Why does society want actors to be similar to roles they are playing?

That's the point actually, that it's not fair to not attend their demands when there is not equality of opportunities for starters. How common is for a transgender actor to get a role as a cisgender character? If we were in a situation of equality then cool but the thing is that Johansson will get a trans girl role much more easily than a trans girl will get a cis girl role.



I understand your point and your examples here but you are subjecting your point to the current social landscape. As said, having an actor play characters from other ethnicities is far more of an issue now than it was in the 50s. What you are picturing as a near post-apocalyptic trend xD is merely the result of adopting new sensibilities, which is not bad by default. Luckily trans rep is taken more seriously now. Ethnic representation isn't as lacking self-awareness as it has been for decades. Maybe in the future there's more social awareness about ableism? Could be. Maybe in the future it's not seen as okay to portray an autistic man if you are not autistic. That's speculation, and that kind of speculation in my opinion is panicking for something that is just how things are (at least you keep your examples grounded, unlike "aliens will be aliens!!" xD). We are not the same society we were 50 years ago and we won't be the same in 50 years.


Now, whether this is good or not, up for debate. I just don't think it's a subject to act all panicked about, particularly not as some sort of big concern for the future. It's normal for a society to change its values and standards on things. It doesn't mean that everything that was made before is automatically dismissed and buried, it was just the product of another age with another mindset.

Oh okay. I myself wanted to break into the film industry, and worked on some independent film projects so far. I have done some acting as well, and I am autistic. But I wouldn't want to be turned down for a role, if I was good in it, just solely if the character was not autistic. I would feel that I would be quite limited if moviegoers would only want an autistic actor to play autistic characters. So I am seeing it more from that point of view, but I do acknowledge things like how it would be more difficult for a transgender actor to get a cisgender part, rather than the other way around.

This feels a little motte-and-bailey. "Take them into account" is awfully vague, and obviously not an honest description of, say, people who reflexively criticize a situation where a non-trans actor is cast as a trans person.

The issue with blackface is that it's an inherently cartoonish depiction of another race. There is no potentially thoughtful or respectful way to wear it. So either you believe there's literally no way a non-trans person playing a trans person can ever be thoughtful or respectful in their portrayal, or else the comparison doesn't work.

Saying this didn't used to be an issue is not suggesting that society can't or shouldn't change. It's highlighting how amorphous and, frankly, contradictory, these shifting social standards are.

For example: the idea that girls were supposed to wear dresses or act feminine used to be called "gender roles," and was criticized for reinforcing stereotypes. Now, the entire modern concept of gender not only reverses this, but places more importance on specifically reinforcing gender roles than any crusty old Mad Men era cliché ever thought to. I've yet to hear a definition of gender that is based in anything other than whether a behavior is historically considered masculine or feminine.

So, the purpose of pointing out how sudden this change is is to emphasize how completely at odds it is with the last round of things that were considered essential to social progress, and it's fair to wonder whether this stance, too, will be similarly jettisoned because it, too, was never tethered to any thought-out, coherent view of the world.

Also, in the other thread linked earlier, I pointed out (again to no real response, as is disappointingly standard in all these debates) that many trans women are insulted by the implication that they are different from non-trans women at all. A lot of people (and a lot of trans people) seem to think no such distinction should be made.

So the mere act of being offended on their behalf here is, itself, offensive to some of them, and understandably so. Because to complain about someone like Scarlett Johansson playing a trans woman is to inevitably suggest that there is some fundamental difference between trans women and non-trans women that many trans people reject.

Well I guess I feel that it's easier for a transgender person to pass for cisgender, or it's easier for a cisgender person to pass for trans, compared to a white person, passing for black or vice versa.

There was some controversy a few years ago, when Joseph Fiennes was cast to play Michael Jackson, cause he wasn't black. However, if they got a black actor to play Michael Jackson, but then painted him white, would audiences have preferred that more, or would that also get just as much, if not more backlash?

