Within a week of Eddie Redmayne’s Oscar win for his beautiful portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, the first image from his upcoming film The Danish Girl was released. It has shocked the audience who have praised Redmayne’s versatile career. We will see him portray Einar Wegener, a Danish artist, who undergoes a sex change.
While it’s great that Redmayne takes on a transgendered character, it leaves the impression that Hollywood still has an issue with actual transgendered people. They could’ve casted one for the lead role. Yes, actors are just doing their jobs. Acting. Pretending to be other people. They’re already representing types of people. What about the people that are being represented? Do they get a chance to represent themselves?
While the number of LGBT portrayals is growing, representations of minorities or marginalised groups still tend to make misleading facts and portrayals of them. The trans community has been mainly underrepresented and portrayed negatively so far, for example Jared Leto’s role in Dallas Buyers Club which earned him an award.
Despite this, his transvestite character is full of clichés and misconceptions. People who have undergone sex-changes are disturbed, confused or have a traumatic past and a troubled lifestyle. They are usually portrayed as victims or characters on the sidelines. On top of that, jokes about trans are usually thrown around.
Herndon Graddick, president of GLAAD (an organisation supporting LGBT media representation), argued that “media has a history of telling the world a story that transgender people are always victims or villains, instead of true depictions that show the transgender community as citizens worthy of equality and respect.”
It’s important that trans should be seen as everyone else and played by real trans. It’s also important that diversity should be present. “It’s just fiction”. “It’s just a movie”. Yes, but the media influences people to the point that we quote lines on a regular basis and how we perceive certain groups of people. Fiction reflects reality and vice versa. Television and popular culture professor Robert Thompson said “Whatever stereotypes or misinformation or problematic representations are presented there, they are ones that maybe are the exclusive information that a lot of people have about transgendered characters.”
According to trans actress Candis Cayne, transgendered actors “almost always played by either cis women who have been manned up or cis men who have been girlied up.” It’s more likely for a trans character to be played by someone who isn’t trans (or cis which is the term for non-trans people) than an actual one. What does that mean? That the media is still clinging to the “normal” or standards and wants to reinforce it through casting and portrayal? It’s okay to have trans as characters but not real-life counterparts? Transgender isn’t new.
Trans people have been around for a long time and have faced discrimination, and negative representation has contributed to their continued invisibility or struggle with self-acceptance even though some think that it has created a spotlight for the community. However, being simply present in a story isn’t enough.
“Wow, an actor or actress is playing a transvestite.” This can go both ways. Criticism for playing someone weird or praise for playing a challenging role. Any role is challenging. There’s enough of cis actors playing trans and it seems that they’re sugarcoating the issue with transgender. In the end, the audience sees a man in a woman’s shoes or a woman in a man’s shoes. Their beliefs aren’t tampered with and they’re reassured that they haven’t really encountered a transgendered person, only in fiction. A fictitious work usually created and seen through the perception of cis people.
Zinnia Jones said “An unrelenting focus on the body is a unifying theme of the stories that others tell about us.” There isn’t much focus on the internal. Trans are people, people with lives. Certainly their lives don’t revolve around their bodies and appearances. Nor are they defined by their behaviour according to gender.
Not all portrayals of trans are negative. There are positive ones but they’re come every now and then. They don’t have much exposure as gays and lesbians – and their portrayals aren’t immune to stereotypes. According to GLAAD, 54% of trans characters in television are portrayed negatively, 35% are good and “problematic”, and 12% are “groundbreaking, fair and accurate enough”.
Orange is the New Black’s Laverne Cox has been praised for being a trans actor playing a trans character in the TV series without the stereotypes. Her character Sophia Burset is an ordinary human going through ordinary struggles. The show overall gained attention for its diverse cast and complex characters. Another series, and a recent one, that centres on trans is Transparent. The main character is in the process of change, so hence he is played by a cis actor. Despite this, members of the trans community including actors are involved in the show in order to shape the characters and challenge transphobia and clichés.
While the treatment of trans characters is improving a bit (especially in the television department), more concentration on the performers and the team behind the works are needed. Transgendered actors and others in entertainment-related occupations shouldn’t feel limited or discouraged when it comes to their talents and potential.
