By: Serena Payne '20
Matt Bomer
in Anything, Jeffrey Tambor in Transparent, Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl, Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club. These cis actors
have all played trans characters for TV and Film and many of them went on to
win critical acclaim and prestigious awards for said roles. Before we get ahead
of ourselves let's define some terms; cis, short for cisgender, means someone
whose gender identity matches with the gender they were assigned at birth and
trans, short for transgender, means someone whose gender identity does not
match with the gender they were assigned at birth. Trans representation in
Hollywood has been pushed into the limelight again following the casting
decision of Scarlett Johansson to play the role of a trans man named Dante Tex
Gill in a biopic about his life and while she has since backed out of the film
following backlash, the casting has led to a national conversation around cis
actors playing trans roles. Is it okay? Is it a “woke” thing to do? And while
many of the conversations have been happening between cis people, the opinions
or feelings of trans people are rarely considered or consulted, the conclusions
that are reached are often mixed and can lead to some very “fun” family dinner
debates that everyone dreads. However, I, as a trans woman who is also an
actor, would like to offer my hot take on this hot button issue that is
affecting us at this time.
NO.
As long as trans actors are not
allowed the same freedom to openly play cis roles, then cis actors should not
be playing trans roles. “But playing something you’re not is the definition of
acting!” I hear you yell, and while yes that is true it’s important to note why
cis actors have traditionally been offered trans roles; transphobia. In the
list I offered at the beginning, they were all cis men playing trans women,
this deliberate casting of a man to play a trans woman is just perpetuating the
idea that trans women are really just “men in dresses”, and the same goes for
casting women to play trans men, whether that is the actor’s intention or the
director’s intention is irrelevant because that is what they are putting out
into the world. Another argument against the “actors are supposed to act”
defense is the simple fact that a cis person will not be able to portray a
trans character as accurately and realistically as a trans person could. Sure
not all trans people are the same, and the cis actor could tons of research and
meet with tons of trans people, and they may even give a decent performance in
the final cut, but at the end of the day a cis actor will not be able to
provide the mental and emotional depth it takes to portray the character they
have been cast as.
Going back to my original statement
this idea of “actors being meant to act” only seems to come up when talking
about cis people playing trans characters. Instead, it is common for that same
group to become upset when a woman is offered a traditionally male role. When
the all-female Ghostbusters reboot
was coming out, there were outcries that feminism was taking over and that the
movie was going to be bad simply because women were playing once male fictional
characters but when Scarlett Johansson is set to play a trans man who actually
existed, suddenly actors are supposed to act. At the end of the day, a cis
woman playing a man or a cis man playing a woman is done for one of two
reasons; Comedy or Performative “Representation”. It’s funny because it’s a man
in a dress, because he’s pretending, because it’s a joke. Or he’s so brave to
be playing a woman, especially a trans woman, because he’s showcasing the
underrepresented minority group on the big screen, and so we better give him an
Oscar!
To end, until trans people other
than Laverne Cox are being cast regularly for both cis and trans roles, cis
actors should not be playing trans characters and any real cis allies should
not even consider the action. But something tells me we haven’t seen the last
of Scarlett Johansson, who knows she’ll probably be cast as Rosa Parks by this
time next year at this rate.