I'm sure this point was made before in the other thread...but I'll make it again.

It's only discriminatory if Scarlett Johansson was given the role of a transgender person if there were transgender actors (identifying as female) who were:
A) as skilled as an actor as Scarlett Johansson
B) had the same name recognition as Scarlett Johansson
C) and it was proven the transgender actors were being denied roles as transgender characters out of a director's or film maker's bigotry.

Only then do you have a case for discrimination against transgender actors. The fact is there's very few transgender people in America compared to the rest of the population, thereforth there's a lot less transgender actors available to play parts.

Nothing is stopping a transgender production team from making their own indie movies. And I suspect there will be more transgender actors in mainstream movies in the future. That is if society doesn't tear itself apart with special interest groups playing the race/gender/sexual id card for personal gains. If real discrimination exist it should be addressed in civil court cases.

Uhm @Yoda, you are bringing accusations here that are unfair to the debate. I do know that not all trans people feel the same about this subject. I never talked in behalf of anybody, I said that there is a growing social trend and I implied that I personally agree with that, not locking the chances for discussion. I respect ironpony's view, even Guap's despite crossing a line I consider unacceptable, but some arguments and counterarguments are at the very least questionable.

And now that is I think clear that I'm not speaking in behalf of anybody, I'll refrain from turning this into a "but you do", because that would be childish. I know some trans people as well and I'm aware of the differing opinions on the subject matter.

Now, speaking of blackface and yellowface. You are reducing this to comedic examples which I agree, are particularly blatantly racist and aggravating. But it's simply not true that the issue is reduced to comedic examples. Just a few days ago I watched a classic adventure movie set in Persia (The adventures of Hajji Baba). All the main cast were American people dressed up as Persian. Harry Brandon built a career out of portraying characters from other ethnicities. There's also Richard Barthelmess in Broken blossoms... I mean, more examples could be mentioned through classic Hollywood because it was a common practice. These are all serious and they are characters you are supposed to take seriously and believe in their role.

On the matter of gender. It is true that the main definition alludes to cultural and social roles, but this is being challenged by LGBT associations who talk about individual gender identity, which is obviously not something you can reduce to the mere sociocultural level. The definition is far from locked at this point.

Also, "not taking them into account" is far from "motte-and-bailey". I'm speaking of chances for working in the industry, in high-profile films in special. This is not an opinion. I am not saying how they FEEL and how they WANT to be part of the industries. I'm talking about dissonances that, if they exist, are sustained by facts and statistic data.

In short, this is not a debate that doesn't admit clear divergences, particularly because trans prople themselves are not a collective of sameys. If that's your main issue here then I think it's over. Not my intent to speak on behalf of anybody and I assume not yours either. And of course the social landscape is diverse and not uniform, I never said the contrary. I'm not saying that there is a majority, but there's definitely a vocal minority, enough to consider that this affects and brings a debate to social structure level, and that shouldn't be disrespected or dismissed just because of that. Where I personally stand here is, of course, just my opinion.

If you acknowledge that not all trans people agree with what you're saying (and some may even feel insulted by it), how can it be "unfair" to simply point that out? I don't think I accused you of anything except advocating a position contrary to some trans people, which seems relevant.

Sure, but that's why I didn't say they couldn't be "serious." I said they could not be thoughtful or respectful. And I think that's true. They are not always comedic, as you say, but they are always disrespectful and always, ultimately, thoughtless on some level. I assume you agree that this is inherently true of blackface and yellowface, yes? So I'm asking if you believe this is also inherently true of depicting trans people. I want to know if you take (extreme, IMO) position that this is the same, or if it's technically possible for a portrayal of a trans person to be respectful. Because if it's possible, I feel that invalidates the comparison.

I think it's more than the definition not being "locked." I think there's literally nothing left to form a definition from. The only things that could even possibly make up a coherent definition have been ruled out.

