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Represent
When Transparent debuted, the reaction from the LGBT community toward the webbased television series, produced by Amazon, was mixed. On the one hand, it was a funny, sweet, clever representation of creator Jill Soloway’s own experience with her transgendered parent. It was a much more sensitive and realistic depiction of one experience with gender transition than most of what had come before.
On the other hand, the character of the trans-parent, a trans woman named Maura who begins her transition from male to female later in life, was depicted by Jeffrey Tambor, a cis-gender male actor.
(Cis-gender simply means a person who identifies with the same gender they were born and socialized with.)
The criticism, mainly from the trans community, was fair. Although there are transgendered actors, they get very few parts. And very few trans roles get cast to be played by transgendered actors. A notable exception is Laverne Cox, a trans actress who is known for her role as Sofia in the popular Netflix series Orange is the New Black.
In September, as Tambor won his second best actor Emmy for Transparent, he used his privileged position as a cis-gender male actor to give a platform to the trans community, if only for a few seconds. He appealed to television producers to stop the practice of casting cis-gendered actors in trans roles.
“Please give transgendered talent a chance. Give them auditions. Give them their story,” Tambor said during his acceptance speech. “I would not be unhappy were I the last cis-gendered male to play a female transgender on television.”
That the status quo takes parts away from minorities who really should be playing those parts is nothing new.
It is changing slowly. The popularity of shows like Fresh off the Boat, Master of None and the Mindy Project mean popular culture is becoming more diverse.
And the more accessible medium of the Internet allows series that would not be produced by major production companies to see the light of day, and even gain mainstream recognition.
Her Story is a web series about a romance involving a trans woman, played by a trans woman.
The six-episode season was nominated as an outstanding short-form drama or comedy.
The cast and crew includes many trans people, who say it is important that they are able to be the ones telling their own stories.
In the struggle for rights and recognition minorities must contend with—from fighting farces like the bathroom bill to the black lives matter movement— who gets cast in a television series may seem trifling. But it is a medium we pay attention to. Many of us stop what we’re doing, gather with friends and family or take time alone, and relax in front of one series or another.
To some extent, it shapes how we see the world.
It’s understandable then, that trans people, people of colour, people with disabilities, want to see themselves represented. It’s understandable that Tambor, having researched his role as Maura, would have to agree.
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