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

Totally agree, but that feeds into my point. A higher profile movie back then would not have cast an all black cast, because they felt it was more of a risk. Nowadays, more black actors have been given roles, therefore increasing their visibility and thus their marketability. To answer my statement of “it would be hard to prove...” with “well there was higher risk”, just proves that a movie like Black Panther could not have happened, because of the risk

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Admiration is the furthest thing from understanding

I would think a trans person going for a trans role would be open about being trans. Nothing to come out about. Would it be hard, press wise...sure. But that wouldn’t be a reason to avoid casting him or her. To be fair there are working trans actors and actresses

I just maybe they might feel that their sexuality was being exploited as a use to market the movie, unless an actor wouldn't see it that way.

Attention... They can't advertise a movie as being great, so they use non-movie stuff so millions know about it, knowing that a certain percentage will watch.

That's an assumption of an assumption you are making out there.

I don't seem to think anything. I just don't think it's fair to hold that kind of argument from either of our positions. Because maybe I'm wrong here and I'd apologize if that's the case but none of us two are trans? We can't speculate on stuff like this. I can only speak about intent here.

That twists my argument to an almost absurd degree. A distinction between women and trans women? Holy crap, I'm saying that trans actors and actresses don't get as many roles as cis actors and actresses. It's statistics. And it's a special kind of twist to talk about me making a distinction when the core of the argument is claiming that the film industry makes a distinction.

I'm sorry, I don't know if I'm not explaining myself well or something but... damn.

Your answer reads as: "You are making a distinction between black and white people", or "You are making a distinction between men and women". Worse, actually, because you mention it as "women and trans women". Like, are you trying to tell me that I said that trans women are not women?

Sorry for dragging on this point so much but this is bad. And I mean, your intention is great and we quite agree on the core idea, but...

But I don't think Johannson is doing something irredeemable or even bad. Like I don't think Henry Brandon was doing something bad. What's bad here if anything is that they get these roles when trans people and people of other ethnicities in each case don't ever have the same chances to work on films, let alone at roles that defy their gender identity or ethnicity like Johannson and Brandon do instead. Of course, one could argue about whether the specific portrayal is offensive or not, but the overall issue is more structural. It's not the actors' fault, maybe it's not even the director's fault.


Would take a while to find reliable information on a field that is not my own. But a very clear consequence is the very recent WHO resolution to no longer consider transgender a mental illness. Transgender as a term is also kind of a new paradigm because it no longer reflects a desire or need of transition (changing anatomy), and is defined in terms of personal identity (that's Wikipedia, so yeah, I need to find more solid stuff).

I don't have an answer? Gender is something that each lives and sees in a different way. Social and cultural: how your gender defines the way you behave and interact. Personal: how do you feel yourself. I don't have the same idea of masculinity others have.

You were mentioning about gender roles as well... I think gender roles can be both embraced positively -as long as they are not plain discriminatory- while not reducing gender to them. It's a valid form of identity and expression that nobody should be forced to, but nobody should be forced out of.

Not really. I think the definition is just broad. How one lives and perceives gender and every related element in it is personal.

My apologies for the delay and if I sounded a bit worked up at some points.

One of my favorite movies, The Skin I Live In (2011)--


SPOILER

Has a transgender character in the movie. It's a spoiler cause in the movie we the audience believe that the character is a woman, but then later on, find out she use to be man, but was transformed surgically. However, in the movie, the transgender character is played by an cysgender actress.

When the movie came out and people saw it, no one was complaining that the filmmakers had done some injustice by not casting a transgender actor in the role.

So that movie got away with it.

No. I'm saying that if you're upset about casting Johansson being cast as a trans woman (as opposed to a trans woman), that inherently makes a distinction between the two that many trans people find objectionable. I make no assumptions about whether you are/were upset about that. I'm simply pointing out that this is the unavoidable result if someone is.

I think the problem here is the assumption that, if I'm making this point, I must be directing it at you (or even contradicting you). In this case I'm just pointing out the logical implications for people who are upset about the casting (or reflexively defending people upset about the casting).

I think that's an appropriately mature and nuanced way to look at things, yeah. One thing that really bugs me is how often people discuss social problems in a broad sense, to establish that they're problems, but then use that to target highly specific matters way downstream of those problems. IE: "sexism is a problem" skipping all the intermediate ripple effects about education or experience or choice of industry and jumping right to the end point of hiring practices.

This feels similar. If you (not you, specifically, but whoever) think the state of cinema would be better with more trans people making films, that's a reasonable position. New perspectives can be interesting and valuable. That doesn't mean you should get mad at people with no control over the system as a whole, hiring non-trans people because they make up 99% of the qualified actors available, and sometimes 100% of the actors available that will actually allow their film to, ya' know, actually get made.

Appreciate you saying that. No worries. I think we're mostly on the same page now. You're talking about the issue in general (and not necessarily criticizing the casting or anyone involved in it), and I'm discussing implications without necessarily directing them at you for explanation.

I'm separating out the other part of your post, about the definition of gender, because it's pretty much the core question I'm asking, and is probably a more worthwhile discussion than us hashing out our relatively modest misunderstandings.

Personal definitions are impossible, by (heh) definition. The word "banana" communicates an idea because it refers to an objective thing outside anyone's subjective experience. If everyone just randomly decided what "banana" meant, the word wouldn't mean anything. For a definition to be valid (or even be a definition it all), it must exclude something.

We all agree you don't have to act "girly" or wear dresses to be a woman, or wear boots and be aggressive to be a man, right? Men can be feminine and women can be masculine. You don't have to act any particular way to be a man, or to be a woman.

So, if you also believe that gender is also unrelated to sex...what's left? What distinguishes a man from a woman? What can it mean to say you feel like one of those things, rather than the other, if there is literally no trait or impulse or fact that cannot fall within either?

What about Caitlyn Jenner?

Caitlyn Jenner doesn't act though. I've never seen her in any movies, so I don't know her acting talent, but not sure if she would be able to pull off a dramatic role, as I understand this role to be. Plus I think she would be too old for the role as well, as this script is based off a true story, right?