Even hypothetically, what would it be? Take a crack at it. Open offer from the other people I've talked to (well, let's be honest: tried to talk to) about it to attempt this, as well.

Hmmm, how so? The bailey is that it's offensive for Johansson to play a trans woman. The motte is that they should be "taken into account." The latter is a very general, reasonable position. The former is much narrower and less reasonable.

I'm not saying this describes you, necessarily. I'm saying it describes the contrast between the actual topic and your response in it. So, if it's not motte-and-bailey, it's only because your response is not directly addressing the topic, but is instead using it as a jumping off point for the issue in general. Which is fine, but worth noting/clarifying.

Correct, there are very few prominent trans actors. Though I'd argue this would clearly be the case even without any systematic bias. They are, as CR pointed out, an incredibly small portion of the population, and I'd be surprised if more than a few had any significant experience or skill at this point. That's just not plausible with any small population, really. And that's a complication involved in a lot of these debates about representation, frankly. It's just wayyyyy clearer in this case, because the numbers are so extreme.

Sure. It's fair to raise. But usually these debates are people speaking on behalf of some minority group, and other people talking about the costs, or disputing the premise or something. It's a lot thornier when even the supposed advocating on their behalf might be at odds with what a lot of them want. I think that's a really important thing to point out, is all, let some observer think that the debate is one person "siding" with a disadvantaged group and t he other siding against them, which is the default framing.

Yes, the position is contrary to some trans people's thoughts and opinions on the matter. What moral high ground do you believe I set myself in? Holy crap, Yoda, don't give me that. If I didn't say anywhere in this thread that trans people who don't see this the way I do are invalidated, I don't know where am I supposed to be insulting them.

You were saying "cartoonish" which I quite easily interpret as comedic. Because there's nothing "cartoonish" in Henry Brandon (not Harry ) playing a Navajo character in The searchers.

Anyway I'm not talking about inherence. Among other things because it's not on me to talk about inherence here. I know that people can find cisgender actors/actresses playing transgender characters offensive and demeaning. I dunno, for instance if a cis woman plays a trans woman a point could be made that transgenderism has long socially being considered as "people faking for whatever ulterior motive" which would make the very idea of cis playing trans troubling in its basis. Either way, people who think this is inherently problematic probably deserve to be heard as much as we've ended up hearing racialized people stand against whitewashing. That's the point, there is a debate.

Eh... the definition has been revised a lot in the last years and decades. No, it's not locked. I don't really get your logic here.

I stand with the idea that gender is defined by aspects of social, cultural and personal identity, which has therefore a psychological component beyond the purely sociological one, and perhaps, depending on the person, a physiological one. Not my field but this seems reasonable. The definition that limits gender to the sociocultural structure is not taking into account the individual perception of one's gender and that's kind of an issue if you ask me.

But I'm not saying that it's offensive! I'm saying that it's the result of inequal standards and opportunities. And where I stand regarding trans characters is that they should be able to get roles or at least to be considered for them.

Well, I have said that the issue with trans rep is probably comparable with ethnic rep in terms of growing social awareness. It's just a different argument I also made. So I apologize for the confusion. It's just that what you quoted in particular wasn't about that.

I mean, yes, this is true. But transgender characters are also a very slight minority among the many fictional roles in the Hollywood industry.

The issue with using the "on behalf" (is it "on behalf" or "in behalf"? I can't make up my mind) statement is that... well, all of us would do in this debate as long as we take a position and have an opinion. I just think it's a bit of accusatory rhetoric that is not really necessary if the intent to portray opinions as one's own is made clear. Which I hope I have been able to, if not in my first posts, at this point at least.

I was searching for a poll of trans people on how they felt about the Scarlett Johansson controversy. I didn't find a poll, but I found this and thought it might be of interest to people:

11 Transgender Stars Weigh In on Trans Images in Entertainment

This might be of interest too:


8 Exciting Trans and Gender Nonconforming Filmmakers Shaking Up Hollywood

I can see how certain minorities would want more roles in Hollywood, but I can also see how not casting certain actors cause they felt they were not accurate enough to the character, can also get ridiculous sometimes. So I am not sure where the line should be drawn. But I feel like it may get out of control too much.

