http://jennatalackova.ca/
But it’s the confluence of unusual physical attractiveness and acting talent that you need.
I was countering your claim that trans individuals generally have “an otherwise unusual appearance.” I doubt you were implying they were unusually attractive.
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Like everything there’s a range. Some trans people are quite attractive as their gender. And they can potentially compete for roles written for non-trans actors.
But there are a portion who are going to still have physical characteristics of their birth gender. This is a definite issue for a standard non-trans role, but not every role is best played by a typical looking actor, sometimes you want an actor who looks different in a way that makes the audience think twice.
I don’t really want to go too far down this path since there’s an obvious stigmatization/carnival aspect to it. But there are a lot of actors with unusual or distinctive appearances who are very successful playing to that difference.
It’s not that I agree or disagree, I think neither of us know for sure, but given that there have been several actors who are in roles in TV shows, I’m going to assume that there actual are such actors.
I didn’t say other wise. I’m saying that talent isn’t always the deciding factor - it often isn’t, I think.
Again, I think that’s hollywood propaganda, the assumption that we’ll only watch pretty people, so they only hire pretty people (whatever that means).
I think he was, he was just in the closet. It’s not like he just one day up and decided to be attracted to men. He likely always was, and came out to the public once he got a higher profile in hollywood.
Hence, it being a problem. Because it hasn’t happened doesn’t mean it couldn’t or shouldn’t. I suspect that trans people have been kept out of being able to read for more high profile parts.
Or let people read for a variety of roles that have nothing to do with their gender identity? I suspect that many films are not written with specific people in mind, they are written with a story in mind.
I don’t understand why you think that? Presumably, even if the story isn’t exactly like their personal story, they are going to be able to get into the head of a character who had a similar struggle… and of course, as defenders of the status quo in this thread have said over and over, cisgendered actors playing trans roles are inhabiting roles that they literally have no experience with, so it’s moot anyway. If a cisgendered actor can do that, there is nothing stopping a trans actor from also doing that.
I’m also confused by what you mean about “unusual physical attractiveness”, especially with regards to trans folks. Do you think you can “spot” a trans person?
You do realize that non-trans people also have a spectrum in how much like their gender that they look, according to some arbitrary standard of feminine and masculine? That’s part of the problem, that we have a social convention of what men and women should be and look like, that is oppressive for many folks (not just trans folks or gender queer folks either - but for many people who are cisgendered). Hollywood tends to reinforce that.
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I think my position is that a lot of TV actors aren’t actually good enough to carry a film, and they may not have the range to play other characters.
Haha, I meant to say “publicly gay”, yeah, that was a bad typo 
Hollywood might put too much emphasis on looks, but I think it is an important factor to draw audiences.
It’s not about them not understanding the character, it’s about them being able to adopt that character’s personality and mannerisms and still put in a great performance.
Not necessarily without being told beforehand. But an out trans actor it going to have an issue where there’s a huge portion of the population that will not consider them a potential romantic interest, and that’s going to limit the kind of roles they can play.
It can open up some different kinds of roles and stories, but they won’t be an option of the vast majority of current leading roles.
I fail to see how a trans actor would have any more difficulty doing this than a cis actor would…
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