It's like that episode of Friends where Joey Tribbiani was refused being cast in a role, cause he was circumsized and they wanted an actor who wasn't circumsized even though, any circumcised actor could play a non-circumcised character, easily.

It’s just disappointing that scarlet joe is being discriminated upon by being a woman - I thought we had moved past these times.

Tongue in cheek

To overcome prejudice one must overcome the mentality that is underlying it. That is not "ignoring it", it is becoming enlightened.

I think that the ideal situation is a situation where people are not judged by others based on their group identity, such as "race", "gender identity" or "sexual preference" or "ethnic group". The question is: how to arrive at this ideal?

Discrimination is itself derived from the concept of categorizing people into identity groups. If you think of Seinfeld as a Jew instead of thinking about him as, well, Seinfeld, you are dehumanizing him and will tend to discriminate against him because you will see him as something distant. Suppose that there exists discrimination against Jews in medical fields and then society thinks that the solution is to forbid gentiles to work in the banking sector (so all bankers must be Jews). Is that a solution to the problem of discrimination against Jews? That is how forbidding cis people from playing trans roles looks like as a solution to the problem of discrimination against trans actors to me.

If people start saying that society should do policies to counter discrimination through inverse discrimination, such as "affirmative action", then society is reinforcing the problem by enforcing rules based on these artificial categories in the first place. For example, the complains about whitewashing in movies are reproducing the racial mentality by caring about the race of the actors not being the "right" one. This is based on the premise that races exist and are very important in defining individual identity.

I agree that a person that is regarded as "black" in a racist culture might indeed be penalized by a series of acts of discrimination due to racism. How do we solve this? Making him embrace this identity that was artificially imposed by a racist society on him or discarding it in favor of a broader concept of humanity? I think the answer is clear.

Adding laws penalizing people who are regarded as "not-black" to "level the playing field" is not going to solve the problem of discrimination against "blacks" but instead it will reinforce this idea that there exists "not-black" and "black" people as two very important racial identities which will ultimately reinforce the existing prejudice based on the ideology that "black people" are a different kind of people from "non-black".

The people who advocate for identity politics ultimately do not want to reduce discrimination as they do not see individuals outside of identity groups and cannot conceive of people as individuals. Their brains are wired for the process of categorization that is underlying the discrimination. So they want for discrimination to be strong but to be equal on both sides: if transgender people cannot get cisgender roles then cis people should not get trans roles. Thing is that by producing more discrimination to "equalize out" the existing ones, society's bigotry index is not going down, but up.

At the end of this reinforcement of group identity over individual identity we arrive at a completely segregated society where individuals will be completely constrained by their "race", "gender" and "sexual preferences" and they will see people outside their identity group as being fundamentally different creatures and not "people". Just like the Germans saw the Jews in the 1930s or the Bolsheviks saw the Kulaks in the 1920s.

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O.k... not to derail the main thrust of the conversation, but, the talking about blackface in this thread reminded me of Rachel Dolezal. (My friends and I actually had a debate about the modern use of blackface the other day.) To make a long story short (here is the full story), she was born white, but she identifies as black. She has frizzed out her hair in an almost Sideshow Bob style and she has darkened her skin both in order to look reasonably African-American.








"She began darkening her skin and perming her hair sometime around 2011."


If she truly identifies (which it has appeared that she has done) as black for a long time, is this type of blackface acceptable? She is not doing it to mock anybody; she used to head a chapter of the NAACP.

There's a lot of strange assumptions here and it's a little difficult to unpack them all. For one, you seem to think that if you have not "invalidated" someone's opinion, they cannot be insulted. I don't think that's true. You also seem to think I've accused you of setting yourself up on some "moral high ground," which I didn't say (and don't think is necessarily a problem!), but which also seems intrinsic to the act of criticizing anyone on an issue like this.

I noted that some trans people would be insulted by you making a distinction between women and trans women. That's it. I didn't say you "invalidated" their opinion or personally attack you for this, I noted it to make it clear that this wasn't a standard "advocate vs. non-advocate" disagreement, but actually a lot more nuanced and complicated than most of these kinds of disputes.

Yeah, in this context it's just a synonym for "caricature." Anyway, if it's a misunderstanding, that's fine. I think we're on the same page now.

Sure, that's not what you're talking about. But it's what I'm asking about, and it seems like a pretty fair thing to ask; Johansson playing a trans woman is not like blackface because her portray may or may not be thoughtful, but blackface never is. That's what I'm saying. If you feel the comparison to blackface is valid, it would seem to logically necessitate that you think Johansson is doing something equally irredeemable, which also has no potential way to be thoughtful.

I agree with that.

Revised from what to what? Any examples would be helpful.

What aspects, though? That's the actual question. Obviously if I ask how this aspect of identity is defined, it's circular to say it's based on "aspects of...identity." Saying "social, cultural and personal" is just listing categories the answer might come from.

You're suggesting the definition can be totally different from person to person? Isn't that the same thing as saying there is no definition?

Okay, good to know. I didn't realize that, but that clears things up a bit.

I don't think too many people disagree with the idea that they should be "considered." Usually they bristle at the idea that they're entitled to a certainly level of representation regardless of how many trans actors there even are, how experienced they are, etc. You may not be saying this, of course, but I think that's the only version of this most people have any issue with.

No worries. A few of the things I'm saying are direct arguments, but most of my post is, as you can see, just clarifying things, so thanks for clearing this up.

Aye. I agree there are very few roles about trans people in general. I'm not sure if that's inherently a problem, either, simply because I think this issue is talked about in a way that is wildly out of proportion to the number of people it describes. That, and I'm not generally a fan of making checklist comparisons about representation levels in the aggregate, especially since I know from experience that people level those accusations without knowing the numbers, and somehow don't care even when the numbers actually align.

Hmmmm, sorry then. I don't really see why it would feel like an accusation, but either way, it's not meant as one. It seems, like a lot of the other stuff, to simply be a relevant thing to note. Especially given the inverse principle floated by most advocates that the actual members of a minority group be listened to more by virtue of belonging to that group.

I think a big issue is that tokenism has become "the" standard of politics in the post Obama era, the idea that progress on various social issues should be measured by the success of a an individual from various minority groups. Hence films stop being about the quality of the message presented within them and start being about an opportunity for tokenistic individual success.

I just want to say Guap's last post is one of the most well thought out ideas on race relations that I've read. I'd rep it again if I could.

Well I think maybe the reason why people are more picky on things like Scarlett Johansson playing a character who was originally Japanese, or why they more picky on her playing a trans-character, is that there seems to be a movement pushing for certain minorities to come more center stage in Hollywood, to the point where some people want to see that push regardless of story maybe.

Since I was looking to direct short films or even feature films myself, I was offered script recently where the person pitching it to me pitched it as a 'strong female lead thriller'. Now I'm not saying this to be negative towards him or anything, but I felt that that was an odd pitch. I usually want to hear a premise or a more specific genre, such as sci-fi thriller, psychological thriller, etc.

I just didn't find 'strong female lead thriller' as specific to a type of story at all. It's like what do I care if the main character is male or female, or strong or weak, I just want a give me a story premise, or synopsis.

But maybe there are people who buy screenplays based on characters being a certain gender or being strong, and that is how scripts are sold sometimes, and that's normal, compared to story or premise?

And could this be writers now having to pitch to a certain higher pickiness with current moviegoers when it comes seeing certain kinds of characters on screen more?